The Hippest Hipster Neighborhood – According To Forbes (That Purveyor Of Hipness) – It’s been a humbling few days here for your despondent coorespondant from the City of Angels. At the risk of alienating my fan base, all six of you, I’m gonna do it… I’m gonna rant about my Fantasy Baseball Season’s ignominious end yesterday.
I lost in the championship game by a total of four and a half points. I rolled the dice and threw AJ Griffin against my Yankees reasoning that after two very tight losses the A’s were due to win one and if Griffin could just stymie the left-handers enough to keep that porch out of play, maybe he could stick around long enough for the W. If not, then my right-handed Bombers – Jeter and A-Rod – would likely be the ones to hurt him. It was a lousy hedge, like watching neither of the horses you boxed finish in the money.
I had fallen in love with the A’s prospect I’d plucked from the free agent pile a month ago, and thus ignored as aberation the warning signs of his last outing…but Griffin couldn’t quite get through the fifth (where he would’ve picked up the win), and two Jeter singles in nine at bats for he and Alex–you’ve let me down for the last time–Rodriguez later, the game I needed big points from was crushed like a tin can beneath the breast of big hopes. A-Rod just doesn’t look right, and hate him or ehhh-not-dislike-him, the Yankees’s World Series hopes will require him to get hot soon, and I’m not sure he’s got it in the tank.
As for my own fantasy title hopes, I could see the writing on the wall Friday night, when two of my starting pitchers threw 8 inning gems only to watch their closers blow the saves. Yes, one of them was CC Sabathia (the other was Edwin Jackson)…and worse yet, I micromanaged myself out of the garbage win by reasoning that David Robertson wasn’t going to pitch three days in a row, so I left him, and those ten points, on my bench. I had a forty-point lead at that point, but there was a sense of inevitability that sprouted…
Sort of the same feeling I the Steelers fan had yesterday, as Oakland just kept answering and answering. That’s going to take a lot of soul searching this winter to reconcile with. Personally I choose to blame it on the distractions of the day, namely the Space Shuttle Endeavour’s victory lap around Los Angeles. I don’t know if this received any press back there, but it was the kind of thing that could make even the most jaded and cynical observor go “yeah, I don’t see what the big deal is, it’s just a stupid space….OH MY GOD DID YOU SEE THAT THING?! WOOOO! USA! USA! USA!”
Who can think about sports when something like that is bringing the whole city together in a feeling other than disappointment in the Dodgers. Don’t worry about me, folks, my fantasy football teams haven’t lost yet, so I’ll make like Chief Lone Watie, and endeavor to persevere.
P.s… Don’t forget to checkk out The Public Professor’s NFL piece from earlier today and Grote2DMax, tomorrow.
