Fantasy Baseball Update

Through 4 weeks, I'm 3-1 in my Marathoners League. After my initial post-draft blog entry, some of you asked why I only had one Pittsburgh Pirate on my team. Well, the simple answer is, I WANT TO WIN! That being said, I did pick up Nate McLouth and he has been tearing it up for me, including 4 homers in his last 3 games.

So I've won 3 in a row after losing week 1 by less than 7 points (279.17-272.33), which was totally expected since I drafted hitters and picked up pitchers as an after thought and week 1 means that stud pitchers get 2 starts. I'm in good shape so far although I had to drop John Smoltz (my #1 pitcher) today, which was a painful decision. But he's going on the disabled list and they're talking 2-4 weeks if he doesn't end up having surgery, and even if it's only 2-4 weeks they're talking about moving him to the bullpen and I already have too many closers as it is. I know, it's a sad story, get a life, etc.

The sad truth is I spend way too much time on fantasy sports. I figure if I'm going to play then I'm going to play to win. That means staying on top of the games, doing the research, studying box scores, and making the right moves at the right time. It's surprisingly similiar to real life business decisions.

I spend enough time on this that my son has taken an interest and asked if he could have a team. So my six year old is now competing against grown men...and winning. I helped him with his draft and I obviously advise him but at the end of the day it's his team and his decisions and his winning record. I'm looking forward to letting the rest of the league know that they lost to a six year old at the end of the season.

As I write this, I'm following the Pirates vs Mets game via the internet. The Bucs are winning 8-0 in the bottom of the 5th inning, which totally, totally sucks. Why? Because I have the closer for both the Pirates and the Mets, so I need a close game so that one of them, and honestly, I don't care (that much) which one, gets a save, which is worth 10 points in my league. I know, I've heard the arguments before, how can I root against the Pirates/Steelers/Penguins? Well, it's easy. You see, I root for MY TEAM! It's not that I root against the Pirates (or whoever), per se. I really do want them to win. It's just that I want them to win by 1 or 2 runs. That way we BOTH win. Get it?

The funny thing about fantasy baseball is that I can tell you individual statistics for just about any player in the league but I honestly have absolutely no idea which teams are in first place in any particular division. It just doesn't matter from where I sit. I know that the Pirates will finish last or next to last. Same with the Reds.

Oh, allow me to digress for a moment...last week I was listening to the radio and the DJ/Announcer guy stated that all three Ohio teams won last night. He went on to say that the Reds defeated so-and-so, the Indians defeated so-and-so and the Columbus Clippers defeated the Toledo Mudhens. For the past week, I've been trying to find out what state Toledo moved to. I can't find anything on the internet. I know, I know...sarcasm is my specialty.