It was the best of times

It was the worst of times

      OK, that’s as deep as it gets.  We all know my team blows.  I came out of the chute like a French heavyweight tripping over the bottom rope and I’ve been looking up ever since.  I should be allotted an exemption from having to write this.   I don’t have a horse in this race.

     Life’s pretty easy.  Don’t sweat the petty things and don’t pet the sweaty things, that sort of stuff.  I know you guys are used to the pressure in this buy-buy-sell-sell world of ours.  But I live my life like Kevin Spacey in American Beauty.  I want as little responsibility as possible and this is turning out to be like Russian roulette.  How come it always seems like it’s your turn?

     You will have to forgive my spelling and grammar.  I don’t get the chance to write very often and the only intellectually stimulating conversations I have at work tend to center around why the vending lady doesn’t stock Reece’s Pieces in the candy machine anymore.

     Well, I haven’t been sitting idly by.  I decided to get some help.  After hundreds of hours on the couch my therapist has informed me that I suffer from an extreme case of “the-Emperor-is-not-wearing-any-clothes-itis”.  Because, and you’re going to love this, when I leave the draft every year I actually think that I drafted a great pitching staff.  Really, honest to goodness, I’m not kidding.  And to take it to the next degree, every Sunday night I get rid of the worst players off of the worst team, and then stew and fret and wring my hands worried that someone will pick up one of my discards and yell “Gin.”

     Take this year for example.  I drafted three of the most unhittable players in baseball -- Zito, Green and Brian Giles.  Unfortunately, only one of them is a pitcher.  Buser gets more hits on his “Merry Jays” cosmetics for men website in an hour than Green or Giles get in a month.  I think they’re German.  Every day is O’berfest for my team’s swei cornerstones.  But I think I know a way to turn that negative into a positive.

     Mitch, I have a great idea for a new baseball rotisserie show on cable.  We’ll call it Trading Places.  You can do that voodoo, that you do, so well…on my team.  Except, if there was anything I wouldn’t want you to change it would be that Pinero, Hampton and Benson screw me three out of four starts.  I’m kind of getting used to that in a sick sort of way.  Of course, your team runs the risk of folding faster than The Flash on laundry day with me in the house.  But if you’re not living life on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.  Right?

     At Art F/X we let high schools tour our facilities so they can see how a business runs, plus it kills a couple of hours for the GED (good enough degree) candidates.  They get to see how T-shirts are printed from start to finish.  B-O-R-I-N-G…until they get to my part of the process, which I like to refer to as the Scared Straight portion of the tour.  I can hear them tell their parents when they get home that night:  “Mom, Dad, I saw a 47-year-old man washing the ink out of T-shirt screens.  (Kevin would be proud of me.)  It was horrible!  Not only do I have a new found interest in high school, but I want to go to college.  And I’m not ruling out a run at the Presidency.”  So I feel good about that, I……..I think.

Knock, Knock, Knock

What do Alzheimer’s and a successful businessman have in common?

B.T. comes to work so seldom that he has to call ahead to get directions.

He has to check the pictures on all the desks to see if he can spot a family member so he knows which office is his.

He has to constantly be re-introduced to his secretary.

He got his car towed when he parked in the employees’ parking lot.

He was stunned to hear we sold T-shirts and not Runza’s.

He keeps calling me Harvey.

Knock, Knock, Knock

     Isn’t it great to see the Pirates, I mean Junkyard Dogs, I mean Irates, doing so well this year?  He drafted a pretty good hitting team.  He even drafted a good pitching staff, so he’s definitely in the hunt.  And he’s been insufferable.  Now I get to hear his theories on pitching and its relationship to winning the Hotstove League.

You don’t tug on Superman’s cape

You don’t spit into the wind

You don’t pull the mask off that ol’ Lone Ranger

And…you don’t let me know your password at Stats so that I can change your team name.

     Don’t be surprised if you wake up some morning and see the Lincoln Ask Me About My Gay Sons in the Central Division of the Hotstove League.

     P.S.  Nice effort on the Irate Pirate newsletter.  I was done reading it and halfway through Curby’s before your song ran out.

Knock, Knock, Knock

     Gee, Itchie, is the Porsche giving you troubles?  Got a leak in the skylight in the pool house?  It’s all in your perspective.  Is your glass half empty or is it half full?  Or are you drinking from the curb like me?  You know what a 240 point week means to me?  It means someone’s hot.  A 515 point week is like me shooting a 140 in golf.  Somewhere in that mess of hacks, wiffs, desperate lunges and thrown clubs is a good shot.  And that’s the little deke that keeps me coming back for another year.

     In the glass is half-full department, I see where you used your time off to write a book about your days at FDR titled,

IF YOU WANT TO SEPARATE

YOURSELF FROM THE HERD,

YOU HAVE TO TATTLE ON THE CATTLE

     With Enron, WorldCom, and the Thermo King coffee fund disaster, it’s about time for a how-to book for corporate snitches.  You really have had an amazing run.  But with any tightrope act, the footing is always changing.  How long can you continue to dance on the head of a pin?  I can’t even get a foot up on it.  Your incredible luck is still legendary.

      I’m blindfolded and swinging at the same Piñatas as you are, but I’m hitting the Mickey Calloway’s, the Adam Eaton’s and the Shane Reynold’s, and you’re hitting the Derek Lowe’s, the Odalis Perez’s and the Estaban Loaiza’s. Either I’m on a 17-year run of bad luck, or

you're peeking. If you really want to impress me, tell me who the 2004 prom queen is going to be. Some of the other astute league managers are under the impression I’m supposed to know who that is before the season starts, then draft accordingly.

      P.S. You were right about Skippy. A 40th birthday party? What’s up with that? Not only is that a bad excuse for dropping the ball, but he totally forgot about my credo that there is nothing a bold face lie can’t straighten out. Personally I would have gone with the “Linda was out of town” story.

Knock, Knock, Knock

      As President of the Screen Washers Guild, it is my job to act as a check and balance mediator between management and the workers. Rod Beckman, the other half of the Beckman Krause cartel (sounds like a couple of guys the Simon Wiesenthal Centre would love to have chat with) is known to have a propensity for York Peppermint Patties. We feel that he may be the lynchpin behind the illegal substitution of our Reese’s Pieces. No longer will they oil the wheels of capitalism with the blood of the workers. At least not until our Reese’s Pieces are resting comfortably between the Starburst Fruit Chews and the salted peanuts.

Knock, Knock, Knock

      I’ve got to go. I think I see Chuck and another guy in a tie at the front door.

                                    Harvey
 

Week 14 Standings

WEEK 14 TOTALS 

Same Time, Last Year

     Last year at this time, the Skipjacks were leading the pack with 5193.5 points, followed closely by the Cubs* with 5183.5 and the Reds with 5016.5.  The Redbirds were trailing the pack last year through fourteen weeks with 4233, well off the twelfth-place Tigers total of 4530.5 through fourteen weeks of this season. 

     Barry Bonds was leading all hitters with 458 points through fourteen weeks of last year, while Curt Schilling led the pitchers with 447 points.   

Same Time, 1998 

     To compare this year’s totals to fourteen weeks with that magical year of 1998, when Stretch McBlunder set the league’s all-time point mark, Skipper’s unparalleled statistical machinery discloses that the Senators were leading the pack through fourteen weeks of the 1998 season with 5172 points, buoyed by a 428-point week 14.  The Bombers (really!) were a close second with 5099, while the Blues were a close third with 4979 points.  The Pirates were in dead-ass last through fourteen weeks of 1998 with 4304.

     Mark McGwire was the leading hitter through fourteen weeks of 1998 with 519 points, followed by -- you won’t believe it -- Ken Griffey, Jr., with 452 points.  Greg Maddux was the top pitcher with 443 points, ahead of Robb Nen’s total of 400. 

     Thus, with this bit of historical perspective, you can see that the point totals for this year, up and down the league, compare most favorably with that record-setting and historic 1998 season.

INDIVIDUAL LEADERS

HITTERS

Who’s Hot - Pitchers

(Point Totals from Last Three Weeks)

Who’s Not - Pitchers

(Point Totals from Last Three Weeks)

DESPERADOS

     As pointed out elsewhere, Itchie’s pick-up of Jose “Can You See (His Gopher Ball)” Lima in the free agent draft can only be interpreted in one way:  An act of utter and unmitigated desperation.  I have this visual image of Itchie falling off a cliff and grasping wildly around him at thin air, and coming up with his arms around Jose Lima’s big old ugly mug.  Not pretty.

     As they say, desperate times call for desperate measures.

MOGOMBO

  Ø  The league-leading Senators have three of the top fifteen hitters (Pujols, Helton and Gonzo) and the No. 2 pitcher (Gagne).  The third place but fading fast Skipjacks have four of the top pitchers (Loaiza, Wagner, Dotel and Mulder) and two of the top hitters (Soriano, A-Rod).  It doesn’t speak well for the rest of his team, does it?

  Ø  Most of you will be surprised that there are no Wahoos or Tribesmen among the top fifteen pitchers, and no Tigers, Bombers or Tribesmen among the top fifteen hitters.  It is remarkable that U-Bob’s boys have made the run that they have made with such an utter dearth of star power.

     Nice work on The Bellyflop, Robert.  Once again you have outdone yourself.

     That’s it.

                               Skipper

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