Miracle... in the 25th Hour

All those hours checking lineups and add/dropping players. This is what it's for. This is what it feels like to be a champion. All that time spent in the training room and the film room, looking at tendencies, reading stat reports, day-trading pitchers, talking with scouts... The time away from my kids, watching them grow up through emails and late-night phone calls. Was it worth it? Probably not, but this is as good as it gets in the fantasy world.

This is the email I sent this morning to some friends:

An angel came down from the heavens last night in the form of a stat correction from almost 2 weeks ago. Roy Oswalt was given 2 earned runs from a start on 9/16 that were previously counted as unearned. The significance of this is that I went to sleep last night knowing that I took second place and all of mankind would have to deal with gingers’ collective rise to power. The forces of good (baseball stat guy) came together with a brilliant plan to put them down.

At 3:15 pm things looked great. Ubaldo was pitching the game of his life, 6 IP, 0 ER, 9 K. I dropped below him in ERA by.06. At 3:30 pm disaster struck. Jonathan Papelbon was put in the game by Francona. They were down 2 runs in the top of the 9th. There was no reason for this. Papelbon then proceeded to give up 3 earned runs. My ERA went above his by .04. Ubaldo became my only hope. Ubaldo made quick work of the D-backs. 112 pitches. 7 (seemingly) perfect innings. ERA is now .01 above his. One more inning and I have it. Then disaster struck. Hurdle inserted a pinch hitter. Something about, “not destroying his young arm.” Come on, I have a pennant to win.

A .01 loss.

Then this morning. Jubilation. A bitchy message post by the ginger. Satisfaction. Eff you Papelbon, you will never be on my team again and you are officially on the Man-Hate list. Ubaldo, why I gave up on you, nobody knows.

Am I a loser? Probably. But I'm a loser with $250 extra dollars in my pocket that I will now put in the TV fund for Black Friday. HD here I come!

Thanks for running the league Deuce and thanks for the boost in the finals. What I didn't mention was the email Deuce received on Thursday from the guy I was playing:

You can ship my $375 ($100 for regular season, $250 for playoffs, $50 for side bet less $25 to make up for the deadbeats) to the address below. Thanks again for the invite.

Looks like that check will be $150 lighter. But at least you got a healthy dose of karma and a Brewers playoff berth.

Just to thrust that shiv in one more time, the finals MVP is the above pictured Ubaldo Jimenez for his 7 inning, 10K, shutout performance yesterday. The season MVP goes to...

-PSon