Going to baseball games is always a fun activity for me. There is nothing more fun than grabbing my son and his friends and heading out to a game here in KC, or making the 3 hour trek across the state to see the Cardinals. Sunday, May 23rd was supposed to be one of those fun days. My son, his best friends, and I headed out form KC at 7:15 AM for the pleasant journey East on I-70 to see the Cardinals take on the Angels, or the Anaheim Angels, or the California Angels of Anaheim, Pomona, and Banning, or whatever they call themselves now days. Yes sir, it was going to be fun. Good pitching matchup too with Chris Carpenter going up against Jered Weaver.
Great pitching matchup I thought. Man, why do those two as starters nag at me a bit? Then a sense of dread slowly crept into my slow gray matter.
“Son, you got your notebook computer with the cell card on?”
“Of course dad, were playing flight simulator. We’re racing to St. Louis.”
“Can you check something for me? Kind of important, well to me anyway.”
I have to give a bit of background here. This is the first year I have ever done Fantasy Baseball. 53 years old and I was a total rookie. Went full tilt too and did two teams to help friends have 10 teams in their league. It all seemed fun and easy, regardless of my team’s performance. Well, until today anyway.
“Dad, do I have to? We’re really into this game” Now I could have invoked the old you owe me a favor deal form getting him the Kardashian autograph in Vegas, but he had been faithfully mowing our lawn and, well, by now I already knew the answer now without going on line. Both pitchers starting today were pitching for me in separate FBB leagues. My head almost exploded. Who do I root for now?
I started thinking about the possibilities. How can I cheer for Weaver against the Cards? I know both games are close going into Sunday. Maybe they can pitch no-hitters to the 8th and St. Louis can win 1-0 on an unearned run. Well, can’t do that either. On the same team as Weaver was Matt Holliday. Geez, now more complications.
For you veterans of FBB, I’m sure this has happened to you on more than one occasion. Anyone running more than one team has probably been through this numerous times. But not me, and, occurring in a game I’m traveling 250 miles one way to see. I was tempted to let one of the boys drive for awhile (all you got to do boys is steer down the freeway straight, keep your foot on the gas, and pretend this F-150 Super Cab is a extra large go-kart) and see if there was something that would fix this problem. Then I realized that that wasn’t going to happen. What to do? I really wanted both my teams to win.
Then it hit me while gassing up in Columbia. It’s just a Fantasy matchup. The game at Busch means something. It’s real. That’s one of my favorite teams we were heading to see. So cheer on the Cards I decided to do. Turned out neither pitcher did well nor awful. They both got some points for me. Kids were happy, I was happy because I didn’t have to cheer for an opposing pitcher, and we even got an extra inning for our money. Cardinals’ victory 6-5 over the Angels was a fun one to watch. Even better than 1-0. At least I think so. Three years from now, as a defending a FBB Champion, who knows?
