matthearn.com

So, <pause to spit chaw-juice into an old Genesee can> went fishin’ yesterday. Threw out the old line, ya know. Catch anythin’? Why, we’ll get to that part of the story directly.

I went with my buddy Mike, who is a fishin’ aficionado (the tintinabulation! I’m like Poe all up in this piece), to fish for trout in White Clay Creek. He had rods, reels, tackle, and bait; all I needed was an actual fishing license, since if the Warden appeared he’d throw me in the hole. Er, fine me. (Wrong Warden.) I went to Kmart the other day and picked one up to the tune of $15. A fine deal, I thought, considering I’m bound to catch 2 or 3 large trout, and that much fish would cost me $20 at the store, right?

We arrived at the creekbank and prepared our rods for casting. I hadn’t been fishing in probably 10 years, and I hadn’t EVER done freshwater fishing, so I was surprised at the level of bait technology. Worms? Corn? Small hunks of fish entrails? Nay nay, my friends. Now you fish for trout with “powerbait,” which amounts to glittery playdough smelling strongly of rotten shrimp. Apparently trout like shiny colors in their food, which strikes me as bizarre since it’s not something they would encounter in a natural environment. I didn’t know, however, that most of the trout that you find in Delaware streams and lakes are actually stocked from fisheries, so perhaps they breed them to look for strange colors and get kickbacks from the powerbait companies.

There are many colors of powerbait, and some that are mixes of a variety of hues. The fellow on the opposite creekbank caught a small fish just as we were casting with what he described as “rainbow powerbait.” (Maybe trout are gay. I dunno. I’m just along for the ride here, same as you.)

Mike and I tried 4 or 5 different colors of bait and got nary a bite. The closest we came was when I was reeling my line in to check and see if the bait had fallen off again and two MASSIVE fish swam by, studied my line for a moment, and scurried downstream. Bastards.

So we caught no fish, which should hardly have surprised me; I’ve probably been fishing 10-12 times in my life and only caught any fish on two of those trips. However it did remind me how much fun fishing can be, so I might just have to invest in a rod and some tackle of my own. And some rainbow powerbait.

Tonight: Phillies game with my parents! And we got good seats, too, which means of course I forgot my camera at home. Hm; stop by the house and get it, and have to worry about a $500 camera during the entire game, or say “screw it I can download pictures of Ryan Howard from the Phillies website if I wish to gaze upon him?” These are the questions that occupy the mind of the idiot.

I haven’t run with this in a while, so I figured it was time to drag out Ye Olde Advice Columne Gimmicke, as usual despite the fact that nobody actually writes me asking for help. This time, instead of making up my own questions, I’m going to search online advice boards to swipe questions from there, and answer them myself, because I’m a 1st degree freakazoid. Let us begin, with a question borrowed from Teen Advice Online:

i seem to hate having my picture taken, yet I know that photos are Important for memories, especially baby pictures. I don’t seem to be bothered by having my passport photo taken. It is the family holiday photos that get to me. When my parents ask me to stand for a photo in front of a view or monument, I feel uncomfortable and I frown in the photo. My parents then warn me that I will have no good memories to take back.

I don’t know why I hate having my picture taken. Perhaps I am afraid of having a silly grin on my face. Maybe it’s because I hate standing under the hot sun or I am annoyed by the photographer’s enthusiasm. Is there any way to think better of family vacation photography?

If I had to fashion a guess, I’d say it’s because you know, deep in your subconscious, that you’re ugly. Ha ha! Just kidding! I’m sure that weird mole isn’t visible in the pictures.

Seriously, I know what you mean. I’m actually all about photography, in general; what I hate is posed pictures. I’m not particularly interested in seeing pictures of a group all facing the camera with big smiles, standing in front of, say, the Korean War Memorial. I can photoshop faces in front of landmarks with the best of them, so what’s the point? What I like are realistic photos, photos of people just doing their thing. One of my favorite pictures is actually one my father took of the back of my head as I was taking a picture of a sunset. It’s a totally phenomenal shot.

On the other hand, you need to get over yourself. When your parents say you’ll “have no good memories to take back,” what they are really saying is “WE’LL have no good memories, etc.” If it makes them happy, why disappoint them? Is it really that much trouble? Plus, in 25 years when you all go back and look through the photo albums and show the grandkids and stuff, everyone will ask, “Man, why did you always look like such a jerk?”

Just grin and bear it. Ugly-man.

Oops, probably should have read this one, from Dear Mrs. Web, last week:

I have been invited to my friend’s family for Easter. Should I bring a gift when I go? Any ideas of what would be appreciated?

Gifts are always appreciated, but no one bothers to bring them anymore. Good ideas are: a pint bottle of cheap vodka; a gift certificate to your favorite tattoo and piercing parlor; a feathered Robin Hood-style cap; warming personal lubricant; and lightly-used toilet paper.

From The Answer Man:

My problem has to do with a certain someone I work with. Let me preface this question with the fact that I am in a long term relationship with a wonderful man that I am very much in love with. I cant stop thinking about a certain coworker, however, who happens to be of the opposite sex, married and 18 years older than myself. I think about him all the time and I think about ways I can arrange my work day to spend more time with him. Sometimes I even think, if we were both single would he go out with me? I am puzzled where these feelings are coming from. Could I be searching for a father figure? (My dad passed away when I was 19) As long as I do not act on any feelings, is this normal to have a crush like this? Any suggustion on how to handle these feelings? I feel like I cant talk to anyone about this. Thank you for your help.

My advice to you is to picture the older gentleman naked, focusing especially on his genitals. That’s right: his old man balls. Picture them. Is that something you want to have anything to do with? Really? That’s gross. Wow.

Everybody gets little crushes from time to time. It’s been well-documented in this space that a menage a trois with Chase Utley and Matthew McConaughey would not be out of the question for this columnist. In my case, however, the odds of that are rather low, and also I don’t think Sarah would mind watching. In your case, however, seeing as you are a woman, the entire responsibility rests on your shoulders, because it’s well documented that men have absolutely no self-control, particularly when it comes to young, lithe women.

I guess what I’m saying is, take a lot of cold showers or hope you don’t get caught. Good luck!

From the depths of the internet:

I think my husband is cheating on me. We haven’t had sex in over 3 months! What can I do to look more attractive and win him back?

In my many years of experience with women, I have come to realize a simple fact: most women have no grasp of what is attractive to men. Women actually dress so that their girlfriends and their gay hairdresser will compliment them, which is fine. But if a straight man doesn’t find what they are wearing to be particularly interesting, they say he has no taste. This isn’t true. Straight men do have taste, it’s just completely different from women and gay men. This is no different than the way some people don’t like onions, and some people do. So let me explain, once and for all, men’s taste in women’s clothing:

We want you to dress like sluts.

Is this really surprising? I guarantee, if your husband is banging his secretary, it’s not because she’s is a really sweet girl who wears culottes and fun floral sweater sets. He’s doing so because she’s kinda dumb and wears mini skirts and semi-transparent blouses.

Let me be a bit more clear: this is not something that we like as a sexual game in the bedroom. In the bedroom women should be naked at all times. Out in public, guys want to see tight white t-shirts with dark red brassieres underneath. We want ridiculously short shorts and thigh-high boots.

Let me continue with my clarity: we don’t want you to actually BE slutty. If you do so, however, it’s not our right to complain. For some guys, it might even be a turn-on. But there’s nothing on this earth that’s sexier than a confident, smart woman, who just happens to be wearing a tube top.

You could also try giving him a broomskie (see also: motorboat).

In which there ain’t no wedding like a Pakistani wedding ’cause Pakistani weddings got CURRY:

I’m seriously serious, if you want to party like it’s 2099, you need to go to a wedding like that which I attended on Saturday night, with HW in tow. (Yes, before you asked, of course we looked hot.) It started at about 6pm with the Introduction of The Groom, my old Ychrome buddy Ian, followed by the Presentation of the Bride, and a rather short ceremony in which an officiant read some passages of the Koran and people milled around aimlessly.

Then the party began in earnest, with some dancing that was straight out of the Asian Variety Show. There was much twisting of wrists and stamping of feet. I think I lost 10 pounds busting my moves on the dance floor to the chagrin of the folks that I may have injured.

The food, as expected, was out of this world, with all kinds of Tandoori Chicken and Naan breads and stuff. I ate until I thought I would explode, and then danced some more. After a while, things started to get blurry, from a chemical combination of endorphins, curry powder, and Tanqueray, so Sarah gathered me up and drove me home.

Sunday we had Easter services at church, which as usual ran for a good hour and forty minutes. Then we went to my aunt’s farm near Lancaster, where we communed with family and with sheep:

A busy weekend, which included the unmentionable WORK THAT WOULD NOT BE DENIED, and as usual I didn’t get to sleep much. Which is okay, because I make it up during the week. My employers LOVE me.

Okay, I promise, I’m not going to turn this into a sports blog, or something. But this year, for no discernible reason, I’m really stoked about baseball (despite the Phillies’ 1-5 start to the season), so I think about it a fair amount, which means that time normally spent thinking on column topics like “Natasha Bedingfield Makes Me Happy To Be Male” and “How Prince Continues to Be Ridiculous Well Into His Forties” is spent on wondering “Why Barry Bonds Doesn’t Seem To Actually Be In My New Baseball Video Game.”

Today’s topics: last week’s fantasy baseball results (don’t worry, I’ll keep it short), and a review of MLB 2K6, the new baseball game from 2KSports.

You may recall my column of like 3 years ago (actually just last month), in which I said about Craig’s team:

Other than batting average and a certain amount of speed, the team is pretty abysmal in the other aspects of batting, with no better than 9th in the league in Runs, HR, and RBI.

And also:

Craig’s pitching situation is just weird; he’s above average, although not anywhere close to league-leading, in ERA and WHIP, but ranked no better than 7th in Wins, Saves, or Strikeouts.

Yeah, about that: Craig is now the league leader at 9-2-1. (We play 12 “games” per week, one “game” consisting of a head-to-head matchup in a given category. Craig was better than his opponent in 9 out of 12 categories, worse in 2, and tied in one.) Lesson learned: I don’t have any idea what I’m talking about.

I posted a 9-3 record for the week, so I’m a half game out of first place, and looking to play the Late Term As, who went 8-3-1.

League leaders:

Stat	Owner
Runs	Loewen	48
RBI	Dave	40
Steals	Dave	7
Field%	Tim	.990
Bat Avg	Dave	.368
OPS	Loewen	1.028
Wins	Matt	6
Fewest Losses	Tim	0
Saves	Tim	10
Strikeouts	Matt	78
ERA	Tim	2.81
WHIP	Smith	1.06

On to my game review. A few weeks ago I grabbed MLB 2K6 at Best Buy, and I’ve been playing a few games a day since then. If I could condense the entire review down to one word, it would be: “glitchful.”

It just doesn’t seem like a finished product; it’s like I’m playing a beta. At least once or twice a game, it’ll freeze for a split second. This is invariably when I’m trying to time a swing, or I’m trying to throw a close pitch inside, and it sucks. Also, there’s always weird things happening, although they don’t interfere with gameplay: after a guy gets thrown out at first, occasionally he’ll spend 10-15 seconds running in a circle around the base before the game continues. Very odd.

The gameplay is overall pretty good; the most recent baseball game I’d played until MLB 2K6 was Electronic Arts’ MVP 2003, which was pretty good, but frighteningly easy. I kept it set on All-star mode and still managed to hit 92 home runs in a season with one player. The new game is much more realistic; I had it on rookie for a while until I got the hang of things, and now have it on Pro. There’s at least 2 levels above this.

One upgrade from MVP 2003 is that fielding makes sense; with MVP you either turned on fielding help, which meant you didn’t have to do anything, or turned it off, which means you had to do EVERYTHING, including figure out how to have the reaction time to snare hot grounders to the holes. With MLB 2K6, the fielders take the reaction time out of the equation by at least STARTING towards the ball, although after a half second or so you have to take over and get them the rest of the way, and then throw. This is as difficult as it sounds, but once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty cool.

Stealing is improved; with MVP 2003 steals were thrown out roughly 80% of the time. Now you’re MUCH more likely to actually get your base, particularly with a fast runner. I think Jimmy Rollins and Bobby Abreu are 6/6 between them. Baserunning in general is REALLY hard to control, though. I miss the dealy from MVP in which you would select a runner and then tell him what base to go to. Now you have to select a runner and hit L1 a bunch of times, or R1 to backtrack, and look at him to see where you’ve told him to go, which means you aren’t watching the fielders gather up and throw the ball. Plus nobody seems to be fast enough to score from 2nd on a single; even the aforementioned Jimmy Rollins gets thrown out most of the time. Also, the runners have a tendency to round first on a single and take their time getting back when the outfielders get the ball in, and I’ve been thrown out at first at least twice because they didn’t get back quickly enough. Just ridiculous; this kind of poor baserunning NEVER. EVER. EEEVVVEEERRRR. Happens in real life. Even my fat lazy ass wouldn’t get thrown out at first in that situation.

The graphics are pretty standard, not much improved from previous years. I think they spent the bulk of their graphics budget on making the Xbox 360 version look really good, which makes a certain amount of sense. The player faces are very well drawn, though, and they do a really nice job of actually having the bat hit the ball on swings, and having fielders pick up the ball instead of just getting near it and having it disappear and magically reappear in their hands.

The sounds are really, really good. Jon Miller and Joe Morgan sound great, although they do repeat themselves occasionally, but the sound guys did a good job of making sure they could fit player and team names into their sentences without obvious changes in inflection. Very impressive.

One major downside: there’s no practice modes. At all. They’ve come up with this new model of swings, which sounds like it’d be a lot of fun to try, but I’m not interested in trying to learn it while playing a game. I want a batting practice mode in which a guy lobs slow fastballs right over the center of the plate while I work out the timing. So the new hitting model, which involves pulling back on the right joystick and then letting go of it at just the right time, goes largely unused (you can still go to the standard “hit X at the right instant” mode). I would also have enjoyed learning the new pitching setup before facing the Cardinals lineup, although at least that game pretty much mirrored Jon Lieber’s actual opening day start. I think I gave up 7 runs in the first inning.

Overall grade: C+. Fix the glitches and put in some practice (or even better, some instruction modes with Harold Reynolds) and I’ll upgrade to a A-. (Seriously, not having any practice modes is just redickerous.)

To be blunt: James Blunt sucks.

(Ha HA! See what I did there? With the making fun of his name? I am freakin’ SLICK, people, and you need to RECOGNIZE.)

His new song “You’re Beautiful” has been floating around in the top 20 for several weeks now, and I have to admit, at first, I thought it was a pretty decent song. Ol’ Jimmy has an interesting voice, not really like anything else I’ve heard, and the song has a melodic quality that appealed to me. Only recently have I come to the realization that his voice is not so much “interesting” as “flat-out sucky” (or in the parlance of this electronic age, Teh Suxx0r), and when I listened a little closer to the lyrics, I realized that whoever penned them (young Mr. Blunt, I’m assuming) 1) couldn’t write a good lyric with Jackson Browne whispering them in his ear, and 2) has some serious issues with stalking that he should probably work out with a psychological specialist.

And, oddliest of all, he starts out the song by randomly singing the first line of the first verse in the middle of the introduction. This is a classic move that Sarah and I call the “Emily V,” after a good friend of ours. Whenever a song comes on of which Emily is fond, she has the amusing habit of immediately beginning to sing the lyrics of the song during the introduction, long before the singer actually starts a verse. It’s only annoying the first 307 times. James “The Chr0n1c” Blunt does the same thing; about halfway through the chorus he inexplicably sings “My life is brilliant” and then just stops and lets the introduction continue for 8 more bars before the drums come in and the verse starts in earnest.

Let’s examine the first verse:

My life is brilliant.
My love is pure.
I saw an angel.
Of that I’m sure.
She smiled at me on the subway.
She was with another man.
But I won’t lose no sleep on that,
‘Cause I’ve got a plan.

Now, I would think here would be a good place to actually outline his “plan,” but James launches straight into the chorus. The second verse (which we will get to shortly, worry not) makes no mention of it either. I’m led to assume that he’s intending to spend the rest of his days riding the same train at the same time over and over again until he spots her without her man. I’m envisioning bizarre fan-fiction in which she only rode that train once, while going to visit an art museum with her brother, because she’s actually from Reading, PA and was just in town for a college trip, but James doesn’t know that, so of course after 10 years of riding the same train he decides to expand his search and starts riding random trains 24 hours a day, never the leaving the subway, subsisting off of the discarded falafel and bagel remnants of others, until one day at the age of 57 he gets accosted by another bum who doesn’t want to share his train and stabs him with a polished piece of broken stemware he keeps for such purposes.

Clearly I’ve given this a terrifying amount of thought. Definitely more than James “Philly” Blunt gave it. Verse the second (we’ll get to the chorus momentarily), and let’s break it down a bit:

Yeah, she caught my eye,
As we walked on by.

What sort of retarded subway is this in which people are wandering aimlessly through the cars?

She could see from my face that I was,
Flying high!

I think this is the stupidest lyric in the song. Either he means that he had literally just smoked a blunt (ha HA!) in the subway station bathroom (the non-radio lyrics seem to reinforce this idea, since apparently on the CD he says “f-ing high”), or he thinks that she can tell from the look on his face that he fell in love instantly and has achieved euphoria as a result. If I saw somebody on a subway with that look on their face, I’d assume they had a stroke.

He clearly just needed something to rhyme with “by.” Let me suggest a few alternates: “But with a dude by her side, why would I even try?” or “As we squeezed in the car, my hand brushed her thigh” or “and my wang pointed up, straight up to the sky.” All of these would be better options.

And I don’t think that I’ll see her again,
But we shared a moment that will last till the end.

The end of what? The train ride? The day? The song? The world? JAMES BLUNT, YOU ARE PISSING ME OFF.

Finally, let’s examine the chorus a wee bit:

You’re beautiful. You’re beautiful.
You’re beautiful, it’s true.
I saw you face in a crowded place,
And I don’t know what to do,
‘Cause I’ll never be with you.

Perhaps: go home, have a drink, maybe engage in a little light onanism, go to sleep? Personally, from the tone of the song, I get the feeling that this guy falls in love with random chicks he sees at least twice a day. It’s almost pathological.

The final chorus repeats:

You’re beautiful. You’re beautiful.
You’re beautiful, it’s true.

Okay, I get the picture. Frickin’ Helen of Troy, in the subway, probably riding around with a guy that looks like Matthew McConaughey’s better looking younger brother.

There must be an angel with a smile on her face,
When she thought up that I should be with you.

Wait, what? I had assumed, from the first verse, that the girl he saw WAS the angel. Now I’m really confused. Were there two angels? Is one of them cherubim and one seraphim? This song needs a frickin’ third verse, of great length, to explain this, and maybe also a fourth to detail the “track down the hot chick I saw on the subway and get her digits” plan he mentioned a while back.

But it’s time to face the truth,
I will never be with you.

This is the smartest thing he says in the song. Even more frustrating, after the final verse, the song just sort of stops, like he couldn’t come up with a good ending.

Which happens sometimes.

Aaaaaaaand we’re back. Sorry for falling off the face of the earth for the last three weeks, but the time that I usually spend on this every other day was sadly required for sleeping. In order:

• High school show (Footloose): went extremely well. In fact, I dare say it was the best of the ones we’ve done, particularly from a dancing perspective. I may have some pictures up in a few days. Maybe not. Who knows. I AM OUT OF CONTROL.
• Sarah is so freakin’ pregnant. Seriously, she no longer really has a belly button. We had a shower for the baby on Sunday and got all kinds of cute stuff, including my old Red Wagon that had been lent to my cousin and duly returned. It’ll come in handy; I can strap it to the cats and make them pull me around the neighborhood.
• Work is about the same. Busy.
• I’ve lost a bunch of weight again, and I’m trying to keep it off by eating truly mammoth amounts of red meat. (I love this diet.) Also, I bought a really awesome new bicycle, seen here, which unfortunately I haven’t had a lot of time to get out on, but plan to spend as much time this summer on as possible. Obviously this will be restricted by baby. Oh well. The bike has 27 freakin’ speeds, and it weighs about as much as a frisbee. On Saturday I biked all the way from New Castle to Delaware City and back, a distance of about 15 miles.

That is all I have for you on this fine day. More later in the week, I promise.

This is probably a good opportunity for those of you who have no interest in sports to skedaddle over to Lileks.com and read something by a writer who is much, much better than I am at, well, almost everything. Today’s lengthy post is on a sports topic, and as you know if you read my Phillies pre-season outlook and my rant against Bighead Barry Bonds, I really don’t know what I’m talking about, and it’s not like it’s quality prose. So…have a nice day!

Okay, now that they’re gone, this probably a good opportunity for those of you who have no interest in baseball to skedaddle over to espn.com and read about the latest NFL signings or something. I’ll rap at you later.

Whew. Now that we’ve gotten rid of THOSE schmoes, now is the time I should warn you that this is probably a good opportunity for those of you who have no interest in fantasy baseball to skedaddle over to mlb.com and get the latest updates on the WBC and Spring Training and whatnot. If you do like fantasy baseball, stick around. Things are about to get AWESOME.

Now that I’ve whittled the audience down to the hardcore fantasy baseball fans, I should probably let you know that this might be a good opportunity for those of you who aren’t members of my particular fantasy baseball league to skedaddle over to Fantasy Sports at Yahoo and set up your own league. This particular column is aimed at the 10 members of my actual league, which has a very dirty word in its name and so thusly I can’t mention it on here in case my aunts didn’t leave after paragraph 1. Of course, if all 10 members of the league actually read this, that would rougly quintuple my daily readership, so you can see why I might focus my efforts thusly.

At any rate, we had our baseball draft on Monday evening, with 8 of 10 managers present, and with the other two drafting players through the magic of auto-drafting. There’s no need to share detailed player-by-player results, but for the benefit of pissing off as many of my leaguemates as possible, I ranked the teams from worst to first.

(A note about my statistical analysis: what I basically did was take ESPN’s preseason projections for each player, and then performed a little Excel Spreadsheet magic in which I averaged all the statistics out for what they would be for a 9 player batting roster, and an 8 player pitching roster. Then I sorted. Our league is using the following batting statistics: Runs, Runs Batted In, Stolen Bases, Fielding Percentage, Average, and OPS (On-base Plus Slugging); it’s using the following pitching statistics: Wins, Losses, Saves, Strikeouts, Earned Run Average, and Walks/Hits per Inning Pitched. ESPN’s projections do not, sadly, include Losses, Fielding Percentage, or OPS; for the batters I’ve substituted Home Runs for OPS since Home Runs make up a large portion of the Slugging Percentage that makes up half to 2/3 of a player’s OPS. Also, keep in mind that any waiver/free agent moves made since Monday night are not reflected in this summary since I have neither the time nor the inclination to keep up with them.)

10th – Bo Fulginiti’s “South Philly Blazers” – 9th Draft Position

Bo’s team is characterized by upside. Which means, of course, that he drafted unproven players who might make the leap this year, or who might be back in AA ball by June. This is a risky strategy that frequently doesn’t work, but when it does work, usually carries a manager straight to the championship as everyone sits around and wonders “Holy crud, how did he know those guys were going to be so awesome?”

Unfortunately, he seemed to be taking risks on players that he didn’t need to. It’s not just that he drafted 8 players outside ESPN’s top 200; 3 other managers did the same. It’s mostly that he spent a lot of fairly early picks on what The Worldwide Leader considers to be weaker players. Example: Bo spent his 10th round pick on Jose Vidro, the first pick outside the top 200. I have nothing against Vidro, he’s a quality 2nd baseman, but here’s a short list of guys in the top 200 that were still available at the time: Tadahito Iguchi, Brian Roberts, Rickie Weeks, Placido Polanco, and Mark Ellis.

On the other hand, Bo is the only manager in the league that actually works for a professional baseball team (the Stockton Ports in California), so me second-guessing him has got to be horribly insulting. So, uh, sorry about that Bo. I’m sure your team will be in first place by August.

Strong points: Batting Average, .294, 2nd in league, and Wins, 84, also 2nd.
Weak points: Home Runs and RBI; last place in the league in both categories, and 100 RBI behind 9th place.
Average statistical rating: 7.5 of out 10. (The lower the number, the better the ranking.)

9th – Dave Isaman’s “Beareded Maniacs” – 3rd Draft Position

Dave was sadly absent from Monday night’s draft, so he can hardly be blamed for any bad drafting that occurred. On the other hand, I think he probably ranked his players first, because the only other person who didn’t live-draft was Mike, and he drafted way fewer “potential stars” than Dave did. Dave didn’t spend high draft picks on them like Bo did, however, which is why I think he’ll do better.

Unfortunately, whereas Bo’s technique did yield an above average team in three categories, Dave’s team is only above average in one: Saves. On the other hand, he’s so far ahead of everyone that he can probably trade some of his star closers to improve in the other categories by the time games start being played; with 168 projected saves, he is nearly 3 times the league average of 67.4. If he trades 40+ of those saves (in the form of, say, Chad Cordero, who is predicted by ESPN to have 47 of ’em) for, say, Placido Polanco (predicted to bat .331), he’ll improve in many batting categories and still be the class of the league in closers.

Surprisingly enough for a team with 5 of the top closers in the league, Dave’s squad is last in WHIP and 7th in ERA.

Strong point: Saves, 168, 1st in the league.
Weak points: WHIP, last, and Strikeouts, 9th.
Average statistical rating: 7.1 out of 10.

8th – Craig Harms’ “Pedro in 06 (METS)” – 1st Draft Position

Craig parlayed a phenomenal draft position into a team with a glimmer of hope in a few statistical categories but an absolute darkness of despair in the rest. Worse, unlike Dave, Craig doesn’t have a massive statistical advantage in any one area that he can use as trade bait to improve the overall squad. On the other hand, Craig always is a pimp-daddy on the waiver and free-agent wire, and always seems to pick up steam late in the season when injuries start to become a factor and Craig’s already got every starter’s backup. Whether it’s luck or savvy I don’t know, and I don’t care, but however he does it, it drives me crazy.

Also: he has Pujols. So all bets are off.

Craig does have above-average hitting; the problem is that the range of batting averages goes from .274 to .298, not exactly a wide swing in quality. Craig is ranked 3rd in the league in batting average, and that’s his best category. He’s 5th in predicted stolen bases (84), but is below average because three managers have predicted SB counts over 120. Craig has a chance to move up just by luck if some of those managers trade away speed for other attributes, though. Other than batting average and a certain amount of speed, the team is pretty abysmal in the other aspects of batting, with no better than 9th in the league in Runs, HR, and RBI.

Craig’s pitching situation is just weird; he’s above average, although not anywhere close to league-leading, in ERA and WHIP, but ranked no better than 7th in Wins, Saves, or Strikeouts. I guess he was concentrating on ground-ball throwing middle-relievers, which is a great strategy in real life, but not a way to pad fantasy stats. The only upside I see here is that those middle-relievers can eat up some innings (we have a minimum of 30 innings total pitched per week; if you don’t meet that, none of your pitching categories count) and he can put in some low-inning closers late in each week to get the strikeouts and saves.

Strong point: Batting average, .293, 3rd in the league.
Weak points: Runs, 557, last; RBI, 565, 9th.
Average statistical rating: 6.8 out of 10.

7th – Brian Loewen’s “The Late Term A’s” – 10th Draft Position

Brian L. may have been slightly hamstrung by his late draft position, but he did manage to get two quality top-15 players, Miguel Tejada and Carlos Beltran. Oddly enough, he didn’t get Beltran until the 4th round. It was a weird draft, I tell you.

Brian’s team is stellar in one category: ERA. At 2.98, he has the only sub-3.0 pitching staff in the league. He seems to have concentrated on relievers, because his WHIP (1.2) is 4th best, and his Saves (91.6) are 3rd best, but he’s last in Strikeouts and 2nd to last in Wins. If he trades one quality closer for a good first-string starter, his pitching staff could become the best in the league.

His hitters are another story. He’s 4th in the league in HR (182, tied for 4th) and RBI (678), and that’s about as good as it gets. He’s so far below average in everything else that trading some power for stolen bases and runs is almost a requirement to make it past the first round of the playoffs.

On the other hand, in real life, pitching is a HUGE asset in a playoff situation. Does that translate to fantasy ball?

No.
Strong points: ERA, 2.98, first in the league; Saves, 91.6, 3rd in the league.
Weak points: Strikeouts, 761, 10th; Batting Average, .277, 9th.
Average statistical rating: 5.9 out of 10.

6th – Kasiem Lewis’ “gizzondemhoztoez” – 6th Draft Position

Kas has some freakin’ pitching, yo. I am not even playing around. Tied for first in WHIP (1.18). 2nd in ERA (3.18). 2nd in Strikeouts (1046). Just under the average in Wins (Kas has 78, average is 78.7). This team is built to blow batters away and make them cry a little for mama.

As to hitting, um, not so much. Last place in both batting average and stolen bases, so he’s going to need to upgrade his speed at some point. The only category in which he’s above average is Home Runs (182, tied for 4th), and that’s only because the average is just 177. Like Brian L., he’s probably going to have to trade some of his unbelievably good pitching to get some speedy batters who can hit for average.

Strong points: WHIP, 1.18, tied for first in the league; Strikeouts, 1046, 2nd.
Weak points: Batting Average, .274, last; Stolen Bases, 35.5, last.
Average statistical rating: 5.4 out of 10.

5th – Tim Lau’s “The Hurlers” – 2nd Draft Position

Tim is the only person in the league who is larger than I am, so I am taking a risk criticizing his management skills. Luckily for my health, he acquitted himself well in the draft. Craig passed up on universally-#1-ranked A-Rod, so Tim snapped him up like a lake turtle on a fat girl’s toe. After that, though he seemed to concentrate on his pitching, which is above average in 4 out of 5 categories, to the detriment of hitting, which is ranked no better than 3rd in any category.

He somehow managed to balance his pitching such that he is 3rd in Wins with a predicted 83, and 2nd in Saves with a predicted 129. He doesn’t have a lot of strikeouts, and he’s ranked 5th in both ERA and WHIP, but in the latter two he is close enough to the league leaders (his 1.21 is just behind the 3 league-leaders tied at 1.18) to be a serious threat week-to-week. Like Dave, he has a pretty significant advantage in Saves (129, with a league average of 67.4), and can probably trade a closer.

Hopefully he can use him to land some hitting power; he’s projected to have 160 Home Runs (8th in the league) and 615 RBI (7th). He does have a strong advantage in stolen bases; just 3rd in the league with 122, but the average is 85.5, so he could probably trade away some of that and still be above-average, while improving in other areas.

Overall, Tim is 5th, but with some pitching luck and one or two decent trades, he could climb up the ladder quickly. It’s worth noting that he’s above average in 6 out of the 10 categories I’m tracking in this column (there are actually 12 for the purposes of the league, but my statistical source only had data for 9.5 of them (Home Runs being the .5, since I’m counting them in place of OPS)).

Strong points: Saves, 129, 2nd in the league; Stolen Bases, 122, 3rd.
Weak points: Home Runs, 160, 8th; Strikeouts, 879, 8th.
Average statistical rating: 5.1 out of 10.

4th – Mike Smith’s “Team America” – 8th Draft Position

Mike was the other participant that couldn’t make the draft, and I don’t believe that he pre-ranked his players. What this means is that his team is basically set up to be strong according to Yahoo’s ranking system, which isn’t what I used for this column. What this also means is that he has a lot of the “usual suspects,” and will probably do well this season. A lot depends on who has the most luck with sleepers; Bo has a lot of them, and if enough of them pan out, he’s going to run away with the league. Mike is going to be more consistently good.

Mike’s autodraft finished very oddly. He picked up 4 starting pitchers in the first 7 picks, and yet statistically his hitting is the strongest part of the team. Mike is one of just two managers that are above average in every hitting category; his 760 predicted RBI leads the league, and he’s 2nd in Stolen Bases, and 3rd in Runs and Home Runs. He doesn’t have much room for improvement here, and he can definitely trade away some speed or power to shore up his pitching, which despite all the early picks, isn’t quite as stellar.

In pitching categories, he’s above average in just two categories, Wins (79.3) and Strikeouts (1005), and he’s still just 5th in the league in both. He’s also last in the league in saves (just 21.1; league average is 67.4) and 9th in ERA (3.89), although the ERA battle close; the average is a within-reach 3.42. If Mike can trade away a backup speedster or power hitter (the 4th outfielder he picked is Willy Taveras, who’s predicted to have 34 steals, and his backup for Alfonso Soriano is Brian Roberts, who is predicted to hit 18 round-trippers), he could pick up a closer to help both ERA and Saves.

Strong points: RBI, 760, first in the league; Stolen Bases, 140, 2nd.
Weak points: Saves, 10, last; ERA, 3.89, 9th.
Average statistical rating: 4.9 out of 10.

3rd – Brian Smith’s “Matt is Gay” – 7th Draft Position

Brian S. always whines and moans about his draft, usually because while drafting he’s frequently working on something else and misses a pick here and there. Still, he managed to grab 21 players of the top 200 (theoretically, with 10 teams, the average should be 20, but so many people started grabbing sleepers in the early rounds that in reality the average is about 18.6), and compiled a team that’s above average in 7 out of the 10 categories I’m considering today.

His best side is pitching (he should probably get with his brother Mike and iron out a deal, since Mike’s pitching is abysmal, but his hitting is phenomenal). He is tied for first in the league in WHIP with 1.18, and is below average only in Saves, with 28.4 (the league average, if you’ve forgotten, is 67.4). His ranking in ERA (3.30) is just 6th, but the ERA competition is so tight that it may not matter. He’s also 3rd in Wins, with 83; Bo is at 2nd place with 84, so Brian’s in fine shape.

His hitting is not as strong, but if he finds one speedy guy (such as, for example, Willy Taveras from Mikey) he’ll improve both his batting average (.278, 8th) and Stolen Bases (65.6, 7th). He’s in the top 5 in Runs (702), Home Runs (210), and RBI (724). This is a team that’s one trade away from unstoppability.

It’s worth noting that he’s no worse than 8th in any statistical category.

Strong point: WHIP, 1.18, tied for first in the league; Home Runs, 210, 2nd.
Weak points: Saves, 28.4, 8th; Batting Average, .278, 8th.
Average statistical rating: 4.7 out of 10.

2nd – Kyle Anderson’s “An Alien Joy” – 4th Draft Position

As usual, Kyle had a righteous draft. He’s no worse than 8th in any category, and that one is ERA, which is so close that you might as well roll 1d10 to see who’s going to be the best. His starting pitching rotation will be ungodly; he’s first in Wins with 101 (2nd place is at 84), and first in Strikeouts with 1053. Closing won’t be a problem either; he’s 4th in the league with 71.3.

When it comes to hitters, Kyle seems to gravitate to guys like himself; speedy guys who put the bat on the ball and almost never strike out. He’s first in Batting Average (.298), and first in Stolen Bases (staggeringly, 150; league avearge is 85.5), and is only below average in Home Runs with 163 (7th in the league).

Luckily for the other teams in the league, Kyle can usually be expected to submarine himself a bit with crazy trades and waiver moves.

Strong points: Wins, 101, first in the league; Stolen Bases, 150, first.
Weak points: ERA, 3.75, 8th; Home Runs, 163, 7th.
Average statistical rating: 3.7 out of 10.

1st – Matt Hearn’s [Horribly nasty team name goes here] – 5th Draft Position

Of course I’m first. This is because my ego is large enough to affect tides. More importantly, it’s because I used the ESPN rankings as a resource during my draft, so naturally using the same system to rate the teams is going to skew the results my way. I took a long hard look at this problem, and realized two things:

1. Using a non-Yahoo and non-ESPN ranking system would cost me money, and
2. I don’t give a crap for journalistic integrity. It’s not like this is a real sport.

In the end, it’s not going to matter much, because trades, injuries, streaks, and slumps are going to invalidate this entire thing by April 5th.

Still, you have to admit, my draft was pretty strong. I concentrated on grabbing as many starting pitchers as I could, because this year we’re allowing roster changes every day (instead of once a week), so I can maximize my strikeouts and wins by swapping my starting pitchers every day. This will probably do bad things to my ERA and WHIP, but I’m 3rd in the league in the former and tied for first in the latter, so I should be okay. I may top 70 innings per week, which is technically more, most of the time, than a real-life team would play. I am below average in wins and saves, but I’m hoping that my constant swapping of pitchers will help with at least one of those.

Despite my concentration on pitching, I’m first in the league in Runs (803) and Home Runs (220), and like Mike, I’m below average in no hitting category.

On the other hand, I don’t really have any clue what I’m doing on a day-to-day managerial basis, so look for me to bench a player just as he goes on a 7 game .380, 5 HR tear.

Strong points: WHIP, 1.18, tied for first; Home Runs, 220, first.
Weak points: Wins, 76.3, 7th; Saves, 49.2, 6th.
Average statistical rating: 3.3 out of 10.

Apologies for the lack of posts, but March As Usual has hit; rehearsals every night of the week, and heck of busy at office as well. I’ll try and keep you abreast (hehe breast) of what’s going on, but I’ll probably fall off the face of the earth occasionally.

Not that anyone would really notice, with the exception of my wife, who needs me to scratch her back and kill bugs and stuff.

Yesterday: hot. Not just warm, or temperate, but downright hot. I left the office in the early evening and went to the grocery store, and when I came outside the wind had died down, so I started sweating. In March. I got into the car and rolled my windows down, which helped when the car was moving; the route from the grocery store to my house is fraught with stoplights, so much of the time, I baked. I considered turning on the air conditioning, but doing that in March seems the worst of Prehatched-Chicken Counting. Like finding out your wife is pregnant and buying an entire football uniform, and being gently reminded by the missus that you might want to invest in a field hockey uniform, what with the 50% odds on either gender.

Mother Nature is planning to send a similar reminder, apparently; snow is expected for Friday. Argharific.

The show is coming along. As usual, I feel like I’m way behind, but every year it actually gets a little better. There are still some things to be worked on, but in reality most everything’s been taught. I’m moderately concerned with the pit band, because as every year, attendance at rehearsals has been horrid, but I’m helped by the fact that my father is playing piano again, and we’ve hired a guitarist. Our bassist is a phenomenal student named Dani, so as long as Eric the drummer learns his parts, we’re going to be fine. Loud, but fine.

Assuming I don’t screw up, which is always a worrisome thought.

I’m still not entirely clear why the collective sports media world seems to treat things like this as if they surprise anyone. Barry Bonds WAS aware that he was taking steroids? Wow! What gave it away? The needles? The suddenly bulging biceps? The back acne, aka Bacne?

The media, apparently, didn’t notice his substantial muscle growth either. Or at least, they assume that WE didn’t. I, for one, noticed some rather interesting numbers increases, which of course have been spelt out before, but which I nevertheless resurrect: from 1986 to 2000, his slugging average was a very good .567, and then from 2001 (the year he turned 37) to 2005, it averaged an unheard-of .805.

Also his head grew so large that I became concerned that it might explode during an interleague game and spray the entire infield with grey matter and pus.

To be honest, at this point, I’m not terribly concerned. Ballplayers have been juicing up on something since Abner Doubleday drank a fifth of scotch and started telling his friends that he invented the game. Right now, it’s steroids; before that it was amphetamines. Even Babe Ruth was rumored to have some kind of concoction consisting of bourbon, pig’s blood, and the ocular fluid of a freshly killed hooker. So it’s nothing new. Therefore I’m not entirely certain why I’m even ranting about it.

I guess I should come to my point: I’m not terribly concerned with Barry Bonds use of steroids. Pretty much every statistical record is tainted in some way; the separate single-season home run records for 154 and 162 game seasons was at least semi-warranted since Maris got extra games. He also had the benefit of batting, for much of the season, in front of Mickey Mantle, arguably the best power hitter in baseball at the time. (On the other hand, Ford Frick was a jerk.) I think most of the records should have asterisks by them: Maris’s for coming in 162 games, Bonds and McGwire’s for having injected enough hormones that they are rumored to have grown extra penises, etc. I think efforts that DIDN’T produce records should have asterisks too, like Mantle’s 1956 season in which he knocked 52 dingers: “*Probably would have hit 65 if he hadn’t been more interested in drinking gin and banging showgirls.”

Okay, I’m just being facetious. Still, I’m sure that Barry Bonds is going to be excoriated for what appears to be fairly damning evidence that he took illegal drugs to enhance his performance, and this frustrates me, because I’d like to see him excoriated more for just being an asshole. Which he is. Bonds is known for his truculence, for avoiding his teammates, for ignoring fans. He has his own little corner of the clubhouse in which he eats specially ordered meals (disdaining the pre- and post-game spreads provided by the team). He doesn’t stretch with the team, preferring to do so in a private room with his own trainer. I mean, I understand a little bit of shyness, but this is just a guy that doesn’t care for people that he deems inferior. Even if most of his supposed superiority is because he cheated and juiced up.

It’s amazing how often karma really does work.

There are few things more frustrating than when a favorite shirt chafes one’s nipples.

[I could explain further, but maybe I’ll just leave that as is. Just throw it out there, ya know? See how it feels? See who sends me bizarre emails discussing how I’m “totaly f’d up man about the whole nipples thing but you know i have the same problem with my favorite pair of breifs totaly cutting my sack since i put on all that wait”? That’d be GREAT times. Nah, let’s flesh out the details.]

Sunday was an abnormality, caused by my being invited to sing the Canadian National Anthem at a Philadelphia Phantoms hockey game.

<JIM GAFFIGAN>Wait, he’s not Canadian! That’s just ridiculous. He’s not even named Doug or anything.</JIM GAFFIGAN>

The Toronto Marlies (winner of the 2006 “Team Nickname That Is Least Likely To Get The Goalie Laid”) were in town for Sunday’s game, so they needed somebody to sing “Oh, Canada,” and the gal they normally used was out of town. I guess someone mentioned they needed a replacement, and the inimitable (I like that word) Brian Smith chirped up and said “My boy Hearn is ALL OVER THAT, beotch.” (Not an actual quote.) Brian even managed to scrape up some free tickets for my parents and sister so they could come entertain themselves with my gooniness.

<JIM GAFFIGAN>I wonder why his wife didn’t go. I bet she thinks he’s a loser. I heard she’s leaving him for a hotel janitor named Consuelo.</JIM GAFFIGAN>

I threw on my good suit (Calvin Klein, baby, and I assuming it’s made of dead baby seal skin, since it cost almost as much as my first car) and what is turning into my favorite shirt: thin stripes in red and purple, double button at the neck (helps to contain my goiter), and best of all: french cuffs. Suitably duded up (or dutifully suited up), I drove to the Spectrum and did my sound check.

I’ve sung in large places before, but never a massive indoor arena where I’m the only person on the mic. The sheer volume of sound is amazing; it’s not loud, but it’s inescapable, like a lawnmower at 7am Sunday morning, except with alpine echoes. For a moment, I never felt manlier. Then I remembered I was singing “Oh, Canada,” and knew that somewhere, Jesus was crying.

I did get some nice extra bonuses in that pretty young women were leading me around so I would know where the hell I was going, and I got in Kjell Samuelsson’s way 3 or 4 times. You know how sometimes somebody (usually somebody not very tall) will be like “Oh man, that guy is totally huge!” And then you meet them, and you’re like, what? This guy’s a little over 6 feet and is as big around as my ankle. I guess I’m the only one that ever notices that, but know this: I am 6 foot 3 inches tall, and I weigh approximately 235 pounds. I say this not to brag, but merely to put into perspective the following statement: Kjell Samuelsson is farging huge. He’s relatively slender, but he’s gotta be something like 6’6″ or 6’7″, and the fact that he’s aged a little bit doesn’t change the fact that he could have killed me with his wang.

<JIM GAFFIGAN>That . . . doesn’t make sense. Is it like a boa constrictor? Or is it like the “squirrel/duct tape/explosion preventative” joke that my husband tells when he’s had too much gin?</JIM GAFFIGAN>

The press box at the Spectrum is not as spacious as the one at the Wachovia Center. The whole building, come to mention it, just feels so miniature that you can’t imagine things like the 1983 NBA Finals taking place in it. There’s a lot of talk about how the technology of the arenas has improved, but having been in both of Philadelphia’s hockey stadiums in the last month, I can tell you that scale has as much to do with modernity as jumbotrons and concourses with views of the action. Have Americans enfattened that much in 35 years that they increase the size of the seats by 30%?

Yes. Oh God, yes.

The press box is also very warm, which is odd to me considering it’s in a massive building that contains what amounts to a 6″ block of ice and all the apparatus needed to keep that ice solid. After a while, I started to itch and chafe, as I am wont to do (this is why I avoid exercise: sweat turns me into one large twitching and scratching monkey), and realized that something in the material of my shirt, which was purchased in a boutique in New York City, was sandpapering my nipples. I thought I was going to start leaking like a new mother, except instead of colustrum it would have been nipple-blood. Horrible, horrible times, that. Even today my jaun is tender. My nerps haven’t felt like this since…uh, nevermind, that was, uh, nevermind.

<JIM GAFFIGAN>Nipple blood? This guy is gross. He’s gross.</JIM GAFFIGAN>
Just before gametime, I was led back down to the tunnel, where I was able to watch the Phantoms players go by (many of them are also very, very large; if I were a hockey defenseman at the pro level, I would actually be slightly undersized), and stand in Mr. Samuelsson’s way a few more times. Then they led me out, with a 6-foot walking Elmo. I watched a group of children butcher sing “God Bless America,” and then I was on.

I had spent significant time over the past days learning the words to “Oh, Canada,” but just to be on the safe side, I had a small piece of paper with the lyrics cupped in my hand. I picked a pitch (which turned out to be rather low; I sounded like Barry White if Barry White was one to sing Canadian National Anthems at hockey games) and launched away. As is my wont, I tried to connect with the audience a bit, because somebody told me that’s what good singers do, but the bulk of them couldn’t have cared less about me. They were dutifully looking up at the Canadian flag, which is when I realized I should have combed my hair into the Barry Melrose mullet.

After I was done, I wandered back to the press box and kept score for a while. At the first intermission, I caught up with Mom, Dad, and Liz (happy birthday Liz, btw, who is now old), and got a cheesesteak and a soda. The cheesesteak wasn’t half bad, for stadium fair, and it was free, which always tastes better, even if the meat was clearly grade Q.

The Phantoms, sadly, lost the game, because the opposing goalie was on fire. He ended up being one of the “three stars;” hockey tradition dictates that some impartial observer (in this case, some guy from the AP) pick the three players that had the greatest impact on the game. The “Third Star” was Jim Campbell of the Phantoms, so Brian had me go fetch him. Just so you know: athletes that have just lost a game are not, by default, talkative individuals. I told Jim he was the third star, and he grunted either an affirmative or an instruction to get the farg out of his face before he took off his skate and stabbed me with it. So I skedaddled.

One side note: the Phils are 4-0 in spring training exhibition games. In terms of the regular season, these games are about as important as a drunken Episcopal church league softball game, but I’m still doing a little dance of joy.

<JIM GAFFIGAN>In his pants? Isn’t that what he usually says? I feel like that joke went nowhere. I want my money back.</JIM GAFFIGAN>