Fantasy Baseball, The End

Oh Baseball Gods, how fickle you are. The misery is finally over for me and the insufferable arrogance can resume at Andrew's, this is going to be a long offseason.

I probably spoke too soon when I said I was in standings purgatory, well, actually I did speak too soon. The Baseball Gods were kind enough to "shut down" a number of my players, which means they don't go on the DL and I can't replace them. Tulo, Yadier Molina, and Justin Upton found themselves lounging on the bench for the last week and I started my slide toward 4th. The Gods are cruel, very cruel.

Shoosh. I sure hope he makes the finals.

Andrew stayed in first and never had much trouble fending off the rest of us. The team in second suffered Shut Down hell and slid slowly away from 1st over the last week or so. The team that passed me didn't have a chance at 1st, so Andrew could sit back and enjoy his Cardinals failure to reach the playoffs.

Oh well, maybe next year.

Current Status
Bert - The Dude abides.
Andrew - Far out, far fucking out.

Sanity 1 - Media 0... For Now

Sanity finally struck back this week, if only for a little while. My fears of a bogus 2010-11 season are still there, but now there may be a savior in position to save us all. I'm talking about Oregon jumping TCU and Boise State in the rankings. We now have a viable team to sneak into #1/2 if Alabama or Ohio State lose a game. I still feel like Boise State shouldn't be ranked above a 1 loss BCS conference team when the season wraps up, that's how bad I think the WAC is.

I still have nightmares that the media is going to make a mess of this. Some idiot is still giving Boise State a first place vote, and I'm willing to bet if Alabama falls to one of the many tough teams on its schedule that idiot will have alot of friends. I feel a little bad that I'm so down on Boise State's title aspirations, but since its the media making a mockery of the BCS and not the team/school my hate is running at about 95% capacity.

The Bronco homers out there have been playing up their 51-6 win over Wyoming and 59-0 stomping of New Mexico State, real non-BCS powerhouses there. They have, not surprisingly, overlooked their much slimmer wins over paper tiger Virginia Tech (33-30) and Oregon State (37-24). Virginia Tech, who was #10 to start the season, went on to lose to an FCS school. Hopefully this destroys the "We beat VT!" argument, since it doesn't seem to be all that difficult. My only hope is that Nevada wins or hangs a bunch of points on Boise State, at this rate the Broncos could blow out their entire conference.

59-0 over the worst team in the 8th best conference? Yawn.

I'm very happy about Oregon's rise for a few reasons. The first one is that they beat Stanfurd to do it, and oh do I hate Stanfurd. I would give almost anything to see Harbaugh's head explode after they were up 31-24 at halftime and let Oregon destroy them with 28 unanswered points in the second half. A win over #9 Stanfurd is much more impressive than beating the Wyomings and New Mexico States of the world. They should also get a little media-idiocy bonus because Stanfurd's QB, Andrew Luck, is the popular pick for the #1 overall pick in the NFL draft (Buffalo, here he comes!).

My second reason is I think Oregon genuinely has a chance of going 12-0, and a 12-0 Oregon is a lock over Boise State. I'm a Cal fan, and I will sadly be cheering for Oregon to whup on us so they can keep the Broncos out of the title game. I don't think Oregon is a fluke, and should beat everyone in the Pac-10. I am worried about the depth of the Pac-10, it wouldn't shock me or anyone if they lost to USC or Oregon State. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if Cal beat them at home, weirder things have happened. Lets just hope LaMichael James can keep his hands on the ball and off his girlfriend's throat (too soon?), he is just tearing it up on the ground and could be in the Heisman hunt if he keeps it up.

Sporno? Probably.

Well, its still early so the media will have plenty of chances to screw things up. I'm sure if VT finishes the year 11-2 someone will revive the "We beat VT!" argument and spread some insanity. Lets just hope that Alabama and Ohio State don't slip up *cough* LSU and Michigan *cough* and leave an opening for Boise State to jump into the title game.

Bundesliga : Stock Report Week 7

I finally get a week off after this for an International Break, I'm actually lucky I can't watch all of these games. I think it would be way too much work to follow everything, I may have bitten off more than I can chew just following a few Bundesliga teams. Damn NFL, NCAA, MLB, and EPL.

Borussia Dortmund : UP. Win 2-0 against Bayern Munich. Dortmund won, quite convincingly, but after watching this game I can see why Bayern is playing so poorly. They are without Ribery and Robben (their two best offensive weapons), and it showed against Dortmund. Dortmund didn't play all that well in the first half, and should have been down at least 1-0, but they came out and put Bayern away in the second half. Sad to see one of my World Cup mancrushes, Holger Badstuber of Bayern, play like crap.

Lucas Barrios scored his 4th, and spurned Argentina. I like this guy.

Werder Bremen : NO CHANGE. Drew 2-2 with Leverkusen. I wish I could have watched this game since Marin scored and Per Mertesacker made his return.

Bayer Leverkusen : NO CHANGE. Drew 2-2 with Werder Bremen, couldn't watch and they managed not to get blown out like they did against Inter in the Champions League.

Kaisersluatern : NO CHANGE. Lose 2-1 to Hamburg. Didn't get to watch this game either, but they are not looking good. 1FCK is falling down the table fast and find themselves 2 clear of the relegation zone.

Eintracht Frankfurt : UP. Beat Stuttgart 2-1 and fly clear of the relegation zone, I'm not cure what to make of these guys yet. They win 3 in a row then drop 2, have only scored more than 2 goals once (4-0 over Borrussia Monchengladbach), and haven't been able to draw once.

VfL Wolfsburg : NO CHANGE. Draw 1-1 against Monchengladbach. McClaren has been able to turn them around (3-0-1) after a horrible start (0-3-0) and find themselves in the middle of the table. They could still sneak into the Top 3, but they are going to have to finish the season strong.

Bundesliga : Stock Report, Week 6

Another late report, you can blame it on the apocalyptic state of the Bundesliga. If you aren't sitting down you probably should...ok... Bayern Munich is not top of the table. Something crazy is happening this season, and lowly Mainz is 6-0-0 and top of the world. I'm going to put it all on sample size, the season is still young and Mainz has been playing well beyond their means. If you watch them nothing jumps out at you, they are a very organized vanilla no-name team that has been playing well. I'll put my money on Dortmund to finish above Mainz, and I'll be shocked if they finish in a Champions League spot (Top 3).

Borussia Dortmund : UP. Dortmund are on fire, winning 3-1 over St. Pauli and sitting #2 in the Bundesliga. Shinji Kagawa scores his fourth goal of the season, and they only have to play Bayern Munich next week.

Werder Bremen : NO CHANGE. Beat rival Hamburg 3-2, they had a 2-0 lead at the half and allowed two goals in 4' to start the second half. I finally got to see Marko Marin score, the guy reminds me of a not-as-funny Andrei Arshavin who actually looks his age. I'm so late on this report that Bremen have just finished their Champions League game against Inter, a bad 4-0 loss.

Side Note : Finally figured out what happened to Per Mertesacker, he took an elbow to an eye in an international friendly. Apparently it broke his eye socket and their were concerns of permanent damage to his vision, looks like he will be ok.

Bayer Leverkusen : NO CHANGE.

Kaisersluatern : NO CHANGE. Lose 0-1 to Hannover 96 in a dull game. Kaiserslautern had a few chances to score but let Hannover take this one. They are really falling down the table now and have probably settled into the bottom half for good.

VfL Wolfsburg : NO CHANGE. Didn't get to watch their 2-1 win over Freiburg. Grafite nets twice.

Eintracht Frankfurt : NO CHANGE. Win 2-0 over Nurnberg, vault out of the relegation zone... barely.

Fantasy Baseball, 150 Games Down

Well, this is it. Just about two weeks left in the season, so the misery will finally end for eight members of our league. Sadly, the misery will end, but some of it will carry over until next season. Maybe one day I will be cleansed with victory, but it isn't likely. Everyone but Andrew is in standings purgatory, as Drew is 7.5 points clear in first (70), with the second place team (62.5) 2.5 clear of me (60), and I'm 5.5 clear of fourth. I would need everyone on my team to pull a Tulo to jump into 2nd, and Andrew's team would have to invent negative HR's, K's, and RBI's to lose.

I'm basically the living dead right now. I can be extremely happy that my most expensive player, Tulo, is destroying the ball. Tulo missed a tad over an entire month and hit 12HR and 55RBI through August 31, then he ate some spinach and hit 14HR and 34RBI in the month of September. Just to clarify, September isn't over yet. Where was this 4 months ago Tulo?! I was drinking your bathwater all season, and you save this for the last month of the season?! Oh yeah, Zito broke his winless streak at 12 starts, thanks Barry.

Oh Tulo, you handsome, mercurial, injured, sandbagging devil.

Andrew's luck combined with a stellar pitching and the 7 Closers Strategy has helped him lock up the season. It also helps that the #2 team, which was in first for quite a while, basically burst into flames. He lost his best pitcher, letting Andrew in, and started streaming closers which made it even worse.

Current Status
Bert - Those rich fucks! This whole fucking thing... I did not watch my buddies die face down in the muck so that this fucking strumpet...
Andrew - Yeah well, I still jerk off manually.

Bundesliga : Stock Report, Week 5

Another short week, after watching Antonio Valencia break his leg mid-week I've been a little out of it. I only managed to catch two games this weekend (Werder Bremen-Mainz, and Schalke-Leverkusen), but the fixtures looked fairly vanilla (aside from the 7-0 ass kicking Borussia Monchengladbach took) so nobody moved around in the standings.

Borussia Dortmund : UP. Shinji Kagawa! Dortmund beat rival Schalke 3-1, two of their goals coming from Japanese international Kagawa. Dortmund looked good, Schalke's recent form has been horrible, and they just couldn't catch a break today. This game could have been much worse for Schalke, I like what I saw from Dortmund today. This win puts them in 3rd, the season is young so that sounds more impressive than it should.

Werder Bremen : NO CHANGE. Lose 2-0 at Mainz in a very dull game. Neither side played all that well, but Bremen looked least interested in winning. I finally got to see Marko Marin play, and he didn't really do all that much aside from missing a few chances to put one on goal. They have been without Per Mertesacker, and I keep hearing alot of Champions League Fatigue excuses, its getting old. Mainz looked like they wanted this game, and took it, two preventable goals sent Bremen packing.

Side note : I learned that Bremen's rival/derby team is Hamburg SV, a team that could break into this list if I see good things from them.

Bayer Leverkusen : NO CHANGE. Draw 0-0 with Nurnberg, snooze. Despite having the ball 67% of the game, nothing much happened. It was even boring to read the game report, although Stephan Kiessling was injured.

Leverkusen may be lucky if this is as close as he gets to the field for the rest of the season.

Kaisersluatern : NO CHANGE. Draw 2-2 against TSG Hoffenheim, "plummet" out of the top after their win over Bayern. Their early form is slipping, but they aren't getting blown out of games.

Side note : Mainz is their rival/derby team, I may have said this last week.

VfL Wolfsburg : NO CHANGE. Win 2-0 over Hannover 96. Dzeko nets in this game, making it 4 goals in 4 games for him. This was a much needed win even though they are still in the relegation zone with a 1-0-3 record.

Eintracht Frankfurt : NO CHANGE. Lose 1-0 to FC Freiburg, still out of the relegation zone, but not by much.

Bundesliga : Stock Report, Week 3-4

Another short report. No games the previous week due to an International break, but plenty of fun this week. I was able to catch Werder Bremen and Kaiserslautern online.

Side note : I'm now very interested in true rivals. Whenever I've asked about rivals I get "Bayern Munich" as an answer. I can't believe the entire country is rivals with Bayern, so now I'm on a mission to figure out all of the rivalries.

Borussia Dortmund : NO CHANGE. Didn't get to watch them play, beat Wolfsburg 2-0. Their Japanese player scored one of the goals, I'm actually surprised there aren't more Japanese players in the Bundesliga.

Werder Bremen : NO CHANGE. Weird week for Werder, two draws; 0-0 with Bayern Munich in a so-so game and they come back from being down 2-0 to Tottenham in the Champions League, finish the game 2-2. Marko Marin nets in the CL game, this could have been bad for Werder. They have looked poor to start the season, but these games could signal a turnaround.

Bayer Leverkusen : UP. How can I root for a team with Ballack, easy, he was injured this week. Now he can stand on the sidelines and look very majestic, just like he did for Chelsea last year. Drew 2-2 with Hannover 96 this weekend.

Kaisersluatern : NO CHANGE. Lose on the road to Mainz 2-1 in a pillow fight of a game. The game was quite dull, but the goals were very good. Apparently this was a derby game, and the Mainz fans came with cardboard signs/models and made a giant Aztec complete with temple and still beating heart representing 1FCK. Why am I not shocked that Germans could organize such things, never seen this kind of thing before.

VfL Wolfsburg : DOWN. The fall continues, I know its early but they are melting down. Lose 2-0 to Dortmund, I think McClaren's head is going to explode. Apparently the Bundesliga is tougher than the Erdivisie.

Eintracht Frankfurt : UP. Stomp all over Borussia Monchengladbach on the road, walk away with a 4-0 win. I wish I could have seen this, quite a swing for Monchengladbach after scoring 6 last week.