A while back, I decided that if a day came when I just couldn't come up with anything interesting for a blog, I would let you do the work. The day has come. That said, prepare for the first-ever teacher man mailbag with my responses to comments you've left along the way. Enjoy.
"I'm a simple girl, but I'll be supportive of your guac burger thing. But I really think you've got an entire state out here that would be receptive to your guac movement. You're not alone, Baker." (Claire, "guac, stock, and barrel")
So I went to Fuddruckers the other night with Nicole, and when I went up to order my burger, I said, "Do you guys have guacamole?" And the girl said, "Yeah. We can put it on your burger if you want." I was stunned. Is there a groundswell as a result of teacher man? Am I convincing the masses? "I do," I said. "Do people ask you to do that a lot?" "No." I see.
"I can't believe how much time you have to waste at school. I'm horribly jealous. But, clearly I'm not doing work right now either, so maybe I should just be quiet." (Stacy, "top 10 snl sketches")
Here's the thing: I don't have time to waste at school. I'm extraordinarily busy. And in that way, this blog is sort of like Netflix. Netflix makes me so nervous you wouldn't believe. Every time that we have a movie for more than a few days, I feel like I'm wasting hard-earned money. And sometimes I'll have a bunch of papers to grade and copies to make, but I'll sit down and type one frantic blog entry just to get it up. I think I'm getting a blog-induced ulcer. (Incidentally, wouldn't Blog-Induced Ulcer be a great name for a band?)
"i laughed out loud so much while reading this that my boss had to come ask me if i was 'okay' --aka, 'start working.'" (Joe, "the faculty meeting")
While I appreciate that you enjoyed the entry, your boss having to come calm you down reminds me of my degenerate students. They'll be goofing around, so I'll walk over and say something like, "How are we doing, fellas?" And they'll say fine and get back to work, then I go to another group and the first group gets rowdy again until we repeat the procedure. Eventually, I just say, "Guys, I'm getting bored of walking over and trying to give you subtle hints to get back to work. Knock it off." (In case you missed it, Joe, you were the degenerate student in this analogy.)
"sorry about that 'gross' comment, mr. baker. i thought i was being funny, didnt mean to offend. and steve carrell always makes a mean bratwurst." (Joe, "joe on rollerblades")
First, I don't think there's anywhere else on the Internet wherer you'll find the statemtent, "steve carrell always makes a mean bratwurst." Second, this is a perfect example of why people use adverbs even though they're the tools of the devil. According to Stephen King, people use adverbs because they're afraid that otherwise, people won't understand what they mean. When the public outcry against my "nba predictions 07-08" blog was so intense that I joked that people should "feel free not to read" this page, I was (I thought) obviously joking. But I don't think that was clear. And that made Joe think that the tone of his comment--a cogent "gross"--wasn't clear either (although it was). There were a lot of late-night phone calls and crying involved. Anyway, my apologies to anyone who thought I was really offended by his or her snarkiness. I am a fan of snarkiness. (Incidentally, wouldn't Snarkiness be a great name for a band?)
"I just saw The Big Lebowski because everyone thinks it's awesome...and I didn't really like it. I'm not sure why. I do like White Russians, though." (Stacy, "top 50 movies (50-41)")
1) You're crazy for not liking The Big Lebowski. 2) Did anyone that took the Booze Test yesterday think it was funny that the first clue for White Russian was a picture of Jeff Bridges in this movie?
"and i flippin' love tony kornheiser." (Joe, "why sam is awesome")
What?! Is this really true? I was just scanning through old comments and I don't think I caught this the first time through. I feel like you're being sarcastic. Are you?
"Ahoy. This is Jessi (August)...I think I have an answer to something you were debating earlier. Your '3rd Thing' that you're good at is grammar. How do I know this? You corrected Elisa Gately's entry in my yearbook with red pen." (Jessi, "happy holidays")
1) I no longer feel guilty (or stupid) about calling you Jessi August in "googling you" since that's the way you re-introduced yourself here. 2) I don't remember this incident with Elisa Gately's yearbook. Can this possibly be true? It seems like something I'd do now, but I guess I'd been fooling myself into thinking that I was less uncool back then. That's depressing.
We're going to stop at the end of 2007 because I've got actual work to be doing. We'll have another installment some other time when I'm uninspired. Enjoy your weekend.
Later gators.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Thursday, March 13, 2008
why i don't teach kindergarten
I think I have a new favorite web site. For today, at least. It's www.howmanyfiveyearoldscouldyoutakeinafight.com. And it is exactly what its web address suggests that it would be. You answer a series of questions, and it determines how many five year olds you could take in a fight. Also, the site links to a variety of additional quizzes/games/etc. Great time-waster. Today, I learned:
...that on an enclosed basketball court, with a protective cup but no weapons or foreign objects, I could knock out no fewer than 17 five year olds.
...I can name 50 countries in five minutes. That might seem impressive until you realize that there are 270 countries in the world. I did get the United Arab Emirates. I did not get Italy.
...I can name 41 colors in five minutes. This one is bullcrap. According to whom? I mean, "brick red" is a color. Ask Crayola. Anyway, I still feel like 41 is pretty good.
...that if I were stranded on the moon, I would die almost immediately. I earned a 34% on the Moon Survival Challenge. On this grading scale, that is an F.
...that 139,012 people died on the day I was born (10/6/1980). Among them were British comedienne Hattie Jacques and French cyclist Jean Robic. On my various birthdays, the following people have died: Anwar Sadat (in '81), Bette Davis ('89), Johnny Vander Meer ('97), and Buck O'Neill ('07).
...that my body is 71% effective as a human shield.
...that my dead body is worth $4,140. I don't have any point of reference here, but I feel like that number should be higher.
...that I have only a 34% chance of survival in the event of a zombie attack. (Didn't I tell you this was a great site? Where else could you find out that the odds of you surviving a zombie attack are precisely the same as the odds of you surviving a crash landing on the moon?)
...that I am 30% geek. I think this comes as a shock to just about everyone.
...that I am 39% likely to eat my buddies in a blizzard.
...that there is a 50% chance that my brain contains grade-A synethesia. (It has something to do with creativity. I can't explain it any better than that.)
...that I am defined as a "lush," scoring an 80% on the Booze Test.
...that I know Disney slightly better than I know alcohol, as I scored an 81% on the Disney Test.
...that I am a great speller--100% on the Blogger Spelling Test. Was there every any doubt?
So there you go. I hope you didn't have anything planned for the next hour. Meanwhile, my English 11 Lit. kids are pissed because I haven't graded their essays. If they only knew...
Later gators.
...that on an enclosed basketball court, with a protective cup but no weapons or foreign objects, I could knock out no fewer than 17 five year olds.
...I can name 50 countries in five minutes. That might seem impressive until you realize that there are 270 countries in the world. I did get the United Arab Emirates. I did not get Italy.
...I can name 41 colors in five minutes. This one is bullcrap. According to whom? I mean, "brick red" is a color. Ask Crayola. Anyway, I still feel like 41 is pretty good.
...that if I were stranded on the moon, I would die almost immediately. I earned a 34% on the Moon Survival Challenge. On this grading scale, that is an F.
...that 139,012 people died on the day I was born (10/6/1980). Among them were British comedienne Hattie Jacques and French cyclist Jean Robic. On my various birthdays, the following people have died: Anwar Sadat (in '81), Bette Davis ('89), Johnny Vander Meer ('97), and Buck O'Neill ('07).
...that my body is 71% effective as a human shield.
...that my dead body is worth $4,140. I don't have any point of reference here, but I feel like that number should be higher.
...that I have only a 34% chance of survival in the event of a zombie attack. (Didn't I tell you this was a great site? Where else could you find out that the odds of you surviving a zombie attack are precisely the same as the odds of you surviving a crash landing on the moon?)
...that I am 30% geek. I think this comes as a shock to just about everyone.
...that I am 39% likely to eat my buddies in a blizzard.
...that there is a 50% chance that my brain contains grade-A synethesia. (It has something to do with creativity. I can't explain it any better than that.)
...that I am defined as a "lush," scoring an 80% on the Booze Test.
...that I know Disney slightly better than I know alcohol, as I scored an 81% on the Disney Test.
...that I am a great speller--100% on the Blogger Spelling Test. Was there every any doubt?
So there you go. I hope you didn't have anything planned for the next hour. Meanwhile, my English 11 Lit. kids are pissed because I haven't graded their essays. If they only knew...
Later gators.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
minor editorial notes and an interesting story
Okay, so here's why I need to quit teaching and make teacher man my full-time job (although, would I then need to change the name?): I could spend much more time editing to make sure that I don't make silly errors. Yesterday's entry was a perfect example.
1) My long-lost friend Claire and the Jason and Amy Erickson family are among my most dedicated readers, yet I somehow overlooked them in my Google searches. Had I been more vigilant, I would have learned that a) Claire joins Becky as one of my two most important friends because the first link that pops up for her is also actually about her--the Goodreads page of someone named Emily Ann, and b) Jason Erickson has brain cancer and needs our help; Amy Erickson is a professor in the geography department at Cambridge; Mike Erickson is running for Congress; and Sam Erickson directs videos for country superstars Brooks and Dunn. So there you go.
2) Also, Kelly Smith is a friend with whom Sara went to grad school. At the time, her name was Kelly Sanders. That hasn't been the case for some time, but I'm evidently still living in 2002. This slip-up actually isn't surprising--this week I emailed my dad to see if I could borrow the truck this weekend to move some of our stuff into a storage unit, which would be a perfectly reasonable question if it weren't for the fact that they traded that truck in months ago. I'm nothing if not underinformed. Anyway, my apologies Mrs. Smith. Your entry should have identified you as a blogger who describes herself as a "web slave since 1994."
Now, our friend Kelly's doppelganger raises an interesting question. Has she really been a web slave since 1994? How could that be? Who was that devoted to the Internet in 1994? I didn't even know how to email when I went to college in the fall of 1998. In fact, I distinctly recall the first time I was introduced to the Internet. Here's the story:
During my freshman year of high school, I took biology with Dennis Esch. We had three essay tests that were insanely difficult. (Incidentally, the two lowest grades I've ever earned were in geometry with Michael Manghera and this biology course.) One asked us to explain cellular respiration, one asked us to explain photosynthesis, and I don't remember what the other one was about. Anyway, I didn't understand any of these processes, so I asked the librarian--Mr. Waters--if there were any books that I could use to study. He took me over to his computer and logged on to something called the "web." Half an hour later, I was looking at a 2-page explanation of cellular respiration. It was perfect. So he printed it off for me and I took it home. Now, the purpose of these tests was probably to understand something like cellular respiration well enough to be able to explain it back to him, but I didn't think that seemed like something I was capable of, so I memorized the 2 pages that Mr. Waters had printed for me, word for word. It took me like 2 hours, but I had it down. It was pretty impressive, if I do say so myself.
So I went into class the next day, I regurgitated all of the stuff I'd memorized onto a couple pages of notebook paper, and 2 days later Mr. Esch returned the paper with a 96 on the top. Outstanding. Immediately below the 96, it said, "See me after class." So I did--with some apprehension--and he just said, "This was pretty impressive. There's stuff in there that we didn't even talk about. I was just wondering where you got all that information." So I told him about this amazing "program" on Mr. Waters's computer, and he said, "That's great. Nice job." I walked out of the room feeling good.
Flash forward 7 years. I'm sitting in an education class at Ripon College, and some kid asks Professor Williams, "What if we think a kid cheated but we can't prove it?" Her answer: "I'd just write something like, 'See me after class,' on his paper, then tell him something like, 'This is really good, and I was just wondering where you got your information.'" Wait one damn minute. Seven years later, I realized that Mr. Esch thought I cheated, which I absolutely, positively did not. So if you're reading this, Mr. Esch, I earned that 96. And I also probably earned the CD you gave me for the term. Now, as for the geometry grade, Mike...
Later gators.
1) My long-lost friend Claire and the Jason and Amy Erickson family are among my most dedicated readers, yet I somehow overlooked them in my Google searches. Had I been more vigilant, I would have learned that a) Claire joins Becky as one of my two most important friends because the first link that pops up for her is also actually about her--the Goodreads page of someone named Emily Ann, and b) Jason Erickson has brain cancer and needs our help; Amy Erickson is a professor in the geography department at Cambridge; Mike Erickson is running for Congress; and Sam Erickson directs videos for country superstars Brooks and Dunn. So there you go.
2) Also, Kelly Smith is a friend with whom Sara went to grad school. At the time, her name was Kelly Sanders. That hasn't been the case for some time, but I'm evidently still living in 2002. This slip-up actually isn't surprising--this week I emailed my dad to see if I could borrow the truck this weekend to move some of our stuff into a storage unit, which would be a perfectly reasonable question if it weren't for the fact that they traded that truck in months ago. I'm nothing if not underinformed. Anyway, my apologies Mrs. Smith. Your entry should have identified you as a blogger who describes herself as a "web slave since 1994."
Now, our friend Kelly's doppelganger raises an interesting question. Has she really been a web slave since 1994? How could that be? Who was that devoted to the Internet in 1994? I didn't even know how to email when I went to college in the fall of 1998. In fact, I distinctly recall the first time I was introduced to the Internet. Here's the story:
During my freshman year of high school, I took biology with Dennis Esch. We had three essay tests that were insanely difficult. (Incidentally, the two lowest grades I've ever earned were in geometry with Michael Manghera and this biology course.) One asked us to explain cellular respiration, one asked us to explain photosynthesis, and I don't remember what the other one was about. Anyway, I didn't understand any of these processes, so I asked the librarian--Mr. Waters--if there were any books that I could use to study. He took me over to his computer and logged on to something called the "web." Half an hour later, I was looking at a 2-page explanation of cellular respiration. It was perfect. So he printed it off for me and I took it home. Now, the purpose of these tests was probably to understand something like cellular respiration well enough to be able to explain it back to him, but I didn't think that seemed like something I was capable of, so I memorized the 2 pages that Mr. Waters had printed for me, word for word. It took me like 2 hours, but I had it down. It was pretty impressive, if I do say so myself.
So I went into class the next day, I regurgitated all of the stuff I'd memorized onto a couple pages of notebook paper, and 2 days later Mr. Esch returned the paper with a 96 on the top. Outstanding. Immediately below the 96, it said, "See me after class." So I did--with some apprehension--and he just said, "This was pretty impressive. There's stuff in there that we didn't even talk about. I was just wondering where you got all that information." So I told him about this amazing "program" on Mr. Waters's computer, and he said, "That's great. Nice job." I walked out of the room feeling good.
Flash forward 7 years. I'm sitting in an education class at Ripon College, and some kid asks Professor Williams, "What if we think a kid cheated but we can't prove it?" Her answer: "I'd just write something like, 'See me after class,' on his paper, then tell him something like, 'This is really good, and I was just wondering where you got your information.'" Wait one damn minute. Seven years later, I realized that Mr. Esch thought I cheated, which I absolutely, positively did not. So if you're reading this, Mr. Esch, I earned that 96. And I also probably earned the CD you gave me for the term. Now, as for the geometry grade, Mike...
Later gators.
Monday, March 10, 2008
googling you
So I did a post a while back in which I claimed that it was impossible for a person not to do an Internet search for himself or herself. It's just too tempting. (My wife claims that she's never done it, but then I Googled her name and found it on a web page called pathologicalliars.com.) I learned that there are people with my name in the business world, the art world, and Hollywood. Also, our appreciation for Tom and Diane, who DJ'd our wedding, is still there for all to see on the Night Dancin' web site.
So it occurred to me that it might be interesting to see what pops up when I Google some of my readers and other close friends. In every case, I used the Google search engine and entered your name in quotation marks. (Sorry if I missed anybody.) Here's what I learned:
"sara baker." Does my wife lead a secret double-life in which she spends her nights as a wife and mother to me and Charlie but spends her days collaborating with Oren Helbok to create "unique animated handmade furniture inspired by patterns of nature"? Probably not, but if I find out that she does, you can expect a lenghty blog entry about it in the near future.
"charlie baker." Charlie's got a blog! This one, however, is about health care. And it's got nothing to do with my son. It's the brainchild of Charlie Baker, President and CEO of Harvard Pilgrim. I don't know what Harvard Pilgrim is, but here's a picture of the "other" Charlie Baker.
"stacy erickson." In addition to her groundbreaking work on publishing in Elizabethan England (or something like that), my sister-in-law is evidently a prominent photographer in the Tuscon area. This is her poorly-designed MySpace page. It needs work, Stace.
NOTE: I just spent three minutes trying to figure out how to spell Stace/Stac. Did I make the right call? You tell me.
"joe baker." Joe actually does paint--you can ask Charlie (our son, not the Harvard Pilgrim guy), who comes into our bed every morning and says, "Joe picture," while pointing at the painting that hangs on the wall of our room. So it's interesting that this Joe Baker is also a painter. This one is weirder, as evidenced by the creepy monkey pointing the cane at the guy in the top hat. Seriously.
"sam baker." So close. This is a musician, but it's a guy from Texas with some kind of skull in the middle of his homepage. The Sam that we all know and love is much, much better.
"dick baker." This is probably the worst-looking page on the Internet. Remember in Shattered Glass when Stephen Glass put together the Jukt Micronics web page in like five minutes to try to convince the media that the corporation existed? That's what this looks like. Also, he sites "Dick Two Ton Baker" as a "personal interest." I hope this isn't Dad.
"roxanne baker." No way! It's an IMDB page for a make-up artist named Roxanne "Roxie" Baker, who has evidently worked on not only Saved By The Bell: The College Years, but also How I Met Your Mother. Nice, Mom.
"kelly sanders." "TV.com offers all the latest Kelly Sanders news as well as exclusive Kelly Sanders photos." Wow. I wonder where people would go if they wanted all the latest Alex Baker news? Probably here.
"jessica august." Oh my. This is a very racy page. It's not even about someone named Jessica August. It's about someone named Jessica who was the covergirl for the month of August. I'm not even going to link to it. You can check it out yourself if you're that kind of person. I'm moving on.
"grace ribbe." This Grace is the great-granddaughter of a woman named Jean Lindgren, and I'm looking at her obituary. I don't think this is our Grace, but her father's name is Rob. Angie, is your name really Jacquelyn? If not, is it possible that Rob is a polygamist and fathering girls named Grace Ribbe all over the Midwest (this one is from DePere)? Just something to think about.
"katelyn thompson." Stud volleyball player in Arizona. Made the 2006 All-Southern Arizona Team. Honorable mention, but still.
"nicole beckford." A graduate of the College of Mount Saint Vincent, she's now the Director of Human Resources at St. Joseph's Medical Center in Yonkers, New York. If that's what you actually did, I bet you'd make more money than you do teaching high school English.
"becky provencher." So you are clearly my most important friend since yours is the only name that takes me to a web page that is actually about you. I couldn't be more impressed. And your work on behalf of the Chicago Arts Partnership in Education has been outstanding. Bang up job, Beck.
So there you have it. Becky, you're remarkable. The rest of you, you share names with remarkable people. I think you should all be quite proud.
Later gators.
So it occurred to me that it might be interesting to see what pops up when I Google some of my readers and other close friends. In every case, I used the Google search engine and entered your name in quotation marks. (Sorry if I missed anybody.) Here's what I learned:
"sara baker." Does my wife lead a secret double-life in which she spends her nights as a wife and mother to me and Charlie but spends her days collaborating with Oren Helbok to create "unique animated handmade furniture inspired by patterns of nature"? Probably not, but if I find out that she does, you can expect a lenghty blog entry about it in the near future.
"charlie baker." Charlie's got a blog! This one, however, is about health care. And it's got nothing to do with my son. It's the brainchild of Charlie Baker, President and CEO of Harvard Pilgrim. I don't know what Harvard Pilgrim is, but here's a picture of the "other" Charlie Baker.
"stacy erickson." In addition to her groundbreaking work on publishing in Elizabethan England (or something like that), my sister-in-law is evidently a prominent photographer in the Tuscon area. This is her poorly-designed MySpace page. It needs work, Stace.
NOTE: I just spent three minutes trying to figure out how to spell Stace/Stac. Did I make the right call? You tell me.
"joe baker." Joe actually does paint--you can ask Charlie (our son, not the Harvard Pilgrim guy), who comes into our bed every morning and says, "Joe picture," while pointing at the painting that hangs on the wall of our room. So it's interesting that this Joe Baker is also a painter. This one is weirder, as evidenced by the creepy monkey pointing the cane at the guy in the top hat. Seriously.
"sam baker." So close. This is a musician, but it's a guy from Texas with some kind of skull in the middle of his homepage. The Sam that we all know and love is much, much better.
"dick baker." This is probably the worst-looking page on the Internet. Remember in Shattered Glass when Stephen Glass put together the Jukt Micronics web page in like five minutes to try to convince the media that the corporation existed? That's what this looks like. Also, he sites "Dick Two Ton Baker" as a "personal interest." I hope this isn't Dad.
"roxanne baker." No way! It's an IMDB page for a make-up artist named Roxanne "Roxie" Baker, who has evidently worked on not only Saved By The Bell: The College Years, but also How I Met Your Mother. Nice, Mom.
"kelly sanders." "TV.com offers all the latest Kelly Sanders news as well as exclusive Kelly Sanders photos." Wow. I wonder where people would go if they wanted all the latest Alex Baker news? Probably here.
"jessica august." Oh my. This is a very racy page. It's not even about someone named Jessica August. It's about someone named Jessica who was the covergirl for the month of August. I'm not even going to link to it. You can check it out yourself if you're that kind of person. I'm moving on.
"grace ribbe." This Grace is the great-granddaughter of a woman named Jean Lindgren, and I'm looking at her obituary. I don't think this is our Grace, but her father's name is Rob. Angie, is your name really Jacquelyn? If not, is it possible that Rob is a polygamist and fathering girls named Grace Ribbe all over the Midwest (this one is from DePere)? Just something to think about.
"katelyn thompson." Stud volleyball player in Arizona. Made the 2006 All-Southern Arizona Team. Honorable mention, but still.
"nicole beckford." A graduate of the College of Mount Saint Vincent, she's now the Director of Human Resources at St. Joseph's Medical Center in Yonkers, New York. If that's what you actually did, I bet you'd make more money than you do teaching high school English.
"becky provencher." So you are clearly my most important friend since yours is the only name that takes me to a web page that is actually about you. I couldn't be more impressed. And your work on behalf of the Chicago Arts Partnership in Education has been outstanding. Bang up job, Beck.
So there you have it. Becky, you're remarkable. The rest of you, you share names with remarkable people. I think you should all be quite proud.
Later gators.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
why i suck at fantasy baseball
My fantasy baseball draft is coming up this weekend, but I won't be there. I won't be there because I will be at Carter Beckford's second birthday party. And that's okay. I mean, I think I'm going to go see all my buddies tomorrow night, so I won't miss out on that part of the weekend. And the actual draft is fun, but my team won't be any better if I'm there. After all, I suck at fantasy baseball. And since I'll probably be mentioning my team along the way, I thought I'd post an article I wrote for our fantasy baseball web site at the end of last year. At that point, I was in dead last, immediately behind Chuck Saponara's girlfriend. Here's my explanation:
It’s a crisp evening in the fall of 2001, and I’m standing in my shower--drunk--considering the possibility that I suck at baseball.
Roughly two hours ago, Noah Wishau, a Shrek-like freshman about whom I remember almost nothing except that he had massive fingers, was doing his best Sandy Koufax impression when I told him that I was going to pitch the last inning of our intrasquad scrimmage. Wishau had held our opposition to a single run in the fourth game of our Fall Ball World Series, but my senior year was going to be the year that I emerged as our closer, and as we were nursing a 2-1 lead, this was my opportunity to prove it. Moments later, after putting two runners on base, I served up a splitter to Luke Hagel that he hit 900 feet into leftfield. I left the field, stopped at Piggly Wiggly to pick up a 6-pack of Leinenkugel’s, then locked myself in my apartment and guzzled down the Leinie’s. The bottom line, I decided as I took a sip from my beer and felt the steam rise up around me, was that I was a bad, bad baseball player.
Six years later, I retroactively forgive myself for serving up the gopherball to Luke because I have come to the conclusion that no matter how bad a real baseball player I was, I am twice as bad at fantasy baseball.
So I got myself a 6-pack of Leinie’s, climbed in the shower, and tried to figure out why I suck at fantasy baseball. There are 3 reasons:
1. I don’t work during the summer. I am currently in 1st place in one of my fantasy football leagues and 2nd place in the other. And this is largely because the first thing I do when I get to work every day is spend half an hour doing research. Because I have nothing better to do. But from June until August, I have better things to do (i.e. lying on the couch, eating pizza for breakfast, etc.). If you do a little checking, you’ll find that I was in the top 4 teams in the league for the first 2 months of this season, but as soon as I stopped spending my day in front of a computer, the bottom fell out.
A subreason here is that I’m lazy. Obviously, I have computer access at home. I just don’t usually feel like checking my team. At one point this summer, Hagel posted something about how he had searched to try to find a computer but ultimately been unable to make a change to his line-up one Saturday morning and therefore lost points because a positional player on his bench had had a good day. (The details of that story may be fuzzy, but that’s the gist.) I thought, Wow. It would never occur to me in a million years to put that much effort into a line-up change. Anyway, I think that guys with regular jobs have a huge fantasy baseball advantage.
2. In fantasy baseball, it’s really hard to dig yourself out of a hole. I read an article this summer about how 6 weeks into the season, it’s almost impossible to make up more than a point or 2 difference in any particular category. I had suspected as much because no matter what I did to my team--and I did legitimately try for a while there--I would end the week in roughly the same place where I began the week. If you were going to make a jump, you would really need to know what you were doing. And the subreason here is that I don’t actually know what I’m doing.
3. Barry Bonds used steroids. Seriously, I couldn't care less about professional baseball. It's just not possible. Now, I played and I currently coach baseball, so I care about the sport. I just don’t care about it at the professional level. It’s possible that it’s because I don’t really enjoy watching it when I don’t have a personal stake in it, but I have an alternative theory, and it has to do with Prison Break. The Fox show Prison Break began in the fall of 2005, and I loved it. Watched every episode, and spent the whole week waiting for the next one. I hadn’t been this excited about a television show since Dawson’s Creek. But then, the American Idol season began, which meant that there was a 3-month gap between the beginning and the end of Prison Break. And when it started again, I was busy with baseball, so I missed a couple episodes. And everyone knows that when you miss a couple episodes in the middle, you sort of lose interest. So now I don’t watch Prison Break anymore.
I think that everything that’s happened in baseball between 1985 and now has had one irreversible negative impact on the sport. It has screwed up the two things that are most important to professional baseball: history and numbers. I used to like baseball because it was the only sport where you could reasonably compare players across generations. (This obviously isn’t the only reason I liked it, but it was a part of it.) And now that’s not true because I don’t know what’s real and what’s not. I’ve heard people say that Bonds would have hit 750+ bombs if he hadn’t touched steroids because he was awesome before that and steroids don’t help you hit a baseball. And I think they’re right. But I’ve also heard people say that he wouldn’t have even broken 600 because his body would have broken down five years ago, and I think they’re right too. The bottom line is that I don’t know. So I kind of have to ignore the last 20 years. It’s like I missed a couple of Prison Break episodes, and even if things get cleaned up (which they might), I’m not going to be able to get back into it. And as long as I'm not into it, I will fail as a fantasy baseball owner.
And if you think that that last paragraph was just an effort to justify the fact that I’m lazy and uninformed and that that’s really why I suck at fantasy baseball, well, you're probably right.
Later gators.
It’s a crisp evening in the fall of 2001, and I’m standing in my shower--drunk--considering the possibility that I suck at baseball.
Roughly two hours ago, Noah Wishau, a Shrek-like freshman about whom I remember almost nothing except that he had massive fingers, was doing his best Sandy Koufax impression when I told him that I was going to pitch the last inning of our intrasquad scrimmage. Wishau had held our opposition to a single run in the fourth game of our Fall Ball World Series, but my senior year was going to be the year that I emerged as our closer, and as we were nursing a 2-1 lead, this was my opportunity to prove it. Moments later, after putting two runners on base, I served up a splitter to Luke Hagel that he hit 900 feet into leftfield. I left the field, stopped at Piggly Wiggly to pick up a 6-pack of Leinenkugel’s, then locked myself in my apartment and guzzled down the Leinie’s. The bottom line, I decided as I took a sip from my beer and felt the steam rise up around me, was that I was a bad, bad baseball player.
Six years later, I retroactively forgive myself for serving up the gopherball to Luke because I have come to the conclusion that no matter how bad a real baseball player I was, I am twice as bad at fantasy baseball.
So I got myself a 6-pack of Leinie’s, climbed in the shower, and tried to figure out why I suck at fantasy baseball. There are 3 reasons:
1. I don’t work during the summer. I am currently in 1st place in one of my fantasy football leagues and 2nd place in the other. And this is largely because the first thing I do when I get to work every day is spend half an hour doing research. Because I have nothing better to do. But from June until August, I have better things to do (i.e. lying on the couch, eating pizza for breakfast, etc.). If you do a little checking, you’ll find that I was in the top 4 teams in the league for the first 2 months of this season, but as soon as I stopped spending my day in front of a computer, the bottom fell out.
A subreason here is that I’m lazy. Obviously, I have computer access at home. I just don’t usually feel like checking my team. At one point this summer, Hagel posted something about how he had searched to try to find a computer but ultimately been unable to make a change to his line-up one Saturday morning and therefore lost points because a positional player on his bench had had a good day. (The details of that story may be fuzzy, but that’s the gist.) I thought, Wow. It would never occur to me in a million years to put that much effort into a line-up change. Anyway, I think that guys with regular jobs have a huge fantasy baseball advantage.
2. In fantasy baseball, it’s really hard to dig yourself out of a hole. I read an article this summer about how 6 weeks into the season, it’s almost impossible to make up more than a point or 2 difference in any particular category. I had suspected as much because no matter what I did to my team--and I did legitimately try for a while there--I would end the week in roughly the same place where I began the week. If you were going to make a jump, you would really need to know what you were doing. And the subreason here is that I don’t actually know what I’m doing.
3. Barry Bonds used steroids. Seriously, I couldn't care less about professional baseball. It's just not possible. Now, I played and I currently coach baseball, so I care about the sport. I just don’t care about it at the professional level. It’s possible that it’s because I don’t really enjoy watching it when I don’t have a personal stake in it, but I have an alternative theory, and it has to do with Prison Break. The Fox show Prison Break began in the fall of 2005, and I loved it. Watched every episode, and spent the whole week waiting for the next one. I hadn’t been this excited about a television show since Dawson’s Creek. But then, the American Idol season began, which meant that there was a 3-month gap between the beginning and the end of Prison Break. And when it started again, I was busy with baseball, so I missed a couple episodes. And everyone knows that when you miss a couple episodes in the middle, you sort of lose interest. So now I don’t watch Prison Break anymore.
I think that everything that’s happened in baseball between 1985 and now has had one irreversible negative impact on the sport. It has screwed up the two things that are most important to professional baseball: history and numbers. I used to like baseball because it was the only sport where you could reasonably compare players across generations. (This obviously isn’t the only reason I liked it, but it was a part of it.) And now that’s not true because I don’t know what’s real and what’s not. I’ve heard people say that Bonds would have hit 750+ bombs if he hadn’t touched steroids because he was awesome before that and steroids don’t help you hit a baseball. And I think they’re right. But I’ve also heard people say that he wouldn’t have even broken 600 because his body would have broken down five years ago, and I think they’re right too. The bottom line is that I don’t know. So I kind of have to ignore the last 20 years. It’s like I missed a couple of Prison Break episodes, and even if things get cleaned up (which they might), I’m not going to be able to get back into it. And as long as I'm not into it, I will fail as a fantasy baseball owner.
And if you think that that last paragraph was just an effort to justify the fact that I’m lazy and uninformed and that that’s really why I suck at fantasy baseball, well, you're probably right.
Later gators.
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