Even moreso than toenail fungus, few words generate a stronger impulse in the listener to drive knitting needles through his or her eardrums than the phrase, "hey, wanna hear about my fantasy teams?" Nevertheless, I feel compelled to respond to the clamor I hear in my head for news about my fantasy baseball and football teams. Please put your sewing implements away.
My baseball team, the historic Eefus Aficionados franchise, concluded the season with a solid lock on first place, having spent only a few weeks out of the top spot all summer. I finished with a winning percentage of .603, which translates to 98 real-world wins. For comparison, the World Series champion Chicago White Sox won 99 games; only the St. Louis Cardinals, with 100 regular season wins, won more.
Like the Cardinals, however, the Eefus Aficionados flamed out in the playoffs. I had a bye for the first week and easily won in the second round to advance to the finals. The final round of the playoffs covered the last two weeks of the regular season. Unfortunately, I ran into a buzzsaw in my opponent, who put up otherworldly offensive numbers for the first week. My only hope was to claw back to respectability by catching him in categories decided by averages, as most of the cumulative categories were far out of reach. Sadly, although I had a good second week, victory was not meant to be. I guess I now know how John Schuerholz (general manager of the Atlanta Braves, fourteen straight years of playoffs with only one World Series win) feels.
As for my Fumblerooskies, the football year got off to a tough start. The NFL has had a strange year, with few of the perennial fantasy stars performing up to expectations. I finally bowed to conventional wisdom and drafted running backs first (because someone else picked Payton Manning). However, my running backs have all suffered injuries. My quarterback, Trent Green, has had a dreadful year in fantasy terms. My star wide receiver, Marvin Harrison, has endured an unusually lackluster year from the Indianapolis Colts’ offense. My backup quarterback, until last week, was David Carr of the formerly winless Houston Texans (I replaced him with notoriously inconsistent Jake Plummer of the Denver Broncos, who promptly had a career game … on my bench). Currently, I am the weakest team in my league, although I have managed to scrape out a couple of victories. If the Steelers shut down the Ravens tonight, and if the Steelers’ tight end can get involved in the offense, I might pull out another victory, but I will be coming from behind to do it, as usual.
I do have a couple of bright spots. Plaxico Burress has become the favorite target of emerging star Eli Manning. Even injured, running back Corey Dillon continues to put up solid numbers for the New England Patriots. The Steelers’ defense has been strong all year, and should remain so. Unfortunately, I can’t count on consistently big numbers from my quarterback and both running backs as I have for the past couple of years.
All I have to do is find a way to pick up a few more wins to get into the top half of the playoff draw. Then, anything can happen.
As if you care.
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