Reality Beats Fantasy

Last baseball season was the worst baseball season of my life.

Well, my fantasy life.

I’ve been playing this fantasy game since 1985.

And 2011 will definitely go down as the year of the loser.

I could blame it on injuries.

And there were plenty.

I could blame it on my co-owner.

It’s always his fault.

Or I could blame it on our miserable players.

Too many to count.

But the bottom line is we finished in last place.

Dead last place.

The first place team had 102 points.

We had 28.

Pathetic.

With a capital P.

How pathetic?

Let’s just say if we would’ve got three points for each of our one points.

We would’ve still finished in 6th.

That’s bad.

A lot of guys deserve the blame.

1 and 1A are the two owners.

But you can’t fire the owners.

So let’s blame the players.

Ubaldo Jimenez.

Sucked.

Carl Crawford.

Sucked more.

Adam Dunn.

The suckiest.

Every baseball team needs good pitching.

And fantasy teams are no different.

We really thought we had it coming in.

But none of our guys panned out.

Including Ryan Franklin.

When we drafted him, he was the closer for the St. Louis Cardinals.

When the season ended, the Cardinals were World Champs.

And Franklin.

He was out of baseball.

Released midway through the year for being awful.

How awful?

How about an 8.46 ERA?

That would get you kicked off your little league team.

We also drafted Fausto Carmona.

He was the Indians #1 pitcher.

Was.

Past tense.

On opening day he made it through all of three innings.

Giving up 11 hits and ten runs.

10 RUNS.

In just three innings.

Those numbers are so bad, Ryan Franklin even laughed.

Things got so bad for Carmona, he tried to change his name.

Tried.

He was arrested just two months ago in the Dominican Republic for using a false identity to obtain a U.S. Visa.

Now that’s a bad pitch.

And when you consider that Carmona is scheduled to make $7 million this year.

That’s just plain dumb.

But if they were to hand out a Cy Young Award for the dumbest move made by a pitcher off the field.

That award would have to go to John Lackey.

We drafted him too.

Through his first nine seasons, Lackey was as steady as they come.

A bunch of strikeouts.

A bunch of wins.

And a good ERA.

That’s why the Boston Red Sox signed him in the winter of 2009.

To a five-year deal.

Worth $82.5 million.

Guaranteed.

For that kinda cash, he should be curing cancer.

Instead he was spitting on it.

On the night of August 30th, John Lackey pitched seven innings for the Red Sox.

A game he lost 5-2.

But it was what Lackey did earlier that day that made the real headlines.

You see Lackey had had enough of his wife Krista.

And on August 30th, he officially filed for divorce.

Not the first person to do that.

Not the last either.

But when you consider that Lackey’s wife was five months removed from a double mastectomy.

And two months removed from chemotherapy.

And the baseball season was a month from being over.

John Lackey gets an F for timing.

Hey I’ve never met John Lackey.

And I never met Krista either.

Living with either of them could be a nightmare.

But there are some things you just don’t do.

And divorcing your wife when she is full of cancer is one of them.

Even George Lopez waited five years after his wife gave him her kidney before he dumped her.

I’m happy to report, thanks to Krista’s twitter account, that as of Feb 20, she is cancer free.

A long stretch from November when the disease had reappeared in 12 of her lymph nodes.

As for John, he’s not doing as well.

You see, just three weeks after the season ended, we learned that he has an arm injury.

An injury that needed surgery.

A surgery that will keep him off the field in 2012.

Maybe more.

From where I'm sitting, this doesn't even come close to evening the score.

But maybe someday John will learn that you might be able to beat the Yankees.

But you will never beat karma.