But enough about that……

I’m just looking forward to Opening Day. Then the real sport of fantasy baseball can begin. One team of mine has been drafted so far, and although my pitching staff has suffered a few last minute injuries, overall (on paper) I look poised to take this league. Now, if only I can get such a squad in the other one. Just out of curiosity, is it wrong to want to join a third league? I don’t have a problem…honest.

I’m keeping is short and sweet for now. This is mainly due to the fact that other than the crotchety old man that shot and killed his wife, then called 911, there hasn’t been anything that’s happened out there in the last two weeks worth commenting on. Sad, but true. Oh, unless you count my feat of picking the Final Four correctly for the first time that I can remember. All in all, I took a total of eight losses in my brackets….granted two of them were opening round teams that I picked to go deep, but who’s complaining. Now if only I’d have entered a bracket pool this year. Just my luck.

Wow, man shoots wife & my bracket domination….yep, it was a memorable two weeks.

~Enjoy

Sorry, maybe I should have said cleared of committing a double homicide.

The fact of the matter is, that now, years after his name was cleared in what was one of the most publicized trials of the 20th Century, O.J. Simpson is confessing. Well, maybe not confessing, but our lovable running back is now trying to tell his version of how he ‘would have’ killed Nicole and Ron. I’m wondering, was this to fill the need of telling the public how things really happened? Was O.J. just sick of all the speculation surrounding the events? Maybe he’s just had a lot of time to concoct the perfect double murder during the many years that he’s been trying to find the real killer.

I’m sorry, but to come out with a ‘speculative’ book about how your ex-wife and her boyfriend ‘may have’ died (when you were put on trial for the deaths) just smells like O.J. Simpson is trying to show the world just how big his brass balls are. Or were, considering that the book and subsequent TV special has been, for the time being, shelved due to public uproar. This is understandable, considering that it’s akin to Scott Peterson choosing to teach children to swim if he’d have been punished with only community service instead of the death penalty. As for O.J.’s book, at least we would have finally had the chance to hear, in my opinion, the most accurate account of how the deaths occurred. I mean, who better to tell the story than the kill…er…. man that was at one time accused of the killings(**did you get the pun).

That little tid-bit right there is probably the most intriguing news story to come out over the last week, unless you take into consideration the people that were robbed, shot at, shot, and swore off showers, all in the hopes of securing a Play Station 3. Whoopty-freakin-doo!!! Way to sacrifice countless precious minutes/hours of your life in order to buy something that will be $100 cheaper in 6-8 months. I’ve played one of the ‘Next Generation’ is video games already, and while they are phenomenal in graphics and all the good stuff, I just can’t see spending $600, plus the cost of an extra controller, plus any number of accessories to make the system fully functional. Call me crazy, but for the time being (this week) I’ll continue ravishing myself with the games of the first generation XBox. I mean hey, the PS3 is certainly no Zune. Yes that’s a joke, and yes you should laugh.

Fantasy Update: In the past two weeks, my ‘big money’ team has climbed from a $158 deficit to a $10 profit. Thank you Ocho Cinco and Carson. Who says Christmas comes after Thanksgiving? For this small accomplishment, I give you a new Terry Tate, new feature presentations, and new links. You can thank me later. Oh, and people in Washington, what’s with the animal love? For the love of god, I like animals, but I show my admiration in different ways that don’t involve orifices.

~Enjoy

**kill…er, put them together and there you go.

Sure, I could move to Cincinnati, but that’s a bit extreme. I could also plunk down the money for the NFL package, but that’s beside the point. The point is, network TV should use better judgement when deciding what to show when there are no local teams playing in the time slot. Needless to say, it would have been more exciting to watch the Texans/NY Giants game. Where am I going with this? No clue. I’m just bitter about the broadcast schedule of the NFL this year. I have yet to come across more than 2 or 3 games (other than the Raiders games) that I truly enjoyed. All the while, there are quite a few games that don’t wind up on TV here that would have been much better options than the drivel I’ve been forced to sit through. It’s reminiscent of the Monday Night Football schedule two years ago in which week after week the matchups included sub .500 teams battling it out in lackluster performances. FOX, CBS, are you listening? Don’t be ‘that’ network.

That’s right, we soared back. Climbing 10 spots in order to take over #1 and win by a commanding 21.5 point margin. How did we do it you ask? Well, with brains, an almost psychotic commitment to the stats and the situations, and not pressing my players. The team knew that Ryan Howard was the real deal so they should just be trying to compliment him and the shortstop machine of Miguel Tejada (how can you not take him every year, no-brainer). Adding Frank Thomas back to the team after a 10 day trial-run was also much needed for the clubhouse to offset the young inexperience of the team. Frank responded to the second opportunity to hit out of his shorts for the final 3 months of the season. Aramis Ramirez came on in the clutch too, breaking out of a 3 month slump in order to pull his average up from around the Mendoza line, to almost .300 and get the RBI and HR numbers to right on the mark with his career. The hitters were just needing to warm themselves up. That much talent wasn’t going to stay dormant forever, but it was the pitching that really stood out on this year’s team.

Deciding early on in the season, after being ladened with marginal mid to late career starters such as Jake Westbrook, and Jared Washburn, the decision was made to drop the dead weight and make a commitment to youth. We also decided that the Zach Duke experiment wasn’t going to pay off. So the influx of young, unproven talent came in with the likes of Justin Verlander, Jarred Weaver, Scott Olsen, and John Maine. Other decent performances from spot starters Jeff Francis, and Esteban Loiaza provided a good compliment to the cornerstones of Scott Kasmir (until injury shut him down) and Jeremy Bonderman down the stretch.

Relief was also a department that bounced out to an early season jump, thanks to hot starts from Derrick Turnbow, Huston Street, and Jason Isringhausen. Of course with the injuries or in Turnbow’s case, implosion, the team turned to the acquisitions of Clay Meredith, Seth McClung, and Salomon Torres, not losing the league lead in stats until the final 10 days of the season. Wire to almost wire for that one.

All in all it was a complete team effort, and a great job by the front office. Here’s to back-to-back and belly-to-belly in 2007!!!!

As for the other league…well, it was a head-to-head league, not my preferred set-up but I adjusted. I didn’t feel the need for much roster adjusment because with a couple of pickups such as Thomas, Weaver, and Olsen on that team too, I thought we had the best out there.

I played come from behind on that league all year. Overcoming 26 games back in the standings at the All Star Break to take the #1 spot in the playoffs by just 1 game. The playoffs would prove to be more of the same. Eeking a round in the semis to face the team who I came back to overtake in the regular season. That was a flip-flop series back and forth for two weeks. Until on the final day of the season, I moved ahead in hits, 1B’s, and HR’s en route to a 15-12 victory.

Two leagues, two titles, 1 thing in common: both are managed by me. Arguably the biggest brain in fantasy baseball today.