Looking back it seems like I'd always known her. She lived round the corner from me and our parents vaguely knew each other through a mutual friend they both occasionally hung out with. We ended up going to the same school and shared the same classes and the same jokes and somehow grew up together. Sure, I knew there were other girls who seemed more attractive to the other boys and there were definitely other females with more money and more prospects but somehow she always seemed to be right for me and I didn't care about much apart from that. Nothing ever happened between us though until a few years ago when we first started seeing each other. It was one of those summers that you only actually understand when you're a bit older and have that bit more perspective. Only then can you see that, while we both reveled in the moment, neither of us properly believed that it would end with something truly special. And, although we both shared a brief glimpse into the possibilities back one September Sunday we never truly thought that there was a “we” and that “we” could make it.

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The other night millions of people across the world joined together, united as one in a way not seen ever before, as they watched, full of anticipation, as the BCB Fantasy League III season drew to a climax. Warring tribes crouched in harmony in front of ageing transistor radios, long-time rivals buried the hatchet and, lo, even the very lions and lambs lay down together. No, not in that sense – but you get what I mean. Indeed, the world truly stopped as they awaited the final results. Well, I didn't so much await the final results as others might have given that I was on a hellish trip to London that involved me returning home on Friday having got completely and utterly lost, having to catch a later train and missing my connection meaning three hours of rubbish sleep in a heavily overgrown garden at the front of some office in the centre of Edinburgh which I could only access by almost breaking my ankles undertaking a drunken jump down an underpass. I like to keep it classy. I'm seeing it as an experiment in seeing what it is like to live in St Louis.

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Hi there guys! Only just back from a long weekend trip with my son to Legoland made even longer by the delights of a 2 hour rail delay so I've almost no knowledge of the baseball news of the last few days. Well, I did have a dream that we resigned Manyan, reintroduced the old mug for Bernie to slide into and crushed the Cardinals so hard that LaRussa turned sober but, in the absence of any information to the contrary, I'm treating that very much as fact. Apart from the LaRussa thing – that'd never happen. Still, we now know the finalists for this year's BCB Fantasy League III and, again, having dreamt recently that I'm in the final I've rearranged the matches to make it happen (or perhaps not)...

Semi-finals

MSKM (530) lost to More Than A Feeling (659)

While I've never really been one for doing crosswords (mainly on the basis that I'm crap at them) I do like cool facts about words. Earlier today I learnt that the longest English word that doesn't repeat any letters is “uncopyrightable” which means I'll have to shoehorn the word into more conversations so I can show off (you might be surprised on hearing that fact to learn I am currently single). Every one feels a slight frisson of excitement when seeing words like “skiing” with its rare double-i formation, but I've recently heard that “rupturewort” is the longest word that can be typed using solely keys on the top row of letter keys on the keyboard. My most-repeated lexicographic fact is that the only commonly-used words in English (excluding loads of scientific or medical terms that I'm hereby declaring to be worthless) to have all five vowels in them in the correct order are “abstemious” and “facetious”. Actually, given the relatively “meh” showing of my team during the last fortnight I might as well stick to stupidly-useless word facts instead of fantasy baseball. MTAF put up a big day relatively early on and then sneaked a few points each day until he built a 100 point advantage that he was in no danger of losing. Kershaw and Madson (both 66) definitely did the business, but with the exception of Pence (51) and Markakis (50) the hitters never really put enough points on the board. Ianetta (3), Garrett Jones (1) and, surprise surprise, Mr 24ks himself Mark Reynolds (2) all failed when the pressure was on. MTAF was remarkably consistent with MadBum scoring 81 and a host of scores in the 40s from the likes of Ian Kennedy (49), Bautista (46), Carlos Lee and Ajax (both 45) and Cole Hamels (43). The team has been highly consistent all season and now MTAF is only one game away from winning it all.

Bringing Home the Bacon (617) beat Stinky Cheese (613)

Most of us know the feeling from school sports days. You're on the starting line, nervous as hell. You know there's loads of people watching and the pressure is on. The gun goes and as soon as the race starts you realise your best hope is avoiding complete and utter humiliation. That's what Stephen Bradbury felt when lining up in the Winter Olympic 2002 final having got through the qualifying round due to a disqualification, fluked his way through the semi-final due to three of the racers colliding with each other and sliding out and the winner being disqualified. As far as outsiders go, he was without doubt one of the rankest ever. And yet, and yet the unexpected can happen. Much as despite my fear of public humiliation when attempting to swim was completely erased by my come-from-behind victory in the school swimming gala (I lie – I was, in fact, publicly humiliated instead) Stephen Bradbury became a legend in the most unexpected circumstances. Watch this and then you'll finally understand the logic behind the biggest sporting cliché in existence, namely that speed skating events aren't played on paper. If anyone deserved to win Australia and the Southern Hemisphere's first ever Winter Olympics gold medal it was probably a guy who in 1994 lost 4 litres (litres!) of blood and 111 stitches after a fellow skater's blade slashed his thigh and six years later broke his neck in a training accident and was told he should never skate again. Admittedly, its an impressive story but not quite as impressive as BhtB's stupendous rise from being almost bottom of the power rankings a few weeks ago to making his way to the most important game in the history of sport: The BCB League III final, overcoming a 30 point deficit to sneak ahead of SC by a mere five points. James Shields' 74 points was the bedrock of his success with some nifty one-start pitching paying off as well. Carlos Pena (49), Juan Pierre (41) and surprise package Jerome Williams (40) were also big factors in his success. If SC is to spend the rest of his life hating any man it will be John Lester whose -14 points on the last day cost him dearly, but -15 over the fortnight from Daniel Bard and poor scores from Jeffs Francis (-14) and Niemann (-11) didn't help either.

Less meaningful matches

Poughkeepsie Footpickers (549) beat Bumpin' Ugglas (530)

Every so often you come across something just so weird that you wonder why you've never heard of it before. For example, we've all heard repeatedly on the pages of BCB about the Opium Wars in China and how the 18th Century Brits (ably assisted by the Americans) sold tonnes of Opium to China despite the Chinese trying to stop the trade. However, BCB has, until now, been suspiciously quiet on the 1931 great curry powder scandal in Japan where unscrupulous dealers were caught selling cheap domestic curry powder having rebranded it as the more prestigious Crosse & Blackwell brand leading to a notably international diplomatic incident? Sounds strange to us now but perhaps not so weird back then. But then again, Chipper Jones being fit enough to get 41 crucial points for PF seems a bit strange too given that 41 is normally the number of days he is on the DL (out of any randomly selected 41 days during the season). Still, PF sneaked a win thanks to Ellsbury and Moscoso each contributing 51 and assistance from Jones, Pujols (43), Andrus and Bonifacio (both 41). BU couldn't quite compete due mainly to a poor pitching line-up that over-relied on Daniel Hudson's 75 points. Hosmer (68) and Pagan (43) were the only BU hitters to muster more than 33 points as he slipped down the standings...

Social Anxiety All-Stars (451) lost to Little Lebowski Under-Achievers (493)

I've never seen Public Enemy live in concert, but a decade or so ago I saw Chuck D give a speech at a local university. He took a bit of time to get going but eventually it was just about worth the rather exorbitant £12 I spent on a ticket but definitely was not as good as seeing PE in full effect, bwoy. Tbh, I'd kinda forgotten about it all until the other day when I again came across Chuck D's arguments on the Internet about why Tupac faked his death. At the time the arguments seemed really risible and now they seem even more laughable. Chuck's 12 points include the suggestions that 'Pac faked his death because he died on Friday 13th (traditionally no-one dies on that day), the assailants couldn't have hidden in Las Vegas because it has such a small black community (!!), because Las Vegas is so corrupt there's loads of people who could have helped cover it up, his upcoming album was under the name Makaveli when Machiavelli faked his own death and had a picture of Tupac as Christ who, famously, was resurrected. Of course, any rap star worth his salt raps about dying and has delusions of grandeur. I wonder if Chuck still holds to his belief that Shakur is alive and reckons that in a few years he'll reappear as a 50 year-old living in Havana? Doubtless he'll possibly state that LLUA couldn't have beaten SAAS as they did not live up to their name and under-achieve and therefore must be some sort of imposter. After all, is it reasonable to assume that Jason Motte will topscore with 49 points and Marcos Scutaro be second with 38? Very suspicious indeed... Still, it was enough to see off SAAS who had superlative pitching through CJ Wilson (80), Javier Vazquez (73) and King Felix (56) but not much else.

Phoenix Fire (485) lost to Gold Glove Gamels (519)

One of the things that British people find hard to come to terms with about America and sports is the compulsion with college sport. Sure, there's a fair amount of misunderstanding based on lack of knowledge about the role of college sports and their importance within areas that might not have a major team within hundreds of miles but you're likely to get strange assumptions such as that college football is as popular as the NFL (a statement in the recent UK version of Esquire that could have been sorted by an elementary Google search). Mind you, perhaps there is just more pride in your Alma Mater in the States than over here. Saying that, its possibly well-known in the States that more of the 56 signees of the Declaration of Independence were from Harvard than any other University. But I bet it is slightly less well-known that apart from Harvard, no other university had more of its graduates signing the document than the University of Edinburgh. OK, so it had two people signing it (John Witherspoon and Benjamin Rush) and I'm not really convinced that no other American university had more than two signees but that's good enough for me – of course, as a University of Edinburgh graduate I would say that though. Still, the education I got there was enough to help me recognise when someone is out for revenge and GGG continues his one-man mission to prove he should have been in the winning play-offs as he overcomes PF in a tight one. Fister (72) and Halladay (57) kept PF in contact through much of the fortnight but his hitters underperformed and he couldn't live with Cliff Lee (68), Putz (45), Kimbrel (44) and one-man Crew-destroyer Rafael Furcal (40).

The Braun Supremacy (395) beat Harvey's Wallbangers (360)

Now, Noam Chomsky is somewhat of a divisive figure and with BCB being a resolutely non-political site its not really appropriate to go into most of his views, but his view of sport is an interesting one and reveals that, even if you accept his controversial political views, he really can be relatively clueless. Firstly, there's the “bread and circuses” view that sports are convenient alternatives that serve the function of stopping people from getting involved in things that matter conjuring an image of a dystopian future where sports or entertainment do not take place as people get their pure enjoyment from discussing changes in the autonomous community's attempts to devise an economic structure based around Parecon. Secondly, there's his view based on listening to sports talk radio that “the more striking fact is, the callers have a tremendous amount of expertise” and that these discussions and use of arithmetic in sports discussions shows “that people just want to use their intelligence somehow”. In actual fact, discussions about sports on talk radio pretty much mirror political discussions: lots of hot air, ill-informed comments, extrapolation on the basis of a small number of incidents and partisanship taken to ridiculous levels. Of course, that shouldn't be surprising at all, given that the same basic processes are involved in discussing sports and discussing politics but to Chomsky it is all a surprise. Given that he was born in Philadelphia perhaps you'd have thought he'd be aware of the true primitive and obsessive nature of most fan-dom but I guess he hasn't been paying much attention to battery-throwing and Santa Claus-booing over the years. Still, he's probably paid more attention to fantasy baseball than TBS who hasn't changed his team in months but still manages to win the odd game. Kinsler (72) has been on fire for him recently, with decent support from Fat Mo Rivera's 54 points (OK, so he's not at all fat but the name sounds cool) and nice points from David Murphy (51) and V-Mart (50). HW only had Matt Kemp scoring above 40 (41) although Wandy and Soria were only just behind (both 39).

The Team That I Refuse to Name (274) lost to Chin Music (311)

I'd never really thought of him as an author, but the other day I read that Walt Disney was the most translated author of all time. Even when you think about it having Disney as number one seems strange, but the fact that he and Agatha Christie are both more translated than the Bible seems to say something about the world and our priorities that I didn't imagine would be true. To be honest, the rest of the list is equally surprising, with Lenin, Verne, Cartland, Blyton, Shakespeare, Hans Christian Andersen and Brothers Grimm making up the rest of the top ten. Lenin is, for sure, on the slide due to the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and only Verne and Shakespeare can be really called classic authors. I suppose Verne's prominence and Shakespeare being only at number eight is due to the fact that with most people reading English there is more need for translations into English than into French but I'd guess I could have sat for an hour and perhaps guessed no more than two or three of the names. Given his recent form I could pretty much have guessed that TTTIRTN would lose this one and he didn't disappoint. David Wright scored 40 and Joel Hanrahan 37 as he put up a weak overall score. When only one player on your team scores above 37 (Jason Bay with 48) and your pitching “contributes” -13 points and you still win, as CM did, you can count yourself kinda lucky...

Craig Counsell's Steakhouse (210) lost to Never Gonna Give You Upton (388)

As recommended by the good readers of BCB I recently delved into the world of American history by purchasing Paul Johnson's “A History of the American People”. Its a purchased I'm already delighted with for two reasons. Firstly, I finally have a replacement for my recently sold set of golf clubs in the role of “item I'll use to clobber any intruder with”. Secondly, a brief flick through taught me that the most recognised word in English is “OK”, with the second most recognised being “Coca Cola” although perhaps in the years since the book was written “MacDonalds” might be pushing it close. Actually, third most recognised English word or name is probably LaRussaSucks. OK, so its not really a word, but then, to the Cardinals, every other baseball team isn't really a baseball team as they are the sole group playing up to the high standards demanded by the arbiters of the national pastime (which, coincidentally, is themselves). Certainly the moral judges of all that is right and proper would want a serious word with CCS who scored only 210 points in the fortnight to possibly put up the worst performance of the season. How a team can only total 210 points when Miggy hits 53 and Ryan Howard and Vlad Guerrero both get 50 is almost unfathomable, particularly when Cano got 37 and Keppinger another 30. Mind you, when your pitching across two weeks scores -81 points (-81 POINTS!!!!) almost anything is possible. Every single one of the six pitchers the team put up scored negative points. Every single one of them. That made it easy for NGGYU who cruised in behind Justin Upton (53), Ichiro (45) and Gaby Sanchez (43).

Nest week's matches

The BIG ONE as Bringing Home the Bacon (blue corner, Scotland) takes on More Than A Feeling (red corner, USA) for the overall title. MSKM takes on Stinky Cheese in the bronze medal position while Mr Irrelevant/Lanterne Rouge will be either Craig Counsell's Steakhouse or TTTIRTN. A few week's ago I'd have predicted TTTIRTN taking the title but CCS showed some excellent bad form last week and must be hoping that his superlatively poor pitching can live down to their reputation.

Long-time Premier of the People's Republic of China Chou Enlai was once asked what he thought of the French Revolution and replied that he wasn't sure as it was too early to tell. While Enlai's wry commentary on Marxist historiography was vaguely amusing it probably would have been better applied to the BCB Fantasy Baseball League III where the gruelling schedule continues on and it appears we've been playing for about 14 years. Still, things are getting as tense as an innocent farmer being interrogated as a “bourgeois pig” by members of Mao's Red Guard as we move on to the semi-final stages of the competition after an upset in the quarters and two immense performances by teams in the consolation ladder.

Weekly review

Promotion playoffs

Bringing Home the Bacon (542) beat Bumpin' Ugglas (537)

Not many people have heard of Tsutomo Yamaguchi but the guy should be regarded as some type of hero and legend. As a Japanese businessman, Yamaguchi was unlucky enough to be in Hiroshima on a business trip on August 6th 1945 and being relatively close to where the bomb landed suffered severe burns to his upper body. Of course, there was no real medical facilities available to many people in the city who survived the attack so Yamaguchi did what many of us would have done and headed to his hometown where he could get support. So, Yamaguchi headed off the next day to his hometown, Nagasaki, arriving just in time for the dropping of the second atomic bomb. Yamaguchi survived that attack too, making him the only officially certified survivor of both atom bombs although others are believed to have survived both bombings too. He died recently aged 93 of stomach cancer, having gone on to work for the US forces after the war as a translator and then as a teacher, also giving numerous talks recently on his experiences. It says a lot about our perceptions of fate that he's referred to in newspaper articles as “lucky” when the truth is a good deal more complex. Similarly, BhtB may appear lucky for edging out BU in this week but things are slightly more awkward as the game does involve some skill and even a small edge may be down to a superior tactical awareness or the willingness to take risks that may pay off. Or it may just be pure luck, but ultimately he's not going to be complaining. Certainly not after 56 from Tulo and nice performances from Mike Minor (40) and Mitch Moreland (30) although a number of the starters he picked up for streaming didn't appear to really work out this time. GGG ran him soooo close as Desmond Jennings (54) had a massive final day that just wasn't big enough and CarGo raked to the tune of 79 points. His pitching was based on the twin relievers of Coco Cordero (54) and Sean Marshall (32) as he just failed to win his way through. As eminent 1980's philosopher Kurtis Blow hypothesised, these are the breaks...

Poughkeepsie Footpickers (348) lost to MSKM (574)

If you're looking for a country that appears exotic, strange and decidedly different to the USA there's not all that many possibilities. Despite claims of Americanisation, there's plenty of countries with distinct cultures out there, but would you really claim Krygistan or Chad are exotic. Sure, there's places out there like Mongolia or North Korea but their reputation for difference is so frequently repeated that its become almost cliched. The only real contender, in my mind at least, is Paraguay. Hide-out of Nazi war criminals, ruled by a strange dictator for much of the latter half of the last century there's not much really known about the place. However, Paraguay has punched above its weight, most notably in the War of the Triple Alliance where, led by crazed leader Francisco Lopez they decided to take on Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay in a blood bath with estimates suggesting that a majority of the entire population of Paraguay died in the war. Lopez/s one stroke of inspiration was appointing a young British engineer, George Thompson, to prepare fortifications in the war. Despite the fact Thompson had absolutely no previous experience in this line of work it proved to be inspired. Thompson firstly managed to halt the hugely impressive Brazilian fleet by the simple tactic of stretching iron chains across the river they were sailing up, making it almost impossible for them to pass. He then devised an intricate system of defence at Curupayty, rejecting the standard formula for placement of guns, resulting in the complete failure of an Argentinian attack which left 9,000 Argentinians dead for the loss of only 54 Paraguayan soldiers. Paraguay was not safe though, as unseasonably wet weather finally allowed the Brazilian fleet to pass Thompson's chains. Thompson attacked with mass cannon fire and then, after the Brazilian fleet had passed, dismantled the guns legged it 15 miles up the riverbank overtaking the Brazilians in the process and thus opening fire on the astonished sailors a second time with the same guns. Thompson spent the rest of the war pulling off more astonishing feats of engineering, ending up after the war returning to Paraguay and sorting out the nation's railway service, having a town named after him in the country due to his wartime heroics. Sure, Paraguay was completely devastated by the war and Thompson is completely unknown in his homeland, but his efforts were at least recognised in his adopted country. Equally deserving of recognition is the massive efforts of Votto (69), Gavin Floyd (52) and Clayton Kershaw (49) in helping MSKM put up the second-highest score of the week and leave PF knocked-out of the main tournament. PF did have some monster performers of his own, with YoGa (63), Ellsbury (54) and Avila (47) scoring highly, but was seriously seriously and, yes, seriously let down by his pitching. In a two-week match-up an average pitching score might be about 150-200. A score of 100 would be disappointing and one of 50 very dismal. So what do we say of a staff that in 14 days puts up a total of 4.2? If there's one player that will cause the very bile to rise in PF's throat it will be AJ Burnett and his -35 performance this week. Of course, that's the case with loads of Yankees fans so it won't be like PF will feel on his own...

Social Anxiety All-Stars (320) lost to More Than A Feeling (462)

Another day, another country throwing off its outdated regime, embracing its “freedom fighters” and moving on to a more hopeful, if not necessarily substantially better, future. After the rapid changes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya regime change all seems relatively straightforward and as inevitable as opposing fans getting riled by Nyjer Morgan. Look back 30 years ago to Eastern Europe, however, and the removal of the totalitarian regimes seemed almost impossible – sure, there was a distinct feeling that many in the country might not be entirely convinced by governmental claims and there were enough samizdat publishers to keep the embers of rebellion smouldering but any actual change seemed light years away. However, at least the form of political rebellion took innately political forms of underground activity. Way back in the Russia of the 1860's things were very different. Sure, the Narodnik  movement was just kicking off and seeds of dissent were starting but it all seems strange that the main form of political protest was getting completely pissed. Classical composer Mussorgsky (who wrote Night on Bald Mountain which was famously used in Fantasia) was a stereotypical example, getting drunk with his friends and seeing it as ethical opposition to the Tsar. As one writer stated, “talented people in Russia who love the simple folk cannot but drink”. Unfortunately Mussorgsky became an alcoholic, was sacked from his work and died just before his 42nd birthday. Still, if a genius such as Mussorgsky claims that bevvying is a political statement then I'm more than happy to indulge in some political activism of my own, providing that I can manage to get some of that Morgan Spiced they have on offer on Tesco at the moment... I wouldn't ever seriously advocate alcoholism (at least I wouldn't admit to it on this site) but its certainly an option that could be open to SAAS after getting easily defeated by MTAF despite him not putting up his usual high-score. SAAS had Josh Hamilton (41) and Teixeira (49) to thank for a reasonable batting performance but his pitching score of 99 was a touch below par, although Aceves (44) and Gio Gonzales (33) did their best. In turn, MTAF didn't do any better in terms of pitching with an overall score of 78 thanks mainly to 39 from Ian Kennedy but that didn't matter as his hitting m-a-s-h-e-d with Longoria (50), Butler (48), Russell Martin (42) and Victorino (39) putting up sufficient points to ensure a satisfactory victory.

Little Lebowski Under-Achievers (383) lost to Stinky Cheese (553)

While medical advances are on the whole to be welcomed (as noted a while ago, I'm still not willing to embrace modern medicine until they stop their tedious search for a cancer cure and devote more much-needed cash to curing my incipient baldness) they often take the mystery out of what were once intriguing mysteries, such as the case of Peter the Wild Boy. Found naked in a German forest at the start of the 18th century he was taken to the King's court in London and treated as a novel freak on account of the fact he could not speak, walked on all fours, repeatedly tried to pick people's pockets, ate with his hands and had to be forced to wear clothes. Speculation at the time suggested that he had been brought up by bears or wolves and was a truly feral child who could not be taught to survive in more civilised surroundings. Just recently, modern medical knowledge combined with analysis of a surviving painting of Peter has probably solved the mystery, suggesting that he suffered from Pitt-Hopkins Syndrome, a genetic condition that has severe effects on development. Interestingly, although the court rapidly tired of Peter they sent him to live on a farm in Hertfordshire where, by all accounts, he lived his remaining years in relative happiness. Its kinda similar to LLUA being put out to pasture by SC where he can now gambol happily with the other defeated quarter-finalists. Jeter (46), Bourjos (44), Beachy (42), Bell (34) and Crawford (30) scored well but without too much support. SC cruised to victory mainly thanks to some storming pitching from Lester (61), Verlander (57) and Niemann (44) with Fielder (36) and Lawrie (35) leading the hitting scoring. The big question is whether those three pitchers can repeat now the pressure is on?

Consolation ladder

Harvey's Wallbangers (567) lost to Gold Glove Gamels (622)

There was a survey the other day looking at the most frequently used words in certain types of music. IIRC, the results for pop music showed that unexcitingly, the word “the” was the most common word, but the 4th, 3rd and 2nd most used were “I”, “love” and “you”. Mind you, more interesting is how certain words lead to a particular impression of a song that might not be realistic. Take the word “dear” and its use in popular songs. On the one hand, its used in a simplistic literal way in such songs as Tupac's “Dear Mama”, an ode to his mother that was part of Shakur's relatively cynical attempt to ensure that he cornered every possible market on all his songs – I'm sure there are plenty of rap afficionados who look back with affection at the time when LL Cool J's rendition of “I Love You” at Hammersmith Odeon resulting in a severe bottling due to its subject matter and wish the same would follow Shakur's love song to his Mum. As everyone knows, it ain't cool to have feelings. On the other, the word “dear” is part of two of the oddest songs in modern music. Firstly, there's The Beatles' “Martha My Dear” which, although an ode to McCartney's love interest Jane Asher, was primarily inspired by his English Sheepdog, Martha. Must have made Asher think twice when she found that out... Secondly, there's Marvin Gaye's “Here My Dear”, his heart-rending chronicling of his failed relationship with Anna Gordy (sister of Motown guru Berry Gordy). While I adore Gaye's voice and think the album only fails to be recognised as a classic due to being overshadowed by “What's Going On” it is almost unlistenable in its intensity. Similarly intense was this crazy battle in the top ladder match, with both teams going ballistic. HW was led by some excellent hitting, primarily from Granderson (64), Aramis Ramirez (56) and Howie Kendrick (55) while Axford (46) and Danks (42) led a slightly quieter pitching staff. GGG made more weekly changes than HW and it paid off as his pitchers contributed 344 points, with Price (64), Cliff Lee (47) and Craig Kimbrel (39) leading the charge while only Mike Napoli (43) scored over 40 on the hitters side of the equation. These two may well meet again in the consolation ladder final and a repeat of this high-scoring match could be on the cards...

Chin Music (379) lost to Phoenix Fire (493)

In the rush to make a instant name for yourself there often tends to be a temptation to take short cuts. Why should you be like Nyjer Morgan and slog your guts out at 6 in the morning when you can indulge in cheap tricksterism and shady deals to make it to the top? Well, its either that or appearing on Reality TV and that requires a dedication to self-delusion that few mortals truly possess. My favourite example is cult punk band The Dwarves, best known for having one-time Queens of the Stone Age bassist and potential felon Nick Oliveri as an early member, and their 1993 stunt. One of the band had the smart idea to claim that their guitarist, Wisconsin native, “Hewhocannotbenamed” had been stabbed in a fight in Philadelphia, going so far as to keep the guitarist hidden for months and attaching references to his death to the linear notes in one of his albums. Convincing evidence was provided to the record label they had recently signed to (the legendary Sub Pop) and details were provided so flowers could be sent. Unfortunately, when the label found out that this was all a hoax they were none too pleased and promptly put out a press release where they publicly dropped the band for overstepping “the bounds of media manipulation and self-promotion”. As far as stunts go it was a hell of a lot more interesting than half the rubbish that Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren used to come up with, but you can't really blame a record label for dropping you when you've repeatedly lied to them and made them look like idiots. By the way, if you want to see The Dwarves in action you can watch here  – Hewhocannotbenamed is the one in the wrestler's mask, the jockstrap and, err, that's it. Wisconsin in the house! CM would probably rather take the entirely opposite approach to anonymity and hide in his flooded basement for the next couple of weeks after getting roundly defeated by PF. Ryan Braun put up 80 (!!) points this week but apart from AGon (47) and Wieters (46) there wasn't a lot. PF moves into the top ladder match with his easy win this week behind big wins for Fister (46), Jemile Weeks (40) and twin targets of Brewers ire Josh Willingham and Yadier Molina (both 37).

The Braun Supremacy (442) beat Never Gonna Give You Upton (305)

As part of my job I've occasionally needed to get involved in taking young people on outdoor education sessions. Providing the youngsters behave themselves (a relatively rare occurrence) the day normally goes fairly well providing I don't capsize my kayak because I've been too busy trying to identify ducks on the water or get stuck halfway up a rockface because I can't find a possible way to get further up and don't want to bottle it and head down. Not that either of those have ever happened of course. Before I got somewhat fit the only element of the programme I really struggled with was mountain biking due to the relentless slogging up hill that was necessary. Every session felt like a ridiculous torture as even the shallowest incline left me out of breath and struggling. As most groups were made up of young teenagers with no body fat who could zoom past me as if I were pedalling through treacle and they were a Tour de France climber it tended to be a pretty difficult afternoon. The only saving grace was that among the lean teenagers there could be guaranteed to be one or two hugely overweight kids whose bike buckled under the cumulative pressure of years of fish suppers, deep fried Mars Bars and sedentary lifestyles. Of course, the fact I was always at the back of the group was due to my desire to support and help these kids who were struggling rather that due to my own deficiencies. Or so I told everyone. Having put in the effort to get myself relatively healthy (although I'm probably still more a Prince Fielder in terms of health rather than a Rickie Weeks or Carlos Gomez) the mountain biking is a bit less of a chore but still a tough day out. Having actually had the experience of struggling up hills and trying to manoeuvre a bike along the simplest of paths makes me appreciate guys who are experts in pedalling two wheeled vehicles and can make them do almost anything. It's the level of brilliance of guys like Danny McAskill that leave me absolutely amazed. Honest, watch this for five minutes of what his fellow countrymen would call “pure dead brilliant” bike riding. True, my pleasure watching it is increased by knowing almost all the places in the film, but his bike skills are enough to amaze. However, if the bike equivalent of this match-up had ever been filmed it would be grainy two minute of a fat drunken imbecile trying to cycle down a hill without realising that his back wheel was entirely missing. Except without the humour quotient. TBS won this one fairly easily despite yet again doing nothing with his team and depending on the likes of Gordon (51), Cain (48), V-Mart (44) and Kinsler (43) to dig him out of a hole. NGGYU at least can be arsed to make an effort and for that deserves better than the miserable total he accrued this week. Ichiro and Randy Wolf both top-scored with a measly 35 points with Beckett (33), Cueto and Crisp (both 31) being the only other performers worthy of a mention.

The Team That I Refuse to Name (418) beat Craig Counsell's Steakhouse (376).

Relativity is an interesting concept. Compared to all other shortstops in the major leagues Yuni Betancourt is a relatively bad shortstop. But compare Yuni to the average guy who has never played baseball before, has a stinking hangover and has both arms in plastercasts and Yuni is still a relatively bad shortstop. You get the idea though, everything is relative. As Einstein himself stated when asked to explain his theory of relativity, "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity." I suppose though that for a bottom of the consolation ladder game this was relatively interesting as TTIRTN and CCS kept things close throughout the fortnight before TTIRTN squeezed home with the agility of Jonathan Lucroy against the Giants. Corey Hart made the difference, piling on the points in the last few days on his way to a 57 point score, ably supported by Nick Swisher (48), Chris Perez (39) and Ted Lilly (35). Ultimately, CCS couldn't quite live with that firepower, although you'd hope that when you ride to a 52 point week from Bruce Chen that the rest of your team could at least be bothered to turn up which, apart from Cano (44), Miggy (42), Andrew Miller (41) and Cappy (40), they really didn't. Still, there's a couple more chances for CCS to avoid finishing bottom of the heap...

Next week

When I was a kid there used to be serious debates about whether the future of society led in a capitalist direction led by the USA or whether the USSR's brand of communism would achieve world dominance. Reykjavik was a regular stop-off point for high-level summits, table-tennis was an international medium of diplomacy and the news was awash with bizarre new acronyms normally relating somehow to nuclear weapons as the two world behemoths faced off. Of course, while the USSR consciously folded into various constituent elements in a deliberate effort to make geography class more difficult it has since been supplanted as the leading challenger to American dominance by the chips, knives and alcohol-fuelled economy of Scotland. The entire population of both countries will be glued to the ESPN website as both countries' finest exponents of fantasy baseball meet up in the semi-final of the most important competition known to humankind. The fate of human society and civilisation depend upon the results of the following games:

MSKM (4, Scotland) vs More Than A Feeling (1, USA)

Bringing Home the Bacon (5, Scotland) vs Stinky Cheese (2, USA)

Both the American teams will be going into the matches as favourites and with a two week match time should have enough time to assert their authority but, who knows...

It's been a long-time comin'n'  but the regular season is finally finally over. From my own perspective it's taken me almost 18 weeks to realise that keeping Hong-Chi Kuo on my side in a desperate hope that he'll a) stop sucking, b) get a chance at closing is a complete waste of time. Likewise my hope that Jonathan Broxton will a) stop blocking my DL slot, b) stop sucking, c) get a chance at closing has finally receded and he's been chucked too. Now the world will marvel instead at the imposing mound presence of Koji Uehara and the immense physical specimen of pitching that is, errr, David Pauley. Still, just as the Brewers refuse to give up I refuse to stop churning out these write-ups. Just see me as the Craig Counsell figure who keeps ploughing on despite any lack of success. Hell, I haven't even got my own bobblehead yet...

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Brewers gone crazy this week with Yuniesky Betancourt proving he's not the complete lost cause we imagined he was. In geographical terms he's perhaps the North West Passage – people think there's a proper ballplayer there somewhere but it takes many attempts from many different people before that ballplayer is finally found. Or perhaps he's just crap and has hit a lucky streak, who knows? Still, if Yuni can hit golden form then perhaps there's a chance for all the teams in the fantasy baseball league? Obviously not, but with only one week of the regular season left to go there's more fire and excitement around than there is on your average day on Tottenham High Road. There's still lots to play for so on with the review of the week that I like to call the “weekly review”...

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Back once again, with more insipid wafflings masquerading as insightful commentary. See it as a bit like Tom Haudricourt's twitter comments except about 349 times longer and with significantly less actual baseball commentary. And fewer curmudgeonly comments. Which, I suppose, might still make me the second most curmudgeonly person in the universe behind Tom. Perhaps an alternative would be writing in the style of various Brewers players. I could be Tim Dillard and sit around flexing my typing fingers for seven days and produce nothing, use Corey Hart's pictogrammic approach to communication or do a Nyjer Morgan and get half way through the write-up before ranting crazily and running away. While his Jim Rome TV piece almost captures the hyperactive genius of Plush I reckon the best way to do it would be to get him to personally (no ghost writer!) write a column. I'm no expert on writing styles but I can only imagine it would be the literary equivalent of Dock Ellis's LSD pitching or a Jackson Pollock picture. Mind you, even Plush's hyperactivity couldn't make this fantasy league any more exciting as we move to the last two weeks of regular competition with every single home team having won this week. Of course, being home or away in the league matters about as much as the relative accuracy of Ken Macha's sudoku answers, but its sorta cool nonetheless...

Weekly review

Social Anxiety All Stars (189) lost to Bringing Home the Bacon (192)

Sometimes when you make a big gesture things don't go the way you originally planned. Take Vincent Van Gogh. Firstly, his infamous romantic gesture of giving his sliced-off earlobe (historians now claim it was sliced off by fellow artist Gaugin after a row) to give to a local “lady of easy morals” is unlikely to have impressed anyone and has led to ridicule from generations of schoolchildren afterwards. Secondly, and even more full of pathos, was his death from infection caused after his unsuccessful attempt to commit suicide by shooting himself in the chest. What makes it even worse is that Van Gogh succeeded in selling only one painting during his lifetime which makes him about as successful as the current iteration of the Houston Astros. In that spirit, I'm fully expecting baseball experts in a couple of hundred years to be recognising the 'Stros as the sporting legends that they doubtless are and a move to be initiated to install them as World Series champions in perpetuity. Not sure who I'd want to be forced to slice part of their ear off, but I'd be voting for Barmes based purely on his stubborn refusal to move to the Crew. Equally stubborn was BhtB's refusal to give up on this match, coming from about 30 points down on the last day to win this one. None of BhtB's hitters scored more than Moreland's 19 points, with the sole exception of Tulo's 27, but Garcia 33 and Romero 29 helped out on the pitching side. SAAS ended up just short, with Saunders (40) and Teixeira (35) performing well but CJ Wilson )-26) letting him down.

Chin Music (224) lost to Craig Counsell's Steakhouse (265)

When I was younger I used to be particularly freaked out by tales of the Aztecs. I remember one particular history book which was full of pictures of Aztec pyramids and priests cutting the hearts out of their sacrificial victims. Death as an offering to the gods was so important that the different ways of dying were all accorded different types of afterlife for the individual concerned. For example, the best afterlife for females was achieved by dying while in childbirth. While there's always a tendency for revisionist histories to re-examine various eras and regimes and discover that things weren't as bad as they seemed, there seems to be little evidence to suggest that this wasn't a true vision of the Aztecs. However, in among the various festivals such as the “Raising of the Banners” (involving mass sacrifice), Tititl (women beaten with straw bags to make them cry), Tepehuitl (human sacrifices and cannibalism) and “Flaying of Men” (men being flayed) was the time of nemontemi. These were 5 days added to the calendar which functioned to fill up the calendar and were deemed very unlucky. Actually, for many people they were relatively lucky days as they were days of abstinence and no rituals meaning there was significantly less chance of getting sacrificed on top of a large pyramid. Having been born on 11th February there's no doubt that Brian Matusz was destined to be particularly unlucky, with his promising start last year having been derailed this season, meaning he is currently unable to contribute to Chin Music's team at present. CM could have done with the assistance, with his team slumping to defeat despite the efforts of A-Gon (31), Pineda (26)and Ackley (23). CCS picked up another victory thanks primarily to Francouer (34) and his two big hitters Miggy (23) and Ryan Howard (also 23). Nova and Lohse (both 19) were the only pitching players to get decent scores as he further reduced CM's chances of making the playoffs.

The Team That I Refuse to Name (199) lost to Stinky Cheese (278)

I haven't really bought any new music in years, but I still tend to think that my music collection is fairly reasonable and not too embarrassing. Its eclectic enough and has a fair range of genres without being too arsey and hipster-ish. Sure, there's plenty of mediocre rap that I bought when I was a lot younger, I don't listen to many of my reggae CDs and I don't have as much alt-country as I'd like but there's nothing embarrassing there like Justin Bieber, Gary Glitter or U2. Of course, it wasn't all like that and I can remember the first music I ever bought being a batch of about eight pirated tapes that I got a friend to bring back from Dubai which ranged from Madness and Iron Maiden to Tiffany and Climie Fisher. In fairness I was only about nine years old and can remember desperately trying to think of a decent tape to ask for and Tiffany was the only person I could think of at the time. Now, I'm not afraid to admit that I've made myself look an idiot on many occasions but this is probably one of the most embarrassing things for me to admit. It's certainly up there with the incident I've mentioned before in these pages when I had an accident after a basketball game involving my zip and a certain part of my anatomy and the time I went swimming wearing a new pair of “swimming shorts” my Mum had bought which mysteriously turned see-through when wet. Of course, I didn't notice the transparent nature of my garments until I figured out why my classmates and the girl I fancied started pointing and sniggering at me. Still, Tiffany isn't even good enough to fit in as a guilty pleasure in the same way that something like Kriss Kross's “Jump” does. It's just plain bad in a “hey, why don't we massively overpay Vernon Wells” type way. Saying that, Vernon Wells is currently playing an, albeit minor, role on the mighty Stinky Cheese with his nine points this week being a fairly accurate indicator of his performances for the team this season. Saying that, when your team boasts good weekly scores from Daniel Murphy (34), Lester (31), Fielder (27) and Cruz (26) you can put up with a slumping Wells. TTIRTN didn't put up too much in return, although Nick Swisher (27), David Wright and Jered Weaver (both 26) put up acceptable scores as his team lost again...

Bumpin' Ugglas (239) lost to The Braun Supremacy (304)

If there's something more important than fantasy baseball I don't know what it is. Well, you cynics out there may well say that the Brewers are more important and you'd be right but, unfortunately, you'd lose points for cynicism. In my list of things I can't stand cynicism is right up there with sarcasm and hyperbole, both of which are things I would never ever ever do. Actually, perhaps the only other thing more important than fantasy baseball is mine and Hyatt's ongoing attempts to convince the world of the joys of Caroline Wozniacki. While some correctly focus on her downright gorgeousness I also appreciate the downright bizarreness of someone who, as stated before on these pages, tries to cover up for an injury caused at the Australian Open by falling off a treadmill by claiming she was attacked by a kangaroo. I am fully expecting her to claim a broken wrist that arises at the New Zealand Open was the result of being assaulted by an emu, a dislocated shoulder in the Scottish Open by a vicious attack from a Haggis and a prolapsed disk at the Singapore Open by slipping on some chewing gum someone left on the pavement. Actually, my conspiracy theory is that Wozniacki was telling the truth about the kangaroo incident but the Aussie government threatened her to make up a cover story less tales of killer 'roos affect the tourist injury. Of course, in these days boxingg against kangaroos is, doubtless out of some animal welfare concern, not allowed but the recent story of 94 year-old Phyllis Johnson being attacked by a kangaroo suggests that the vicious nature of these supposedly cuddly marsupials is being suppressed by the money-obsessed Canberra bureaucrats. Similarly this week the supposedly cuddly and easy-to-defeat Braun Supremacy revealed the cruel interior of a determined killer as they beat the previously imperious Bumpin' Ugglas with ease. Alex Gordon (42) was the only hitter to do well for TBS, but his pitching was very solid thanks to Nolasco (29), Hudson (24), Porcello (23) and Lincecum (21). BU didn't have much in response, with newcomers Hosmer and Jennings (both 25) his top scorers. Perhaps, with his division sewn up, he's just resting his staff a bit, or perhaps his team is showing worrying signs of weakness with the playoffs just around the corner...

Poughkeepsie Footpickers (269) lost to More Than A Feeling (306)

Its just over a year away from the Olympic games and its looking like Britain might do fairly well. Of course, this is largely due to the amount of money ploughed into sports since the games were awarded to London, but that'll all be forgotten when the Brits are on the top step of the podium with the national anthem blaring. I'm relatively “meh” about the whole thing and wasn't bothered about getting tickets but will tune in occasionally nonetheless. The one sport I was interested in seeing (once the decision was made not to have baseball or softball in the competition) was handball. Partly this was due to the fact that Britain is absolutely appalling at the sport, partly due to watching a few matches in the World Handball Championships last year when there was nothing else to watch and the foreign commentary seemed to make it more exotic, and partly due to the success of the Icelandic national team in the last Olympics. In fact, I can't really remember all that much about the last Olympics apart from Bolt, a couple of British boxers and the underdogs from Reykjavik storming to the Olympic final only to lose to the dominant French team. Given that handball is a pretty huge sport, that Iceland only has 300,000 people in it and that the country's best ever Olympic result before was a sole silver medal in the men's 1956 Triple Jump it was one of the most impressive results in recent years. You can see how small countries may occasionally throw up a single very talented individual or two (witness Luxembourg's Schleck brothers in cycling) but to put together a world class team takes a lot of doing. Obviously things are slightly easier for MTaF but he's managed to put together a similarly dominant side which managed to edge out the previously top-of-the-power-rankings Poughkeepsie. Poughkeepsie had dominant performances from Holland (49), Pujols (34) and Sabathia (32) but was really hurt by Blackburn's -44 scores in one of the worst weekly efforts I've seen in a while. Faced with this, MTaF put together excellent scores from Pedroia (41), Butler (40), Ervin Santana (37) an Ibanez (32) on his way to the second highest score of the week.

Never Gonna Give You Upton (242) lost to Phoenix Fire (316)

When you've spent your entire history being completely overshadowed by the might of Romania you can guess that there's not exactly a lot going for you in the world history stakes which is why when someone mentions the name “Bulgaria” there's not really much that comes to mind. After a couple of minutes you'll probably have thought of cheap and astringent red wine, cheap summer holidays and perhaps the glory of Hristo Stoichkov and their 1994 World Cup soccer side, but I'd guess there's not much else that you'd be able to think of. Perhaps that's partly because they like to do things their own way in Bulgaria. Ask anyone in rural Bulgaria if the Brew Crew are going to be World Series winners and they'll smile at you and shake their head, while nodding vigorously if you ask them if they think the Cubs have a decent side this year. That's because in most of the non-tourist areas of Bulgaria they do things differently and nod for no and shake their heads for yes, which must make things ridiculously confusing for visitors. Similarly, while people get given presents on their birthdays in Bulgaria it is also part of the festivities for them to give other people treats as well. I suppose there's a lot to be said for the latter as it makes things a bit more communal but, hey, deep down for most of us our birthdays are about us collecting the loot not giving it out. Still, NGGYU's team is definitely showing some Bulgarian characteristics as they thrown out all attempts to build a balanced team and instead put together a highly schizophrenic side with some surprise performers. Their hitting was almost entirely based on the performance of Justin Upton (39), Crisp and Rollins (both 29), Cuddyer (28) and Derek Lee (21) with every single other hitter in single figures. Likewise, while Cueto (32), Sipp (21) and Wolf (22) had good pitching weeks Pavano's -37 was almost crucial. Phoenix's team was a lot more middle-of-the-road, with Willingham's 38 the only score higher than a mediocre (by his standards) 28 for Roy Halladay. Apart from that there were a heap of other players with scores in the twenties with Encarnacion (25) and Isringhausen (23) doing the best as Phoenix scrapes out his sixth win of the season.

Harvey's Wallbangers (274) lost to Little Lebowski's Under Achievers (320)

Of course, while there are major similarities between the US and the UK I think there is always a certain amount of suspicion lurking in the deeper recesses of the mind of even the most ardent America-phile. As can happen, its not so much the major issues such as divergences in politics or history, but smaller issues such as language. We all know about the witticism about the UK and USA being “two nations divided by a common language” but the truth is that most of the linguistic differences between the two countries are relatively banal. At the end of the day, I couldn't care less if I'm walking on a pavement or a sidewalk, if the time of year is autumn or fall, or whether I'm stuffing my face with sweets or candy. However, the one issue that is vital and would be the major stumbling block to any attempt to convince me to ever take on American citizenship would be the continuing refusal to use the clearly superior word “arse” instead of the more prissy-sounding “ass”. Besides, if you needed confirmation of the superiority of the word “arse” you only need to reflect on John Wycliffe's outstanding contribution to the English language. Working on the first translation of the Bible from Latin to the vernacular English Wycliffe was confronted by a particularly difficult problem, namely that certain Latin words had no real English equivalent. As a result, Wycliffe had to invent English versions, hence the relatively commonly used words “behemoth”, “puberty” and “zeal”. However, at that time there was no English word for“intestines”. Struggling to find a word for this term Wycliffe struck upon the genius term of “arseropes”. Note, my transatlantic friends, that the term he devised was not the pathetic and disappointing “assropes” but the glorious “arseropes”. This is the rock upon which the attempted global dominance of the word “ass” is destined to break. To ensure the continued dominance of the correct pronunciation of “arse” I'm hereby referring to the Houston Astros first baseman as Brett Wall-arse which also relatively adequately describes his play this week as he put up a score of -4 for HW. Of course, it might be more accurate if his low score had been due to an incident involving his posterior and a wall but, hey, you can't have everything working out perfectly when you're making weak and abusive comments on another player's name, can you? Anyway, Wall-arse's bad week summed up things for HW who depended primarily on Kemp (28) and Michael Young (26) for his pointage. LLUA moved to an even 8-8 record thanks to 39 from Dan Haren and decent contributions from Freese and Beachy (both 26) who are both now teaming up in a children's superhero series based on characters with the superpowers of being able to shoot liquid nitrogen out of his nostrils and make sandcastles appear in weird locations. Trust me, it's a winner...

MSKM (243) lost to Gold Glove Gamels (319)

While the plummeting fortunes of my team suggest that I've learnt nothing recently from my fantasy baseball experience that would not strictly be true. I've learnt that Ubaldo Jimenez cannot be trusted, never to outbid anyone for Mark Reynolds and that it makes sense to make sure you've always got a full squad and haven't forgotten to fill bench spots. Despite all this, perhaps the main thing I've learnt was when checking up on the details of the Defenestration of Prague for this write-up (something I'm sure we've all done at one time or another) was that there were actually two separate major defenestrations, one in 1419 when a group of Hussites threw members of the local council out the windows of the town hall with the unintended result that the King at the time died of shock on hearing the news, with the other defenestration being the more famous 1618 version that led to the start of the 30 Years War where a group of Protestants threw three Catholic regents out of Prague Castle only for them to survive by landing in some horseshit. Even more bizarrely, there have (at least according to Wikipedia) been a number of other lesser known defenestrations in the city leading to suggestions that the city is actually placed on a key configuration of ley lines which channel a type of magnetic energy that affects the gravitational force when people are near high windows in the city. OK, so that's just a weird theory I've totally invented, but perhaps it's more simply that there's been defenestrations in loads of European cities (Americans are obviously too civilised for this) and just that due to the 1618 defenestration Prague became particularly associated with the act. Mind you, perhaps my examination of window-related activity in central Europe in the Middle Ages is purely an attempt to divert my mind from the fact my team is stuck in a lengthy slump and went down fairly tamely to GGG this week. Sure, Joey Votto (41) appears back to his early season form but apart from that my next highest scorer was Gavin Floyd with a paltry 23 points. Dreadful pitching from Ubaldo (-10), Bedard (-17), Parnell (-4), Kuo (-8) who lost me almost 40 points in a mere 5.1 innings of “work” didn't help much. When faced with the might of GGG and big scores from Zobrist (36), Worley and Napoli (29) and Greinke (26) that wasn't going to be good enough. And it wasn't.

Next week's match-ups

Craig Counsell's Steakhouse vs MSKM

More Than A Feeling vs Never Gonna Give You Upton

Little Lebowski Under Achievers vs Poughkeepsie Footpickers

The Braun Supremacy vs Harvey's Wallbangers

Phoenix Fire vs Bumpin' Ugglas

Bringing Home the Bacon vs Chin Music

Stinky Cheese vs Social Anxiety All Stars

Gold Glove Gamels vs The Team That I Refuse to Name

Power Leagues. The more things change... MTAF back at the top, just edging out Poughkeepsie with GGG staying in third place. BhtB and TTIRTN are still stuck at the bottom, but at least one of them might still make the play-offs.

League 1

1. More Than A Feeling – 1043 (14-2, East)

2. Poughkeepsie Footpickers – 1039 (8-8, South)

3. Gold Glove Gamels – 990 (9-7, West)

League 2

1. Stinky Cheese – 922 (12-4, West)

2. Bumpin' Ugglas – 903 (12-4, South)

3. Little Lebowski – 901 (8-8, East)

League 3

1. Phoenix Fire – 876 (6-10, East)

2. Harvey's Wallbangers – 816 (6-10, South)

3. MSKM – 810 (8-8, North)

League 4

1. The Braun Supremacy – 797 (6-10, East)

2. Social Anxiety All Stars – 781 (7-9, North)

3. Craig Counsell's Steakhouse – 773 (3-13, West)

League 5

1. Never Gonna Give You Upton – 737 (6-10, South)

2. Chin Music – 705 (6-10, North)

3. Bringing Home the Bacon – 625 (11-5, West)

4. The Team I Refuse to Name – 616 (6-10, North)

Division Write-up

North

All four teams lose this week as the division sinks to new, unchartered depths of ineptitude. MSKM drop their fourth straight, while SAAS stay one win behind on 7. MSKM has the easier match next week on paper against CCS (while SAAS takes on Stinky Cheese) but given MSKM's points scored he could pretty much tie it up if these two matches go as they might. TTIRTN and Chin Music are both on 6 wins and look pretty much out of it.

South

Again, all the teams in this division lose to leave things looking very unchanged and nothing to play for in the division. Bumpin' Ugglas and Poughkeepsie stay on 12 and 9 wins respectively and have both sealed a place in the play-offs. Harvey's and NGGYU stay on 6 wins and have blown their chances of promotion.

East

Everyone's a winner, baby, with MTaF having already got a playoff place with 14 wins. LLUA are on 8 wins and 2 ahead of Phoenix Fire (6 wins) with 2 games to go. TBS are out of it, with just five wins this season.

West

Yep, West brings the dominance again this week with everyone winning. There's still a battle for automatic promotion with Stinky Cheese (12) just ahead of BHtB (11) whose narrow win this week may prove vital. GGG's win moves him to 9 wins but needs something dramatic to happen to get promotion. CCS is playing for pride at the moment and moves to 3 wins.

Major battles

The major issues still to be decided:

Winner in North: MSKM (8 wins) or SAAS (7)

Runner-up in North: MSKM (8), SAAS (7), Chin Music (6) or TTIRTN (6)

Runner-up in East: LLUA (8) or Phoenix Fire (6)

Winner in West: Stinky Cheese (12) or Bringing Home the Bacon (11)

Runner-up in West: Bringing Home the Bacon (11) or GGG (9)

Woo hoo! It's been a long time a-coming, but a change is gonna come. Or perhaps not. But, whatever the case might be, its been a couple of weeks since the last update but a lot has changed. Some teams have won games, some have lost games and, bizarrely, while some players have performed really well others have rather struggled. In other words, not much has changed at all. MTaF wins, BU wins, CCS loses, TBS loses. Not so much a change is gonna come as the ridiculously predictable is gonna come. And that's not as exciting a story line but, hey, what do you want me to do. I'm not gonna go out there and start fixing results or bribing people, am I? Who do you think I am, some Turkish soccer official? Hopefully not because then there's be a heap of angry fantasy baseball players round my house ready to kick off and we can't be having that. Perhaps all those thoughts of aggression explains why most of the write-ups this week seem to have a military or violent theme or perhaps its simply due to residual anger at strangely mutating strike zones in San Francisco. Who knows? Who cares?

Weekly reviews

Stinky Cheese (430) beat MSKM (347)

There's something about liking a certain sport that is, I'd argue, fairly arbitrary. On the one hand, there's no denying that different sports have different qualities that may attract different people but, on the other, it is very hard to identify the intrinsic qualities that make baseball such a perfectly-fitting sport for most of us. Sure, we can waffle on about the consistency needed across a marathon 162-game regular season, the artistry exhibited by a diving catch in the outfield, the sheer power of a towering home run or the general greatness of the Brew Crew but, all too often, there's a small part of our brain that is aware that these are mainly just post-facto generalisations. At a basic level we like baseball because we like baseball. We may have been brought up with the game and reminisce about the glove that our Dad bought us when we were five or we may have only come to the game recently after recovering from a long illness when baseball seemed the only thing on telly but it doesn't really matter. In a sense, baseball (or any other sport) somehow chooses us as much as we choose it. If you're born in the States chances are you'll be a fan of American football or baseball, born in the UK and there's very high odds you'll be obsessed with soccer, brought up in New Zealand and your religion will be rugby. Or, alternatively, be born in the icy wastelands of Canada in an Eskimo family and be brought up as a huge fan of ear-pulling. Yeah, that's right. This year's Eskimo games have featured the fantastic sport of ear-pulling although, as of yet, I've been unable to find any information on the recent winners of an event which basically involves your ears being tied by twine to your opponent's and you both pulling until one of you gives up. Or someone's ears get ripped off. But there are these photos which exhibit the strangeness of the event and make you glad that your evenings are spent relaxing and watching some hardball action rather than sitting in a freezing gym in the tundra having your ears torn to shreds. I'm sure there's a bit of initial excitement in watching one of these matches but, after that, they must all seem rather dull, samey and predictable. Rather like Stinky Cheese mashing up on my team this week when, after a couple of days and an early SC lead, his eventual victory seemed set in stone. Having a batting line-up anchored by Pirates is perhaps finally catching up with my team as only Markakakakakis (40) and Yunel Escobar (32) did anything on the hitting side. Votto scoring only 8 didn't help matters much either. Floyd (50) and Kershaw (34) scored well too. SC rocked to victory thanks to the surprising talents of Perkins (40), Masterson (39), Murphy (34) and Vernon Wells (31). Gutted!

The Braun Supremacy (305) lost to Never Gonna Give You Upton (349)

Its funny how certain countries get a strange reputation. New Zealand is known for sheep and rugby, Spain for siestas and bullfighting, Holland for canals, hash and tulips and Switzerland for cuckoo clocks, mountains, ski-ing and chocolate. Of course, this is no more than cheap and easy stereotyping which does not reflect the diversity of each county and it is easy to forget the little secrets that each county likes to keep quiet about. While everyone is by now aware of Switzerland's history of an approach to banking ethics that makes the UK's bankers look like moral guardians of all that is right and pure, it is hard to reconcile the smooth running image of the county with the fact that the country did not allow voting for women until 1951. Yep, it took until 6 years after the end of the Second World War before the country saw fit to allow half their population to vote. Pretty incredible that a major European country, especially in financial terms, only allowed women to vote just over 50 years ago, huh? Except that it's actually a lie. It was 1971 when they allowed women to vote. Its not really surprising that the Swiss Tourist Board are quite happy for images of lovely large mountains and ski-ing to fill their posters. Equally unsurprising was TBS'd defeat in this match as, despite NGGYU having a weak week, they sat down in the corner and eventually took a beating. Although they were in contention with a couple of days to go the inevitable eventually happened as Hudson (30), Prado (29), Stubbs (27), Porcello (26) and Lincecum (26) couldn't quite muster enough points. NGGYU won thanks mainly to big weeks from Beckett (42), Rollins (41) and Justin Upton (40).

Little Lebowski's Under-Achievers (314) lost to Bumpin' Ugglas (419)

I've always had a bit of an interest in different languages. At school I ended up studying French and German as well as the classical languages and in recent years have picked up a smattering of Portuguese and am starting to learn Japanese. Being brutally honest I can't really speak any of these languages even partially although, in true British fashion, ply me with a few pints of beer in central Lisbon and my brain tells me every local can understand the most subtle nuances of my Portuguese witterings. I've even got a book on Esperanto sitting, relatively untouched, on the bookshelf at the top of my stairs. Mind you, being entirely made-up, Esperanto is a cool language. My favourite bit is that the prefix ek- can be added to any verb to mean a smaller version of the original version. As an example, if you put ek- before the word meaning “to look” it will now mean “to glance”. Of course, this is particularly relevant in baseball terms as it explains why David Eckstein was destined to be so small. Given their performance this week, LLUA could be called an ek-fantasy baseball team. Sure, they've got all the right signs of competing, but somehow the end result is always a bit less than expected. Colby Lewis (51) and Adam Jones (47) put up huge weeks but were badly let down by non-descript pitching from the likes of Haren (-21!), Beachy (-14), Norris (-7), Duensing (-1), Phil Hughes (2), League (4) and Correia (4). BU was in cruise control due to a remarkably steady week. Only Freeman (35) and Hosmer (32) scored over thirty but there were a host of others contributing, most noticeably Cordero (29) and LoMo (28).

Bringing Home the Bacon (300) beat The Team That I Refuse to Name (282)

If I was absolutely forced to pick two sports that I felt summarised the essence of sport I know straight away which two I'd pick. Darts and boxing. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather sit down and watch baseball than any other sport in the world but I think both these sports distill one particular element of the sporting contest into its finest and most brutal form and then base their entire game around it. Darts is tension personified. Unless you're the imperious Phil Taylor, most darts players are of an equal standard and can knock out the occasional 9 dart finish in practice but put them on the oche in front of a baying crowd of 2,000 jigging up and down to The Fratellis and its a different matter. You may well be able to hit double 16 after double 16 in your own bedroom but when a place in the World Championship is on the line it seems almost impossible. There's little strategy, tactics or thought into darts playing but being able to deal with tension is almost the nature of the game. Boxing is a simpler matter. You make a mistake in almost any other sport and you may lose the title or even look a complete idiot in front of thousands of spectators but, fortunately, the result of a mistake in these sports does not normally include someone punching you very hard in the face. Saying that, Britain's new heavyweight champion, who goes by the fantastic name of Tyson Fury went one step forward by looking an idiot via  punching himself in the face. In the wake of David Haye's lamentable showing against Wladimir Klitschko its fair to say that Britain is not exactly endowed with quality big men. Still, if they ever make a sport that can completely distill the pure, unadulterated essence of punching yourself in the face I'd be willing to stake my money on TTTIRTN putting up a decent run at the title based on his performance this week. Faced with a slumping BhtB who struggled to put up one of the lowest scores of the week TTTIRTN completely face-planted with a mere 257 points. Weaver (35) and Vogelsong (31) were the only pitching standouts for TTTIRTN while Swisher (31), Hafner (28) and Hart (27) scored reasonably. BhTB wasn't too much better but can thank Tulo (38) and Marcum (34) for seeing him through this one and keeping him in-line for promotion.

Phoenix Fire (347) lost to Poughkeepsie Footpickers (521)

Now, I'm more than prepared to go on record and say I'm somewhat of a fan of technological advances and I guess that everyone reading this is too – apart from SRB who posted a picture of Ted Kaczynski the other day. To be honest, that wasn't a huge surprise to me as I've recognised a number of his comments on the relative merits of Counsell, Betancourt or Wilson as a regular shortstop seem to have been culled straight from primitivist and anti-technologist icon John Zerzan's seminal (and by seminal I do truly mean having the intellectual merit of jism) work “Future Primitive”.. Where things become particularly fascinating is when the rapidity of changes combine with divergent levels of development to lead to huge disparities in technological advances. Perhaps it is due to a childlike fascination with war stories, but this somehow always appears most clear in all its horror when remembering tales about how Polish cavalry attempted to charge German tanks during Blitzkrieg advances into their country in 1939. Of course, tanks had been around for a while by then and this was clearly a bit of an urban myth but it is true that groups of lancers on horseback during World War One would regularly try to attack positions fortified by copious machine guns. Equally true, is the story of the Battle of Omdurman of 1898 where a force of about 25,000 British, Egyptian and Sudanese troops took on twice as many Dervishes. Armed primarily with spears and a few ancient firearms the Dervish troops repeatedly piled forward in attack despite the fact they faced Maxim guns and up-to-date artillery. The results were astonishing – about 10,000 of the Mahdi's Dervish troops were killed while the British-led forces lost a grand total of 47 people. The word “bloodbath” is overused but fits the criteria pretty nicely here. Equally adept at bringing the severe pain this week was Poughkeepsie who, armed with the heavy guns of Ellsbury (47), Stanton (40) and Utley (39), did some severe damage. When the dust and gunsmoke cleared the only survivors for Phoenix were Encarnacion (40) and Isringhausen (35).

More Than A Feeling (456) beat Harvey's Wallbangers (364)

One of the downsides of watching a lot of baseball and reading a lot of non-fiction is that I rarely get time to read enough fiction. This year I think I've managed “Crime and Punishment” (an attempt to seem intellectual) and, errr, I think that's about it. When I was younger I used to read fiction a lot – I loved Catch 22 and read it about 3 or 4 times but mainly just dissolved into some meaningless detective novel and simply chilled. Saying that, I was relatively happy reading anything, but would draw the line at anything that resembled “hippy writing” and this included any writers from the Beat generation. Jeez, if Jack Kerouac needed copious amounts of alcohol and illegal drugs to be able to write properly then he couldn't be much of a writer, could he? Of course, my views have mellowed somewhat and I'm only able to get through typing this paragraph thanks to a pint of stout, a pile of out-of-date analgesics and a telephone sitting on hand with my dealer's number on speed dial, but you might as well be smug and puritanical about these things when you're so young you can't prperly indulge in them. As a result of my self-imposed fiction curb I never ever read any William Burroughs (and, to be honest, I'm not entirely gutted about that fact) but he's always had a weird place in my subconscious. Not so much due to his writing but due to the events of Thursday, 6th September, 1951. That was the date Burroughs and his wife attended a party in Mexico City that, by all accounts, was becoming as exciting as an Astros-Padres match-up. Which is not very exciting at all. To liven things up, Burroughs and his wife decided to re-enact the William Tell story, with Burroughs taking a pistol and trying to shoot the glass that his wife balanced on her head. His wife, Joan, uttered the famous last words “"I can't watch this - you know I can't stand the sight of blood”, Burroughs raised his pistol, pulled the trigger and, well, even if you don't know the story you can guess what happened... Equally predictable and dramatic was MTaF's storming victory over HW. MTaF were anchored by some crazily high scores from MadBum (54), Pedroia (51) and Ian Kennedy (42) as his strategy of picking up pitchers starting against the Crew pays off. Morrow's 37 more than made up for Jason Vargas's poor week (-33). Although he lost, there were some solid points for HW from Michael Young (35), Aramis Ramirez (35), Nathan (33), Granderson (31), Quentin and Axford (both 30) but just needed a bit more from the black holes of Brett Wallace (2), Jorge Posada (2) and Ian Desmond (8).

Gold Glove Gamels (439) beat Chin Music (300)

Years ago Britain fought against Russia in a seemingly critical conflict called the “Crimean War”. Given that fighting did include the Crimean peninsula but stretched as far North as the Baltic states this was as accurate as referring to the Second World War as the “Great European War” or the Napoleonic Conflict as the “French Skirmish”. Despite the geographic inaccuracy, the war is best known for the Charge of the Light Brigade, where miscommunication led to a cavalry brigade getting almost decimated at the hands of the Russian troops. However, my favourite story about the war is the presence of Lord Raglan, commander of the British forces who comes across as, well, slightly on the wrong side of sane. Raglan (or, should I say, Field Marshal FitzRoy James Henry Somerset) was by no means the worst British commander in history, although his early tactic of sending small numbers of British troops up against massed Russians was, errr, somewhat questionable, but he was a man of his times. Unfortunately, his times were still the Napoleonic Wars of 40 years earlier resulting in the unfortunate fact that on every occasion he insisted of referring to the enemy Russian troops in the Crimean War as “The French”. Indeed, for Raglan the enemy was always “The French” regardless of their actual nationality. Rather like Norman Schwarzkoppf calling the Iraqi troops “Germans” during Desert Storm. Or something similarly crazy. Only marginally less crazy is the way GGG is clinging on in the promotion race after seeming completely out of it a few weeks ago. CM didn't put up too much competition, although Carpenter (32), Braun (32) and Lackey (30) tried their best. Matusz being demoted and Clayton Richard sitting on the DL can't be helping matters. Nice hitting from Gardner (37) and Zobrist (32) coupled with solid pitching from Worley (40) saw GGG through fairly easily. Three weeks to go and he's still in the race for promotion...

Craig Counsell's Steakhouse (276) lost to Social Anxiety All Stars (331)

Things can change quickly. The Phillies were a historically bad franchise and now they are perennial World Series contenders. The Astros used to regularly contend for the division and now have allied a useless major league team to a poor farm system, leaving them little hope for the next few years. And the Cubs used to regularly find embarrassing ways to fail excruciatingly in their quest for glory and now have turned things round dramatically so that their failures are not embarassing or excruciatingly painful but entirely predictable and boring. In geopolitical terms things can be somewhat different. We've all been used to characterisation of the 20th Century as the “American Century” and it seems a fairly good bet that, despite the rise of China, India and Scotland (spot the interloper...), that this century will be defined largely in terms of the role of the USA. But things weren't always that way. If I was to say that in 1912 Russia had an army of 5.5 million, Germany one of 4.1 million, France of 3.9 million, Austria-Hungary of 2.3 million, Italy 1.2 million and the UK (which was pouring money into its navy but, admittedly, had a rather huge empire to maintain) a mere 800,000 men in arms how big would you guess the US Army was? With most statesmen around the world fully aware that the world was on the brink of war the actual size of the US Army was only 100,000 men. Clearly this reflects the relative isolationism of the States at the time and the fact it had not been involved in any major conflicts earlier, but it still comes as something of a surprise. On a rather more minor level, the continuing struggles of CCS still surprise me every time I look at his line-up and see players like Howard (9), Cano (24) and Miggy (25) sitting there but he still seems to struggle for starting pitching. Trading Kershaw (25) for Baker (21) and Steet (15) may well pay-off but leaves him short of a star with a staff that includes Lohse (-6), Villy (-10), Karstens (25), Narve-dawg (12), Harang (22), Colon (7), Andrew Miller (-7) and Maholm (-16). SAAS depended on some damn fine pitching from CJ (37) and Brian Wilson (36) and John Lannan (32) while a certain Mr Yuniesky Betancourt heaved up a mighty 30 points.

Badly Formatted Power Leagues. Poughkeepsie jumps to the top on the back of two very spectacular weeks while not much changes at the bottom.

League 1

1. Poughkeepsie Footpickers – 1071 (8-7, South)

2. More Than A Feeling – 1058 (13-2, East)

3. Gold Glove Gamels – 949 (8-7, West)

League 2

1. Bumpin' Ugglas – 941 (12-3, South)

2. Stinky Cheese – 920 (11-4, West)

3. Social Anxiety All Stars – 861 (7-8, North)

League 3

1. Little Lebowski – 844 (7-8, East)

2. MSKM – 844 (8-7, North)

3. Phoenix Fire – 806 (5-10, East)

League 4

1. Harvey's Wallbangers – 790 (6-9, South)

2. Never Gonna Give You Upton – 765 (6-9, South)

3. Craig Counsell's Steakhouse – 753 (2-13, West)

League 5

1. Chin Music – 721 (6-9, North)

2. The Braun Supremacy – 699 (5-10, East)

3. Bringing Home the Bacon – 654 (10-5, West)

4. The Team I Refuse to Name – 606 (6-9, North)

Next week's match-ups

MSKM vs Gold Glove Gamels

Never Gonna Give You Upton vs Phoenix Fire

Poughkeepsie Footpickers vs More Than A Feeling

Harvey's Wallbangers vs Little Lebowski's Under Achievers

Bumpin' Ugglas vs The Braun Supremacy

Chin Music vs Craig Counsell's Steakhouse

Social Anxiety All Stars vs Bringing Home the Bacon

The Team That I Refuse to Name vs Stinky Cheese

Division Write-up

North

Things stay really tight in this league. MSKM is still in poll position (8 wins) but hasn't won for a while although it seems no-one else is determined to make a serious run for it. SAAS moves to one game behind (7) after beating CCS but TTTIRTN and Chin Music both lose to stay at 6 wins. This one looks like it could go down to the wire as with all teams playing the West you could see them all losing next week.

South

There's clarity in this division, as Bumpin' Ugglas win sees them move to 12 wins and automatic promotion. Poughkeepsie are the form team in the league and move to 8 wins. Harvey's and NGGYU are both on 6 wins but will perhaps need to win all their remaining games to get through.

East

MTaF had this one sewn up a couple of weeks or so ago and win again to move to 3 wins. LLUA looks like he has the second play-off spot sorted (7 wins) but Phoenix Fire and TBS (both 5) are still theoretically in this one.

West

Stinky Cheese (11) is in poll position although BHtB (10) is just behind and clawed out a vital win despite being almost bottom of the power rankings. GGG wins again to move to 8 wins and is still not out of it yet. CCS loses to stay at 2 wins and thereby consolidates his position at the bottom of the division.

Back again, wondering why with my love of baseball, board games and hip-hop  Keith Law seems to have stolen my life and made it a-hella-lot more successful than I've managed. Of course, Keith Law is a complete idiot and knows nothing about  hip-hop whatsoever for failing to note that The Demon Boyz from the UK initiated the -iggedy style before Das-Efx but that just shows how much he has to learn. Plus, “93 'Til Infinity” is clearly better than number 27 best old-school hip-hop and deserves to be at least number 23. Plus, the fact his list of hip-hop songs is completely awesome and can only be quibbled with in the most minor way is merely proof he's stolen my schtick. Apart from the bit where he comes across as a bit stringent and harsh if you disagree with him. The fool. As everyone knows, you need 100% stringency if you're going to survive so much as a minute in the world of baseball punditry or even in the miles more important universe of fantasy baseball reportage. Of course, all the credibility I've gained discussing 90's hip-hop would be rather undone if I let slip the fact that I'm typing this with one eye on the laptop screen and the other on the TV screen where they're playing Carole King in concert, but I'll keep that quiet. That, and the fact I had my eyeballs surgically replaced by those of a chameleon. On to actual baseball and a week that will live long in the memory. A week where a living legend cemented his relationship with an entire franchise by getting that hit that everyone had been waiting for – a hit that, at times this season, it felt would never come. But enough about Mark Kotsay getting a meaningful hit with his walk-off RBI the other day (ahem), did anyone hear anything about some guy in New York hitting a home run or something?

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Don't ask me why (its an even longer and more boring story than most of the nonsense I post up here) but I was checking up the olden-times theory of the four humours the other day and found something vaguely interesting. See, back in the days it was widely believed that people's personality and basic characteristics were based upon the relative balance of four “humours” in their body – it might sound crazy, but then again some relatively sane people in our times (and Nancy Reagan) take their horoscopes seriously. The eventual article referred to the four “cardinal” humours as being black bile (melancholy), yellow bile (choler), blood and phlegm with each humour having a corresponding element, organ, quality and characteristic and an imbalance in any leading to illness. As someone who knows almost nothing about medicine (and is prepared to further solidify American prejudices by admitting that last month I went to the dentist for the first time in about 15 years) the obvious error in the theory was not to do with any particular medical theory espoused by the mediaeval mind, but the assumption that there were four “cardinal” humours when it is a well known fact that the Cardinals don't have any humour whatsoever. Perhaps if the article stated there were four Cardinal “dispositions” I could have bought it, but only if the four were whinging, self-righteousness, pomposity and conceit. The four horsemen of the Cardinal-ocalpyse. Mind you, perhaps my outpouring of disgust at the Cardinals is merely the result of our relative positions in the league or perhaps its more simply that my levels of black bile seem to be going through the roof (too much watching Yuni flounder away in the last few days) at present. Not much I can do about that, though, but in the spirit of mediaeval medicine there's nothing that a few leeches won't cure...

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Another girl, another planet. Another week, another update. Fresh from another seven days of baseball excitement (in my case another few days reading FanGraphs chats despite the fact about 12 minutes after reading each I can't remember a single thing that's been said). Still, it takes my attention away from Wimbledon (or “Wimpleton” as BA seemed to call it on Saturday) which I insist on watching out of some strange sports loyalism thing. You may call it masochism, but if I was truly masochistic what am I doing supporting a baseball team with Mark Kotsay and Yuni Betancourt hitting on it, huh? Actually, I think I'd rather watch Yuni swing away at umpteen first pitch breaking balls in the dirt than actually go to Wimbledon but watching it on telly passes the time as I find myself a few days into a massive holiday and already finding myself bored. In fact, I've been to loads of sporting events and the least memorable was the womens doubles tennis final I went to about 10 years ago. Actually, it was relatively memorable but mainly because the start was delayed so I went to the pub with a mate and stayed there for most of the game, pint in hand watching the final on the pub TV rather than being bothered to walk the 300 metres to the actual court. Mind you, I've never been to a golf tournament and I reckon I'd probably rather stay in the pub for most of that as well. Anyway, join me for some vague commentary on a sport that actually matters. No, not baseball but fantasy baseball...

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Here were are again, a mere seven days after the most recent update. Doesn't time fly? Well, not really at all. In fact, I'm not sure which moves more slowly: the passage of time as Casey McGehee “runs” to first or Casey McGehee “running” to first. See, its some type of bizarre conundrum there – it might seem that the answer is that they both move at the same speed but once I'm sure that time moved so slowly that I once saw McGehee reach first base, went to the kitchen and poured myself a beer and, then, when I returned to watch the match he was still on first base. Of course, it might have just been that Casey had successfully beaten out the throw and was just waiting on first but when was the last time that happened? Actually, I think it might have happened once or twice in the last couple of days but I , for one, will be delighted when Casey finally returns to form. Anyway, perhaps its not so much of an “X-Files” moment as a “What-on-earth-is-he-waffling-on-about-now-Files” moment. Still, its been a good week in the fantasy baseball world including the mammoth daily total put up by NGGYU and the fact that so many teams are still in the race for finishing in the top two.

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Man, welcome back to the Fantasy League III update, the league that is so far ahead of the rest we're past bringing our T-Game and are well onto our Z-Game. Or should that be A-Game? Whatever, we're bringing some type of game and the type of game that we're bringing is the type of game that even Tony Plush can't bring. That's what we're bringing. Anyway, with the awesomeness that is me the Brewers (sorry, I seem to be channelling Hyatt at the moment...) making it into first place all is well in the world. The sun is shining, birds are tweeting and, from the standings, just about every fantasy team in our league has a chance of making the play-offs. Onwards and upwards!

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Yep, its been a momentous, earth-shattering week in BCB Fantasy League III with some big upsets and surprises. Well, there's been one result that is as surprising as Yuni walking more than once in a game, McGehee returning to form or winning a game on a Josh Wilson home run (wait, did that actually happen?) and a heap of other interesting bits of malarkey, but that's not bad at all is it? Hell, when you signed up for this league, little-knowing that it was the baseball equivalent of being sent in kindergarten to the “naughty boys” table where you weren't even trusted with a stick of glue (mainly due to that stomach pumping incident a couple of weeks earlier), no-one promised that every week would be jam packed with excitement and shock results, did they? As I recall, the deal was that we each managed our team responsibly, showed almost no emotion during any matches, would immediately point out any minor or perceived discretions and then proceed to ignore any of these rules if we actually won. It's the baseball St Louis Cardinals way of doing things. OK, so we might get called a hypocrite once in a while and we might be seen as pompous and there was that incident where someone accused Gold Glove Gamels of slightly loosening an undergarment after a narrow victory in week 3 but that's the way the game should be played. And what right does anyone else have to argue with that?

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Are you the type of guy that likes fantasy baseball but can't be bothered with all that drafting malarkey? For some reason do you hate the first nine weeks of the season? Do you really wish that you could just waltz in, take over a successful fantasy team and comfortably see it through to further success? If so, you're definitely in luck as there's now a space in League II for a new owner as one of the guys has unfortunately had to pull out of the league.

So, what would you get for your participation? You'd get to take over a team that is currently 8-0 in the rankings (possibly about to go 9-0 although the match-up this week is close at the moment) and is miles ahead in its league so you're probably already looking at promotion to the next league. Your team is loaded with talent: Bautista, Victorino, Longoria, Hamels, Oswalt, Morrow, Anibal Sanchez and even the majestic figure of a pure athlete that is Carlos Lee. Yep, you get Carlos Lee thrown in for free (which is a bit of a coincidence because that is a) how much he is worth, b) exactly $1,000,000,000,000 less than he is getting paid this year). Basically you just get to sit back, mock the rest of us unfortunates and bask in adulation as your team storms to victory.

Anyway, if you're interested reply to the post - first come first served! If no-one replies I will be forced to take over the team myself and, unfortunately, disband the current bunch of losers that masquerades as my team.

Fantasy League review back up in this isht, bringing all the usual review and preview nonsense. My team has done so badly in the past week that I'm planning on going into hiding – my foolproof plan at the moment is not to disguise myself at all and stay at my cousin's house, I reckon there's no way that anyone could possibly find me then. Anyway, it's not just about me, it's about everyone who takes part (well, in reality, it IS actually all about me) so that's about enough Ratko Mladic nonsense for the moment. Unless he resurfaces as part of a witness protection scheme as a LOOGY for the Twins and I'm not quite prepared to discount that possibility quite yet. Anyway, here's the rest of this week's preview which, I should add, I'm only writing in an attempt to bump down in the FanPosts the ridiculous number of posts about minor league prospects and increase the ridiculous number of posts about inconsequential fantasy baseball information...

Week Seven Review

Poughkeepsie Footpickers (301) beat Social Anxiety All Stars (210)

I remember once taking my stepdaughter to this doctors in the middle of the night as she was in quite a bit of pain from her ear. We sat in the doctor's room as he asked about the symptoms before explaining that her ear drum would burst in the middle of the night. On seeing my shocked expression he then informed me that this was relatively common and natural, would heal quickly and would not be particularly painful. Of course, I'd have been 200 times happier if he'd mentioned this before making me feel my stepdaughter was about to be hideously disfigured, but I think scaring your clients is just one of games that medical people play to entertain themselves. It's like having something called “Exploding Head Syndrome” which turns out not to be a huge cranial rupture but merely hearing a loud noise when you're trying to get to sleep. Meh! It's also like PF proclaiming Mark Buerhle (-3) to be a decent fantasy player when he is actually nothing of the sort. Luckily he had YoGa and his immense 51 points and Jacoby Ellsbury and his slightly less massive 37 points and Sabathia's 35 points to help him to a pretty impressive weekly total. SAAS had little to offer in return, with Teixeira (28) and CJ Wilson (21) being the only notable contributors.

Craig Counsell's Steakhouse (245) lost to Little Lebowski Under Achievers (265)

If LLUA was a recent Brewers player I’d put him down as being Jason Kendall. I’m not meaning that to be disparaging as I always had a sneaky respect for the master of grit. Perhaps it was his high KRUG quotient, perhaps it was his bizarre Dave Kerwin rambling and perhaps it was the fact that he officially played in all 189 of the Brewers 162 games in the 2009 season but there was something kinda compelling about the guy who a Pirates blog once referred to as looking like “a fist with eyes”. Week after week LLUA has kept plugging away and has got his deserved reward this week with a victory over CCS. Yeah, CCS was very much the underdog and LLUA was perhaps the biggest, errr, overdog in any match-up this week but it didn’t stop the master of fantasy grit getting through. For LLUA it was all about Carl Crawford (41) who chose this week to remember that it is baseball he is meant to be earning a living from, not lounging about in a stadium being watched by thousands of people, although Correia (21) and Bell (20) also contributed. Actually, “Correia and Bell” sounds like a really bad 80's duo although I can't quite make my mind up if they'd do power ballads or weird electro music. CCS struggled again which is strange when you see major scoring from Kershaw (46) and Lohse (41) although that was largely it from his pitching and his hitting wasn't up to much, excepting Cano (21), Howard (20) and Aybar (19). Looks like CCS can't make the playoffs now but when you look at some of his players you really wonder how he's sitting at 0-7 as he's also got Miggy (18) and Nelson Cruz (11) as well as some of the talent mentioned earlier.

Harvey's Wallbangers (163) lost to The Team That I Refuse To Name (236)

HW had a remarkably schizophrenic week with his hitting prospering to the tune of 175 points while his pitching floundered a touch, costing him 11 points. OK, so its not quite as famously two-faced as the flag of Paraguay (oh yeah, I'm bringing the vexillology, baby!) or Alex Cameron, the guy with the perfectly spherical head in my sixth form who continued to try to be my mate even though I absolutely completely definitely knew it was him who was spreading the scurrilous rumours I'm sure you all heard about 20 years ago concerning myself and Emily Stewart but its kinda getting there. Actually, being completely honest, any rumour suggesting I might have had any type of involvement with the delectable Miss Stewart left my 16 year-old self with the same giddy excitement Brandon Crawford probably felt after that Grand Slam the other night. In truth, his hitting is focussed solely on Granderson (36), Quentin (28), Ortiz (25) and Young (24) which sounds more like the name of a firm of Lawyers specialising in medical malpractice than a competent hitting line-up but his pitching was baaaad. And, as Run DMC stated, that's “bad meaning bad, not bad meaning good”. In fact, Danks (-29), K-Rod (-13) and Soria (-18) have pretty much redefined the meaning of “bad” so miserable were their efforts. In comparison, TTIRTM was the epitome of the well-balanced fantasy side with 112 from hitting and 124 from pitching. A certain Mr Hart scored 34, Jered Weaver returned to pitching form with 29 and Brett Anderson scored 24. TTIRTM is now 6-2 and looking a decent bet to make the play-offs. Of course, if this was an actual baseball team it would give me the opportunity to stupidly waffle on about how this type of team always does well in the regular season but will fail in the post-season but its only fantasy baseball so I won't. Although, incidentally, I do think that this team will fail in the post-season but only because thoughts of someone else's failure make the recent collapse of my own side easier to cope with. Yep, that's the twisted way I roll...

Never Gonna Give You Upton (192) lost to Chin Music (229)

As Scarface, Bushwick Bill and Willie D professed, it's pretty easy for your mind to play tricks on you. I wake up in the middle of the night to find an intruder lurking in my room only to realise it's my dressing gown hung up on a coathook, I get home from shopping to find I've forgotten to buy the one thing I set out to get (normally jello in my case) and, just the other day, I put what I thought was a vase on my mantlepiece only to find out that what I'd actually placed there were two faces in profile looking at each other. Anyway, NGGYU's mind played the distinct trick on him of thinking that Ichiro (8), BJ Upton (7) and Justin Upton (13) would be big players for him and he's been badly let down all season by these three guys who should have been notably better. Rickie Weeks (24), Rollins (27) and Miguel Montero (22) gave him some respectability. For CM, Ryan Braun (31) proved more more explosive than a field of Chinese watermelons and Ryan Dempster (35) and Jose Reyes (31) scored well too, while Aaron Hill returned to form with 19. Well, its more of a return to relatively middle-of-the-road mediocrity than anything that could honestly be called “form”, but for Aaron Hill that's probably a result.

Stinky Cheese (143) beat Phoenix Fire (137)

Now, I'm no closet fascist (or even an uncloseted fascist) but sometimes you really wonder about giving certain people a choice about things. Take for example the highly vexatious issue of fossils. Yes, I know the news has been filled with debates over whether the crinoid fossils recently found outside St Louis can be dated back to the Ordovician period (I know most of you are intelligent enough to dismiss the simplistic and ignorant arguments connected with this view) but I think its worth looking at in more detail. See, as perhaps you know, each US state has an official state fossil with Wisconsin, for example, going down the rather standard route of choosing the trilobite as its state fossil. Now, I'm guessing that most states have chosen as their official fossil one that is found easily in the state or was first found in their state. But I'm also guessing that there are loads of fossils in most states so you've got a pretty good range of options. So, its fairly understandable that you might end up with some fairly cool state fossils like Alabama with the Basilosaurus Whale, Alaska taking the Woolly Mammoth, Colorado with the Stegosaurus (easily one of the coolest dinosaurs) or, best of all, West Virgina with the superb Jefferson's ground sloth. But why in the name of everything that is good, right and decent would you choose petrified wood (Alabama and North Dakota), the brachipod (Kentucky) or a type of herring (Wyoming)? As far as I am concerned when contraction of the states finally happens, and it had better be damn soon, those are the first four states I'm wanting to see gone. Similarly, when you've got a choice of everyone in the realm of baseball to pick in your team and you end up with Barton (2), Yuni (6) and Guillermo Moscoso (6) on your team you'd better hope there's a damn good reason 'cos whatever it is it damn sure has nothing to do with fantasy point scoring. There's obviously some reason for it in the deranged space that doubles as the mind of Phoenix Fire but I've no idea what it is. Anyway, in this match up the crucial difference was that SC's pitching (21) was marginally better than PFs (3) but that's very much like feeling pleased because you've just been named the second ugliest boy in your class. Finding decent scoring in either team was hard, but Lester (25) did OK for SC and Bruce (39), Arizona Chris Young (23) and Rasmus (21) did decently for PF – if only he hadn't played either of Kuroda and Lowe (both -13) and he'd have won this one.

Bringing Home the Bacon (182) beat The Braun Supremacy (100)

In general, 16th century Geneva was a pretty cool place to be. That is, a pretty cool place to be if you hated gambling, overindulgence and the theatre and loved Bible study, Calvinism and, err, more Bible study. Being completely honest, I can see the attraction in a bit of Bible study now and again, but I'm not sure if make-believe games based on people hitting a ball with a bat would have been looked on approvingly by John Calvin and the others in Geneva at the time. Especially as it might have involved, shame of shames, the occasional game on a Sunday. Anyway, it probably wasn't the type of place that many of us would want to be stuck in. Much like BHtB's line-up. In fact, with the exception of Tulo (14), his entire side is filled with guys who have a relatively high floor but a relatively low ceiling, making BHtB have all the living space of a badly-designed Manhattan bedsit. If Casey McGehee (2) is the epitome of a blue-collar hitter then the equivalent Brewers pitching version must be Shaun Marcum (-6). On top of this, there's also such workaday types as Infante (4), Luke Scott (5) and Kyle McClellan (14). Actually, there were a few very good performances in there this week too with Ricky Romero (23), Kelly Johnson (28) and Juan Pierre (26) not doing too badly although Max Scherzer managed to lose 23 points in merely two innings.TBS kept a very consistent team the whole week and must have been wishing he'd made some changes as Kinsler (28) and DeJesus (23) got almost no support, particularly from a -22 pitching staff. Porcello lost him 17 (in 3 innings) and Matt Cain must have faced a damn hot hitting line-up as he managed to lose -14 points in the week.

Bumpin' Ugglas (224) beat MSKM (174)

There's some very good and obvious reasons why a best-selling book has never been written about the link between radical politics and vegetables. Sure, there's all types of links between agriculture (and nowadays the environmental movement) and politics with perhaps the most obvious being the 17th Century Diggers, a kind of proto-communist movement that emerged at the end of the English Civil War and spent ages planting parsnips and other vegetables before eventually dissolving under internal pressures and external attacks, but that's about it. Mind you, one of my favourite bits of information of all time is that carrots are orange due to political reasons. Most experts think that carrots originally used to be white or purple and that the orange variety only became widespread by being grown by the Dutch in the 17th  Century in tribute to William of Orange, the then king of Holland. Pretty bizarre, huh? Equally bizarre was the fact my top scorer this week was, of all people, Chris Ianetta (26) with 18 of his points coming in one match. Even more bizarre was Arroyo deciding he was a secret double agent on behalf of BU and thereby costing me 40 points and Ubaldo only costing me 14 points. The way Ubaldo is pitching at present I count that as a win. Of course, not remembering to put Bedard and Westbrook in the line-up cost me about 30 points but that wouldn't have made any difference to the final result. In total, 44 of BU's 65 pitching points were due to Jair Jurrjens, with CarGo (22), Ethier (19) and McCann (18) doing well in the hitting department.

Gold Glove Gamels (269) lost to More Than A Feeling (321)

The three most predictable things in American politics are that 1) the President will manage to find that he, surprisingly, has Irish heritage, 2) the President will then visit Ireland and take a trip to a local pub, 3) the President will tentatively sip from a pint of Guinness as if that is somehow the only way of proving your heritage. Forget the fact that many Irish drink various alcoholic beverages such as lager, wine and methylated spirits (often all three in the same glass) and engage in other activities such as, I don't know, kissing the Blarney Stone, having all their goods stolen by mischievous leprechauns and droving their sheep through Dublin city centre, it all tends to boil down to drinking a pint of the black stuff. Its cliched to the 200th degree and entirely, entirely foreseeable. Much as this fantasy league is resulting in a predictable processing for MTAF thereby rendering the entire competition pointless (much like Ubaldo Jimenez) and relatively meaningless (much like supporting the Royals). This week it was Hamels (36), Ibanez (34), Pedroia and Anibal Sanchez (both 29) who made the biggest contributions meaning that a relatively paltry 26 from Jose Bautista wasn't relevant. GGG put up a good effort in return and had monster pitching from Putz (32), Price (30), Hellickson (25), Kimbrel (24) and Greinke (22) but a highest pitching score of 22 from Jon Jay showed where his weaknesses are. Well, his other weakness is his bizarre fetish involving window cleaner and burnt toast but we won't go there...

Power Leagues. OK, I did Wisconsin music last week, so this week it has to be from the country that is to music what Chicago is to honesty in politics and Libya is to popular holiday destinations...

League 1 (Fey? Don't care if it sounds like this...)

1. More Than A Feeling – 924 (8-0, East)

2. Bringing Home the Bacon – 753 (6-2, West)

3. Poughkeepsie Footpickers – 747 (4-4, South)

League 2 (Only vaguely acceptable thing ever to come out of Dundee. Unless you  think crack whores are acceptable)

1. Bumpin' Ugglas – 746 (7-1, South)

2. Gold Glove Gamels – 725 (5-3, West)

3. Social Anxiety All Stars – 720 (2-6, North)

League 3 (The lead singer's brother ended up a legendary goalscorer for the fantastic Meadowbank Thistle FC (RIP). Plus the song is excellent)

1. MSKM – 699 (4-4, North)

2. Harvey's Wallbangers – 674 (4-4, South)

3. Chin Music – 660 (4-4, North)

League 4 (100% pure distilled musical tartan. This proves that's not necessarily a good thing.)

1. Little Lebowski – 615 (3-5, East)

2. Stinky Cheese - 597 (6-2, West)

3. Never Gonna Give You Upton – 597 (1-7, South)

League 5 (“Deep” song about political issues? Boring as hell? Pretentious nonsense? Sung by a twat? Here you go...)

1. The Team I Refuse to Name – 585 (6-2, North)

2. Craig Counsell's Steakhouse – 561 (0-8, West)

3. Phoenix Fire – 545 (2-6, East)

4. The Braun Supremacy – 544 (2-6, East)

Next week's match-ups

MSKM vs Harvey's Wallbangers

More Than A Feeling vs Stinky Cheese

Little Lebowski vs Gold Glove Gamels

The Braun Supremacy vs Craig Counsell's Steakhouse

Phoenix Fire vs Bringing Home the Bacon

Social Anxiety All Stars vs Never Gonna Give You Upton

The Team That I Refuse to Name vs Poughkeepsie Footpickers

Chin Music vs Bumpin' Ugglas

Match-up-of-the-week

TTIRTN may be sitting close to the bottom of the power rankings but, thanks to the immense ju-ju based voodoo skills of their owner, they are in with a chance of a sizeable lead in the North if they can get past Poughkeepsie. PF has had some great performances and are sitting third in the power-rankings but have a 4-4 record in the South and seem to be battling Harvey's Wallbangers for second place. Pujols, Utley, Stanton, YoGa, CC and Corey Patterson (!) for PF match up against Hart, Weaver and perhaps the best DL list in history with David Wright, Buster Posey, Travis Hafner, Rafael Soriano and Kendry Morales sitting there. Hmm, so perhaps its PF with the voodoo skills and the dolls of opponent's players at the ready...

As the utterly fantastic Dexy's Midnight Runners stated back in 1980, “Seven Days Too Long (Without Fantasy Baseball Update)”  so we're back again with the usual nonsense a mere week after the last update. I'd love to disagree with lead singer Kevin Rowland's relentless demands for more frequent sabermetric player-selection leisure activity write-ups but who am I to argue with a man for whom the phrase “lunatic genius” could have been invented, as anyone who remembers his solo 1999 Reading Festival “performance” will attest. Anyway, in the spirit of Kevin I'm running this update in the same austere, puritanical style that Rowland inflicted on 80's Dexy's. Imagine Buck Showalter with a better sense of rhythm, a cool perm, even higher levels of grumpiness, dungarees and a bit of a Black Country accent. And marginally less baseball knowledge. So, put your alcohol down (yes, Mr LaRussa, that means you too...), sit up straight and you'd better extinguish that funny-smelling cigarette pretty damn quickly mister...

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The Brewers are back in  full effect boy, bringing the pain in the last week and removing all those memories of the Astros and Cardinals series last week that had everyone staring into the sun like we were 12-0 down in the bottom of the ninth and our next three batters up were Yuni, Kotsay and Gomez. Well, they were completely out of your memory until I just went and put them back there but that's the type of cruel games that I get to play as commissioner of BCB League III. Well, according to the official league rules the only other game I'm legally allowed to play while typing up this nonsense is petanque and I'd rather not be caught doing that. As everyone knows, anything French is automatically against Freedom, and if there's anything I'm "meh, I suppose it's OK" about it is freedom. That's why, to this day, I refuse to listen to any of my huge collection of Johnny Hallyday CDs, send back any dish in a restaurant if it has been anywhere near so much as half a clove of garlic and, just last Thursday evening, refused yet another dinner invitation from Audrey Tatou. She's tried promising to take on German citizenship but that's a frying pan and fire situation so she'll need to come up with something considerably better...

Anyway, do that jump thing like its 1968, you're in Mexico City and someone's just said to you "fancy a shot at this long jump malarkey, Mr Beamon?"

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Oh yeah, the BCB Fantasy League III review is back to conjugate verbs and constipate nerds again with an exciting review of last week and an even more exciting preview of the next week's action. And, as promised, I've kept this write-up to only approximately the length of a Craig Counsell at-bat so you can't complain too much.

Last Wednesday you were all on the edge of your seats awaiting the Greinkemas Greinkepocalypse (little knowing that Greinkemas Greinkepocalype was actually a little known phrase in the Schwabian dialect of German that means "distinctly dissapointing start that will necessitate rapid alcohol intake") and doubtless you're in a similar state of anticipation awaiting the remainder of this post. I would call it the League III-pocalypse but that sounds about as dismal as Carl Crawford's slash line. Actually, "Carl Crawford's Slash Line" sounds to me like a cool baseball-related band name. Still not as good as "Warning Track Out" which is by far the best baseball band name yet to exist. In fact, I defy you to come up with something better. Are you feeling lucky, punk? Come on, calling yourself "The Baseball Project" is just lame and geeky. But not geeky in a good way. Anyway, you'd better not call them "THE Warning Track Outs" though because you're only allowed to have "The" at the start of your name and be cool if you're a 70's punk band. And don't start quoting me supposedly cool bands starting with "The" because I'll just deny they're any good even if its obvious that they are. Kinda like the same way my little brother once denied he was eating chocolate despite the fact he was sitting in the back of the car with a chocolate bar wrapper next to him and chocolate all over his face. And a half-eaten chocolate bar in the other hand. To cut a long story short, don't tell blatant lies or you too, like my brother, may grow up to be the mascot of a dodgy Scottish ice-hockey team. Or, more accurately, the moral of the opening paragraph is probably that if you want insightful baseball commentary rather than a collection of vague ramblings about nothing in particular you're best off skipping to straight after the jump where the talk is 100% fantasy baseball. Straight up, no chaser.

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Hot damn. You guys don't know how lucky you are to get this write-up. For the last week I've been up to my knees in bunting, souvenir magazines, street party detritus and flags as myself and the entire rest of the UK has had their eyes glued to television sets or large screens set up across the country to watch the finale of the most mesmerising love story any of us have ever known. Yes, I'm talking of the elicit love between "Runnin'" Ron Roenicke and Eric Almonte which finished recently with the sad sight of Almonte being sent to Nashville as their relationship officially collapsed. The Royal Wedding? Couldn't really give a toss. In fact, I'd officially say that the only way that I could care in the slightest about Kate Middleton would be in the bizarre case that she was getting married to Russell Branyan. And that would purely be a jealousy thing. Or perhaps not. I dunno, I'm more confused about it than a 14 year-old Emo kid wondering whether the fact he thinks more about the lead singer of Fall Out Boy than his suicidal girlfriend might says something about his sexuality. Anyway, I've already mentioned Branyan in at least 82% of my posts on this site so, if you follow me after the jump, I promise it won't happen again.

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Another great week (for most people) in the greatest fantasy league in the world. Join us after the jump where we discuss different counting systems, hideously malformed Scottish darts players and Godzilla. Oh yeah, there's the odd bit of baseball stuff in there too...

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Week two was a bit of a stormer. Follow the rest for all the usual reviews, previews and nonsense and then post some chat afterwards.

PS I should warn all possible readers that the post below contains not one but two (well, actually its more like one) film spoiler. So, if there's anyone out there who is a huge fan of 1990s films about British soldiers who are taken hostage by the IRA (and, in my head at least, there were dozens of films like this) yet somehow has never got around to watching "The Crying Game" you might want to be careful. Anyway, if that is the case please be careful and very much avoid reading the section where I totally and stupidly give away the fact that the woman in the film is actually a man. Shit!

Week Two

Gold Glove Gamels (281) lost to Bringing Home the Bacon (289)

Hot damn! If you're like me (and why wouldn't you be?) you'll remember the 1982 Commonwealth Games 200 metre final when Alan Wells and Mike McFarlane battled for gold down the finishing straight, both desperate to land the most prestigious title that any athlete could win, namely that of being the best male 200 metre runner in the whole of Her Majesty's Commonwealth. As they crossed the line it was clear that a photo finish was necessary – countless replays and examinations of the photo finish could not separate them and, eventually, the rarest of sporting events was announced, a dead heat. Well, the contest between GGG and BHtB was kinda like this except that it was a competition based on selecting baseball players based on predicted performance rather than speed in running along a quarter of a large oval and it wasn't a dead heat at all but a close finish which BHtB eventually just won. Apart from that, and the fact that no title whatsoever was at stake, it was exactly identical. Identical except for the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, neither of the owners of GGG and BhtB are top-level athletes. But apart from all that, it was almost as if the two events were clones of each other and each will live just as long in my memory. While Tulo going absolutely crazy and scoring 47 points for BHtB could have been foreseen by anyone (anyone apart from me, that is, who thought he was overrated), who'da guessed the Big Puma scoring 47 for GGG? Interestingly, I polled not only Lance Berkman himself on this but every other puma, mountain lion and catamount (especially those of above average weight) and found that none had predicted this whatsoever. As a result, I'm tempted to say that it never happened (much as Ramon Hernandez, in my head, never happened) and award the tie to BHtB as a result. OK, so he won anyway, but I just like to feel I can exert my power at any time. Feel my wrath! Ggggrrrrrrrr!

More Than A Feeling (179) beat The Braun Supremacy (165)

In one of his worst efforts, Eminem asked the ridiculous question: "what happens when a tornado meets a volcano?" not realising that the obvious answer is either a) you get a tornano (or possibly the even rarer volcado) or b) it's impossible as tornados occur on flatter ground as the base of the tornado tends towards the lower part of any terrain. A far better question would have been what happens when a resistible force meets a movable object? Now, when philosophers in the future look back with satisfaction at having solved this conundrum they'll look back to the meeting of More Than A Feeling and The Braun Supremacy in the BCB Fantasy League III as the moment that the swirling mysteries of this question first began to congeal into the semblance of an answer. Both teams struggled from the start and by Wednesday were on a combined -68.3 or something relatively similar as their hitting and pitching fell apart. By the end of the week they'd achieved some sort of vague respectability with totals just above 150 for both sides, but when I say "vague respectability" I really mean "vague respectability if every single team in the league was run by three year-olds who'd chosen their entire team based solely on which players had names that reminded them of their favourite sweets". And, to the best of my knowledge, that's not the case in this league (apart from for bottom of power rankings Never Gonna Give You Upton). Anyway, the result doesn't augur particularly well for either side. Saying that, despite their low scores, MTAF are one of the few teams to have won both their starting games and, as the saying goes, you can only beat the team that's in front of you...

Chin Music (229) beat Grubby Shanks (205)

While trendy Japanese author Haruki Mirukami once wrote that "understanding is but the sum of our misunderstandings", it was Berkeley-based ska-punk outfit Operation Ivy who put it more memorably (if rather less prosaically) with their statement "all is know is that I don't know nothing" thereby not only commenting on their own general lack of intellect but proving it by callously disregarding the cornerstone of English grammar through their misuse of a double-negative. Now I know I'm at risk of turning into Donald Rumsfeld (and he's currently at the top of list of slightly deranged geriatrics I'd like to be, a list I like to maintain lovingly, narrowly edging out Muammar Gadaffi), if there's one thing that I know that I don't know it's how on earth Chin Music managed to beat Grubby Shanks. Last week Grubby Shanks were relentless in ladling up 424 points (which, as those of you who have ever tried using a ladle to get points will know, is pretty impressive) while Chin Music got wiped out by some mob of delinquents that I run. Oh well, CM's pick-up of Pineda paid off big time with the Seattle pitcher picking up exactly as many points as his weight in stone (41) with current source of Brewers trade discussion Jose Reyes picking up 31. Meanwhile, GS only managed to get Jonny Gomes as their top scorer (28) because I'd somehow decided he wasn't good enough for my team – that's the type of generosity I display to keep people interested in this two-bit league. Buster Posey (24) and Jered Weaver (20) were the only other two significant scorers for GS.

Craig Counsell's Steakhouse (172) lost to Stinky Cheese (208)

Perhaps the biggest difference between the USA and the UK is their approach to losers. Bred on years of repeated failure, legend has it that there's nothing the UK likes more than a loveable loser. Probably to do with the fact that the only sport we are possibly world leaders in is cycling. Now, going off on a tangent ever so slightly, I actually really like cycling and enjoy watching the Tour de France but at heart its a sport where competitors try to get their legs to go around in a circle as quickly as they can and, in velodrome riding, end up right back at the start. In the US, however, losing is, well, for losers. So, while CCS are getting called losers from Los Angeles to New York on account of getting edged out for the second week in a row, there's a small village in Shetland rejoices in his performance and welcomes in all players from his team. Basically, when your top scorers are Aaron Harang (24) and Frenchy Francouer (20) you might as well give up. At least SC had some decent pitching, with Josh Johnson (30), Masterson (21) and Lester (18) pitching well with Michael Bourn providing some offensive points (23)

Social Anxiety All Stars (172) lost to MSKM (243)

I know this one looks fairly one-sided, but it really wasn't until the last couple of days that MSKM had a comfortable lead. If it hadn't been for King Felix staggering home like a drunk who's been out in the pub all day and just realised not only that he's forgotten his wedding anniversary but has embarrassingly been cuffed around by the Kansas City Royals it might have been even closer. Still, at least SAAS had Tom Gorzellany which, if reports from the SAAS household are correct (don't ask how I know), led SAAS to cheer on the Nationals as they edged out the Brewers in extra innings the other day. That's the kinda guy he is. Anyway, Dallas Braden somehow delivered 30 points for me with Votto (22) and Ianetta (21??) helping too. If Brian Wilson (35) had failed, SAAS would have been in even more trouble as Orlando Hudson (20) was their next highest scorer. I know I'm now sitting 2-0, but with Jimenez not technically back yet, and Kuo, Braden and Frank "Franky" Francisco all on the 15-day DL I might well be struggling for a while. See, I've got my complaints in early, so if Grubby Shanks doesn't beat me this week he deserves to be tarred, feathered and thrown out of this league into one that is truly worthy of his miserable fantasy baseball abilities – I'm currently suggesting Hyatt's league would be ideal...

Poughkeepsie Footpickers (207) lost to Bumpin' Ugglas (315)

Spoiler alert! Ancient film spoiler alert! You know the film "The Crying Game" where you watch the whole film only to find out that, to paraphrase the favourite song of womanly England cricketer Stuart Broad, the dude definitely looked like a lady but actually wasn't. Or that film, The Sixth Sense where you watch the whole time only to find out the twist in the tale is that Bruce Willis actually manages to do some decent acting in a serious film. That's what I took out of the film anyway. Well, this match-up was a bit of a surprise too as week one loser BU went ballistic and posted up easily the highest scorer of the week. BU didn't get mega-totals from any player but was just ridiculously consistent with Castro (33), Jurrjens and Cahill (both 25), Hanson (24), Hererra (23) and Morrison (20) all contributing steadily. PF, in comparison, had Sandoval with 23 points and that's really it. The starting pitching that served him so well last week completely failed (thanks YoGa for -14) but playing Nelson Figueroa (-14) is kinda akin to playing Russian Roulette with a fully loaded revolver.

Phoenix Fire (275) beat Little Lebowski Under Achievers (225)

I watched a little bit of the Pirates game the other week and saw James McDonald (a pitcher, you may recall who I tipped for greatness during the draft) getting absolutely lit up and then remembered why I stick to making snarky comments on other people's fantasy teams rather than providing serious fantasy baseball advice. McDonald lost 17 points for LLUA and, as if to prove that the little-known strategy of loading up on Pirates starters is a little-known strategy for a very good reason, Kevin Correia cost him 7 as well, with Eric Bedard losing a further 8. Not even getting a staggering 51 (FIFTY-ONE – a videprinter based in-joke there for BhTB) points from Dan Haren could make up for that. PF was nice and solid with points from Valverde (32), Halladay (25), Billingsley and Bruce (both 22) securing a relatively comfortable win. He's now 2-0 and is officially my dark horse in the league (not that I think he's an outsider who might win the title, just that I like to imagine him mimicking Black Beauty).

Harvey's Wallbangers (238) beat Never Gonna Give You Upton (196)

I feel genuinely sorry for having cursed NGGYU for having gone on about Kameron Loe last week as he lost 6 points this week for his owner. Well, I did feel genuinely sorry, but then I looked at his roster (Phil Hughes -6, Rick Ankiel -1, Derrek Lee 1, Kevin Gregg 0) and I got sudden stomach pains from laughing too hard. Sorry, I shouldn't really do that but I just can't help it. Saying that, if your top scorer in any week is Randy Wolf (28 points) you've got to be playing some type of bizarre practical joke on the rest of the league. Selecting crappy fantasy players must be this years Rick-rolling or something. Anyway, Harveys Wallbangers didn't need to do too much to win but should be cursed for rejoicing in Livan Hernandez's 40 points, with big totals also from Matt Kemp (34) an both Michael Young and Fausto Carmona (27). Joe Nathan's shaky closer position is a worry going forward, but he's still stacked with closers so perhaps he's just chilling back with a pina colada and laughing at those of us still trying to calculate exactly what the point of a Ryan Madson is?

Power Rankings

Today's Power Rankings have been worked out in a scientific way and have not, I repeat NOT, been devised as a devious, insidious and, frankly, racist way of illustrating the undoubted superiority of the two Scots in the league over all you American guys. Its not our fault we're bringin' skills you guys can only dreeeeaaaam about.

1. Bringing Home the Bacon (2-0, West)

2. MSKM (2-0, North)

3. Stinky Cheese (2-0, West)

4. Harvey's Wallbangers (2-0, South)

5. Bumpin' Ugglas (1-1, South)

6. Grubby Shanks (1-1, North)

7. Gold Glove Gamels (0-2, West)

8. Poughkeepsie Footpickers (1-1, South)

9. Phoenix Fire (1-1, East)

10. Craig Counsell's Steakhouse (0-2, West)

11. The Braun Supremacy (1-1, East)

12. More Than a Feeling (2-0, East)

13. Chin Music (1-1, North)

14. Little Lebowski Under-Achievers (0-2, East)

15. Social Anxiety All-Stars (0-2, North)

16. Never Gonna Give You Upton (0-2, South)

Next week's match-ups

The Braun Supremacy vs Little Lebowski Under-Achievers

Phoenix Fire vs More Than A Feeling

Gold Glove Gamels vs Craig Counsell's Steakhouse

Bringing Home the Bacon vs Steeeeenky Cheese

MSKM vs Grubby Shanks

Chin Music vs Social Anxiety All-Stars

Never Gonna Give You Upton vs Bumpin' Ugglas

Poughkeepsie Footpickers vs Harvey's Wallbangers

Match-up of the week

Not really much choice in this. Has to be number one ranked BhtB against third ranked Stinky Cheese. As I write, BhtB is -15 due to a poor start from Ricky Romero (who sounds more like a 1950's music hall artist than a professional athlete) but still has Choo and Tulowitski to go up against SC's Fielder, Lester and Verlander (and Nyjer!). Could be a really crucial week for both these sides...

Anyway, for exciting fantasy baseball reading (well, more exciting than this) here's an article from the Hardball Times you might find helpful.

One week over, loads more to go. Here's your review of the last week, preview of the upcoming week and various more bizarre comments and insults after THE JUMP!!!

Continue reading this post »

While the supposedly superior leagues 1 and 2 sat down to their vanilla snake drafts the big boys of League 3 entered into their marathon auction. During the auction some of us launched new careers, watched new presidents get elected, got married, divorced and even had kids but all remainded simultaneously focussed on prying every bit of value out of their $260 budget. A huge thanks to all who took part (I think virtually all 16 were present) and for making it such a fun night.

Anyway, I'm not going to post up all 16 teams rosters (if you want you can see that here) but I'm going to give me quick thoughts on all 16 teams. I'm gonna try to be relatively even-handed but I don't forget things easily (yes, I'm speaking to you, the guy who bid me up an extra $4 on Markakis).

Continue reading this post »

We've got a space available for league three of the BCB Fantasy League competition (I'm guessing there's a really good reason why a certain individual hasn't replied to any invites...) so if you're interested I'll take the first name posted below. I'm guessing there's lots of people who have read the various attempts at smack talk circulating in various FanPosts and thought "I too would like to insult fellow Brewers fans using arcane references to 80s films to tie them into fantasy baseball" so here is your chance.

The draft is auction on ESPN and it looks like it'll start at 8pm ET tomorrow (although is possible it might be 9pm ET) - the roster looks deep at first but we'll probably end up cutting in by a couple of players. If you've never done a fantasy team before this would be a good place to start and even if you can't make the starting time you can still autodraft your team and no-one will hold it against you! Once you've signed up I can get an invite off to you (if you could add your e-mail to the message that'd be great) and then you just need to follow the really simple invite instructions to be in.

Due to the huge levels of popular demand (actually, the fact that ESPN can't allow a H-2-H league with an odd number of teams) we've got a space remaining in the bottom league of the BCB fantasy league competition. This offers you the chance of a season's worth of fantasy baseball related high-jinks, my unlimited thanks and the opportunity of glory.

Back in 1992 the Danish soccer side was sunning themselves on the beach having failed to qualify for the European Championships. Due to the war in the Balkans the Yugoslavian team were disqualified, leaving Denmark to fill the breach and desperately get prepared at the last minute. Despite being complete underdogs and with less recognisable talent than the other teams, the plucky Danes scraped through the group stages, overturned a strong Dutch team in the semis and then, against all the odds, comfortably beat the Germans 2-0 in the final. From not even being scheduled to take part the Danes were now the official champions of Europe, bringing immense pride to a nation of under 6 million people. Yes, if you are the first to put their name down to take the extra space in BCB Fantasy League III you could fulfil your wildest dreams and be acknowledged as the Denmark of BCB. Seize those dreams! Become Denmark!

To: Bensheets15, bfreddy4, braunmon, brew town boozer, cheezeconqueso, craigcounsellssteakhouse, ec927, jeo, -JP-, KRaw, Max, nthnttn, stlouishusker, yardworkspartacus

A big hello to everyone joining me for a fun and excitement packed fantasy league season. While we've been lumped in division three (which I'm moving to rebrand as "The Championship" or something more eloquent than the frankly insulting "League Newbie") I'm sure we can officially kick the asses of the other two leagues. View it as one of those crappy kids movies where the plucky underdog team of fat kids, asthmatics and geeks overcome their jock rivals with a grand slam in the last at-bat hit by the diabetic kid whose baseball-loving Dad died two months ago.
 
Anyway, remember the heady days days of 2008 when the Brew Crew were blessed with Sabathia and Sheets mowing down the opposition? Well, if the other two commissioners (Noah and Hyatt) are CC and Ben, I'm very much cast in the role of a certain Mr Suppan. Consistently poor, underachieving and it feels like you have to put up with him for decades. The only thing I lack in the Suppan comparison is the crap facial hair and the fact I've only ever once been booed by an entire crowd at a sporting event which is a lot less than Jeff managed. You guys get the drift - as you'll notice when my team is staring up at everyone else's from the bottom of the league I enjoy a good fantasy baseball season but I'm not exactly an expert. Due to this I've basically waited until Noah and Hyatt have posted so I can steal their best ideas. As a result, this is what I'm suggesting in a handy numbered sequence to make it look more impressive than it is:
 
1) Draft is on ESPN
2) Draft date will either be Friday 25th, Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th at 8pm CST. My personal favourite is the Friday or Saturday but I'll go with what makes sense for everyone. If there's a day you definitely can't make let me know in the thread.
3) We're going with the head to head points system and scoring that Hyatt suggested (see bottom of post) with which seems purposely created as being the sole format deep enough and with sufficient categories so that Carlos Gomez, Yuni and Mat Gamel have a chance of getting drafted. I'll still laugh when it happens though.
4) We've got 15 teams in the league so one team each week is going to have to get a bye. I'm not quite sure how we're going to work this out so that each team gets the same number of byes in the regular season and we still have enough time for play-offs and figuring out which teams get promoted so I'm hoping someone can come up with a good suggestion.
5) Team names - post in the thread below if you want but you don't have to. I'm allowing anything in mainly because I know there's possibly going to be loads of team names referencing American sports, music or general culture that I wouldn't have the first clue about. Of course, I might be wrong and you're all going to submit names based on haggis, Groundskeeper Willie, shortbread and The Proclaimers (still officially the most handsome men in the whole of Scotland) just to keep me happy... 
 
I think that's it for the moment but do post in the fanshot with anything 've forgotten about. Best of luck to you all!
 
PS League format: Stat Categories: R, 1B, 2B, 3B, HR, RBI, SB, CS, BB, K, E, IP, W, L, SV, H, ER, BB, K, HLD. Stat Modifiers: R (1), 1B (1), 2B (2), 3B (3), HR (4), RBI (1), SB (2), CS (-1), BB (1), K (-1), E (-2), IP (2), W (10), L (-5), SV (6), H (-1), ER (-1), BB (-1), K (1), HLD (2). Positions: C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, CI, MI, OF, OF, OF, OF, OF, Util, SP, SP, SP, SP, RP, RP, P, P, P, P, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, DL, DL