Idiots Write About Sports

While we are on the subject of my fantasy baseball team — Wait! No! Come back, damnit! — let me address a moral dilemma that has my soul in torment just three weeks into the season. We used our top pick in the draft — and the number four pick overall — to select Vladimir Guerrero, which, as far as top picks go, is a pretty good one to make, This is the defending American League MVP after all, and his fantasy numbers to date this season — .351, 12 runs, 12 RBIs, 5 homers, and even two stolen bases from a guy who, in the sage words of Catfish Stew, “walks around like he’s sixty years old and needs hip replacement surgery.” Vlad is the sort of player that makes dumb fantasy baseball owners look smart as whips, and frankly, Jason and I need all the help we can get.

As vital as Guerrero is to my made-up baseball fortunes — and we’ll need every gaudy stat from him we can get, especially after the alien currently assuming the form of Brian Roberts returns to his home world — he is doubly important to the Anaheim Angels’ real-life success. And, as a fan of the Oakland Athletics, this poses something of a conflict of interest for me. Because, really, the best thing that could happen to the A’s — besides learning how to hit against recycled flotsam like Pedro Astacio, of course — would be for Vladimir Guerrero to… well, I wouldn’t want to wish misfortune on another human being, certainly not one as seemingly cool as Vlad. So let’s just say, if he were to suddenly go AWOL only to re-appear next November from his self-imposed exile sporting a cure for cancer, a newly recorded folk album with captivating beats and socially penetrating lyrics, and an important message about finding your bliss even if it means dooming your Orange County-based baseball team to a postseason-free campaign, well, that wouldn’t be entirely bad from my perspective as an A’s fan.

Even though it would crush my fantasy team.

So that’s what I’m going to have to wrestle with all season. And not just when the A’s lock up with the Angels and the A’s fan part of my brain (“Hooray! We held Guerrero to just one hit in the first two games!”) does battle with the fantasy/mercernary part (“What? Just one hit? Damnit!”) — I’m going to go through this each time I scan the box scores, exult in a Guerrero home run, and immediately feel just a little bit dirty inside.

For as it says in the scripture, what does it profit a man if he should contend for his fantasy baseball league prize pool but lose his soul? I susepct I shall find out soon enough.

In those cases, what I usually do is root for the opponent, in this case Vlad, to go off, but for the eight guys around him to drop dead and give my team- here the A's- the win. My fantasy stats look good, my team wins, no downside. It's not like it doesn't happen; every so often you hear about, say, Allen Iverson dropping 50 on someone, and the 76ers still lose.

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