Sweetest Perfection

I know that nothing can stop me

There are few things in life more circuitous and less fulfilling than conversations about fantasy sports. Everyone's just waiting for their turn to talk about their team. Most of these conversations go something like this:

"Hey, I've got this guy on my team, he's awesome!"
"Yeah I picked him up in my other league, he won the game for me last week."
"How about that guy? He's totally killing me."
"Yeah I drafted him last year, he totally sucks."
"Who should I start between these other two guys? Who's better?"
"Depends on the matchup."
(In this scenario, this guy is Marques Colston and that guy is Daunte Culpepper, these other two guys are Ahman Green and Thomas Jones)

Now I've actually resorted to writing about one of my own fantasy teams before, but that was on my birthday and hey fuck you I can do whatever I want. Anyway, I'm actually taking this opportunity to do something that almost never happens in the world of fantasy sports. I'm gonna try to talk about someone else's fantasy team. That would be my brother's.

Turd Sandwich has completely and utterly dominated the Pain Bowl 06. In order to accurately describe the complete and utter domination, I will enlist the help of the Yahoo Fantasy Sports Plus Record Book from our league:

Most Wins: TS, 13

Most Consecutive Wins: TS, 13

Largest Average Margin of Victory: TS, 30.54

Total Points: TS, 1258.51 (next closest, Ballz Deep 1078.87)

Most TD's: TS, 88

I'll spare you the Offensive Points and Points From a Kicker results because I think you get the idea. The only category I've got a stranglehold on (there I go again, talking about my team) is Smallest Margin of Defeat (10.84). And it's because Turd hasn't lost. He won one game by 5 points (88-83), one by 18 (91-73) and the rest by 20 or more. It's not like the rest of the league stopped paying attention either, all of the victories were well-earned. It's completely ridiculous. I looked at his team at the beginning of the year and didn't think they had a chance in hell to stay healthy and/or active the whole season. I was wrong.

So now we come to the playoffs. The only chance anyone has against The Juggernaut That Is Turd Sandwich is another late season tail-off from LaDainian Tomlinson (last season he only scored 1 TD after December) coupled with an injury to either Brian Westbrook or Terrell Owens or Darrell Jackson or Jamal Lewis or Jeremy Shockey. Yes he has all of those guys. But you know who's on my team? Marques Colston, and he's totally helped me out this year. I just need to get him healthy for the playoffs. Right now I'm thinking of starting Terrance Copper instead. Do you think the Saints are gonna throw the ball a lot on the Cowboys? Oh wait, I just picked up the Miami D.......

The Headmaster Ritual

Sir leads the troops

I am a waaaay better coach than Marvin Lewis. No disrespect intended Marvin, but what's your record this year? Like, 4-4? That's what I thought.

Let's compare that to This Charming Fan's record who is coaching TWO football teams this year, Ballz Deep and Portis Heads. Their records? 7-2 and 6-3. That's a combined 13-5, a winning percentage of 72% to Marvin's 50%. So naturally, I've got some tips for the beleaguered B-leaguer coach (get it, beleaguered B-leaguer? Hahaha!). Here goes:

1. Try and keep things light. The guys on Ballz Deep seem to respond really well to my weekly habit of getting completely shitfaced on gameday. They know that my preparation always happens earlier in the week (when I'm usually sober) and that I'm one of the best gameplanners in the league. They don't mind if I "enjoy myself" during the game. Sometimes (when I'm really drunk), I'll even ask Chester (Taylor) during the game if he wants a shot of apricot brandy when he's not playing well. He gets a kick out of it; he knows I'm just playin'. Marvin, you just look so serious all the time on the sidelines. I think your team could really benefit if you loosened the reins a little, y'know, let the guys have their fun. They're adults man, they know how to handle themselves in a professional manner.
2. Talk more smack to the other coaches. All I ever hear from the postgame press conferences is some pretty vanilla stuff Marvin. "That's a good football team" and "They're defense played well". Bullshit man. Before the game is when you need to really get it going you know, like last week, I was playin' Turd Sandwich and he picked up the Ravens' Mark Clayton and I was like "Hey that's not the 85 Mark Clayton man" and he was like "I don't even know who that is" and I was like "Yeah, that's why you suck" and he was like "whatever, stop calling me". But the thing is, I got in his head. And then after the game (which I won, of course) I was like "And you still owe me forty bucks" (cuz we're in a money league and he hasn't paid me yet). None of this "good game man" shit. I really chapped his ass about it; he won't even return my calls anymore. Chester thought it was a riot! Awesome!
3. You never give up on a bad bye week. Now first of all, I have no idea how in the hell you managed to draft a team that had every single player on the same bye week (maybe it's because you're in a keeper league, I don't know), but even still man, you cannot just let that shit go! You could have swung some trades, worked the waiver wire, whatever. I made it through all my bye weeks this year and always fielded a full team. It's just unacceptable to not even put a single player out there; it's really bad for the team's morale.
4. It's time to go out and get a better Defense. Listen man, I liked your D at the beginning of the year too, but you gotta read the writing on the wall. The turnovers just aren't happening this year and there's a lot of tough matchups down the road. I say drop the Cincy D immediately and just start picking up new Defenses on a weekly matchup basis. Shit I dropped your D four weeks ago and now I've got Carolina's. Check if they're available in your league, that's a huge upgrade.
5. Ignore all that shit about "locker room poison". Dude, I picked up Barry Bonds at the end of my baseball season this summer and the guy did nothing but produce. He got me the Trophy baby (even though Yahoo still hasn't mailed it or something, maybe I should've requested the T-shirt instead), and him and Jeff Kent totally got along! Seriously man, don't cave in to all those people who say "character matters" and "people need to buy into the team concept", they're just making excuses for why their teams suck so bad. My teams have always gotten along and always kicked ass. I don't see why yours should be any different. As long as your guys produce, who cares what they do in the off-season.

Bottom line Marvin, if you want to win it all this year, you need to start listening to me. I've got a lot of hardware in my virtual trophy case (my Yahoo! rating is All-Star baby!); what do you have in yours?

I've Come to Wish You an Unhappy Birthday

Why Fantasy Sports Are Fucking Amazing

So I’m in a fairly competitive head-to-head baseball league. About 3/4ths of the guys study their shit, make good waiver pickups, assemble good teams, etc, etc. The other ¼ throw in the towel before summer starts. I draft a pretty respectable team, have a solid pitching staff (my strength is assembling stud starters) and make it to the semifinals (held this week, 9-10 to 9-17). There I meet my old friend Joey, a guy I used to work with at a restaurant in Manhattan. Joey grew up in Boston, but somehow managed to be a ridiculously dedicated Yankees fan. Joey’s team is called Yankee Yankmees and consists of around 7 to 8 Yankees at all times. Specifically he owns:
C-Jorge Posada
1B-Jason Giambi
SS-Derek Jeter
3B-Alex Rodriguez
OF-Hideki Matsui
RP-Mariano Rivera
RP-Kyle Farnsworth

As you can see, this shit is bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s.

Playing Joey’s fantasy team is like starting a fight with a redneck at a tractor pull who has 17 brothers and 42 first cousins standing around him. It’s fucking intimidating.

Joey’s offense completely destroys me at the beginning of the week, with the Yankees putting up 45 runs in 5 days. They’re busy tearing the shit out of Baltimore and Tampa Bay, while my Chase Utleys and Lance Berkmans are serving me donuts. I’m down 8-2 on Thursday, with only three days to make up a shitload of ground. The only thing I have going for me is that my studs haven’t pitched yet. I’ve got Santana and Weaver on Friday, then Hamels pitching on Saturday. I get solid starts from pretty much everyone, a couple of wins, and take him in K’s, ERA, and WHIP. Pretty soon I’m staring at a 5-3 deficit, with a couple of categories up for grabs. We’re tied on steals and wins, but I’m hopelessly behind in every offensive category. Except batting average. Oh sweet, sweet batting average. I’ll get back to you later.

On Saturday, I realize the only chance I have to beat Joey is to take wins and squeak out steals. That gives us a 5-5 stalemate, but the tiebreaker is ERA, which I’ve got in the bag. I pick up Jeff Weaver (clearly desperation time), Daniel Cabrera, and Jaret Wright. But….…none of them pull out a W. I’m screwed. Then Jason Bay steals his 2nd bag in two days, giving me the lead in steals. I still have hope. I’m only down 5-4 because Joey doesn’t get a win either (thank you Cla Meredith). That’s when we get back to that old standby, batting average. To start the day, I’m down 260 to 244. Not an insurmountable lead. On Sunday, the surmounting starts to happen.

My guys start to hit a little. Berkman, Figgins, and Dave Roberts all go 2-4. The Yankees have back-to-back day-night double-headers (jesus that’s a lot of hyphens), so on Sunday, they’ve got a late game at 8:30. I check in on the computer around 8:00, and see that I’m now down 255 to 257 on BA. With the Yankees playing Giambi (a 252 hitter), Jeter (343), and Posada (280), I realize that the law of averages is not on my side. I need said law of averages to fail and fail miserably. Appropriately my only chance to make it to the finals is for three Yankee hitters to have shitty games. God I hate the Yankees (not individually, just as a concept). Anyway, it happens to be my birthday, and I happen to be in the middle of a poker game while my fantasy hopes are being toyed with by no-name Boston pitchers, guys with names like Jarvis, Hanson, and Lopez. I have no idea who they are, but they are all I have. Posada singles in the first off Jarvis, and I assume it’s over. Then, Jeter and Giambi start helping me out. Jeter reaches on an error (thank you official scorer!), Giambi whiffs, Torre pinch hits with Matsui (another Yankmee), he K’s, and I take the freaking lead for the first time all week.

I’m up 5-4 with BA at 255 to 254. I’m fucking ecstatic. But then the 8th inning comes. The heart of the Yankee lineup is up, Giambi followed by Posada. I figure if one of them gets a hit, it’s over. And of course, because it’s my birthday and everything’s gonna break right for me……Giambi singles to center. It’s over. I’m losing BA 257 to 255. I turn off the computer and dedicate myself to playing good disciplined poker. You can’t win em’ all. I send a text to Joey congratulating him.

About 4 hours later I fire up the computer to see what the final tally was, say goodbye to some of the guys on the team (I’ve gotten pretty tight with David DeJesus), and wrap up my fantasy baseball season. So I think you know how this plays out by now. The Red Sox score a run in the 9th to take a 5-4 lead, and in the bottom of ninth Torre pulls out all the stops. After a Bernie Williams groundout, Torre puts in Johnny Damon to pinch hit for some guy named Andy Cannizaro. Did I mention Damon is on my team? Usually Yankees and Red Sox are impossible to draft at their rightful places in our league because of our heavy east coast bias. The thing about Damon, though, is that no one wants to touch him. The Yankee fans aren’t ready to jump on the guy who was partly responsible for the greatest act of self-destruction since Richie Tennenbaum’s meltdown at Windswept Fields, and Red Sox fans think he’s a traitor. So I get him in the 5th round, the 58th overall selection, and he does nothing but produce all year. And what does Johnny do? He gets a base hit. And who does Torre send up to pinch hit next? That’s right, Alex Rodriguez, another Yankee Yankmee. And what does A-Rod do? Pops out to shallow right center. Yankee fans engage in their favorite activity, booing A-Rod mercilessly, and I take Joey in batting average thanks to two ninth inning pinch hitting appearances. I advance to the finals, exhausted and elated. Fantasy sports, you are a filthy and brutal whore. God I love you.