Week 10: the week Fred locks up 1st place (jinx)

I'm sure all you guys, like me, at least skim Matthew Berry's weekly pickup suggestions on espn.com. Maybe, like me, you do it while on the shitter, and spend way more time reading that article than actually shitting. And maybe, like me, this causes some awesome hemorrhoids for you all...I had a point here, hold on.

Oh yeah, that's probably where our similarities stop because I'm certain none of you panicked after week 5 and traded the #1 fantasy player (Rivers) for a guy who Berry just listed in his "you're free to drop these guys outright" paragraph. I did. It was really painful on the toilet this morning, more so than the usual pain, when I saw him suggest Ryan Mathews was now dump-able.
So congratulations, Fred. After 8 years of riding my coattails, living in my shadow and being that pest of a little brother I never wanted, you finally got me. You got me good, Beaver Bitch.

Speaking of the PBears, congrats again to Fred's team for having the #1 & 2 ranked fantasy players through 9 weeks. And it's not like these guys were your keepers or even top couple picks. Rivers was traded by the aforementioned douche bag, and Foster was drafted in the 5th round, taken lower than other RBs like Beanie Wells, Deangelo Williams, Shonn Greene and Jahvid Best.
And with the 9ers doing their "thing," Fred's definitely emerged as the "sentimental success story." Rooting for Fred to win something this year is like rooting for the 1-legged girl to win Survivor...so many losses already in their lives, just wanting them to finally get something right (the 1-legged girl was quickly ousted from the game while getting ridiculed by her teammates by the way).

I gotta say, my favorite part about the Thursday NFL games is how demoralized & utterly helpless you can feel if your team's already down 40-50 points heading into Sunday's games. Like I don't already have a shitty enough team...might as well watch Pueto's team put up 44 points on me between 2 players, in a game with virtually no scoring in the 1st half. Oh, and Aaron's mad because he started the "wrong" QB? Awesome. Really looking forward to Sunday.

The only other team whose opponent scored a decent amount of points last night is Matty's, but it clearly seems like he's surrendering the week, so another congrats to Fred for his week 10 win.

Can you tell from the random comments that I don't have much substance to this week's blog? Don't worry, I've got an idea...you see, this weekend marks the debut of Neil's "man cave." From what I can tell, this man cave is nothing more than a shed in his backyard where he goes to punish himself for getting married & all the other bad decisions he's made in life. It apparently has 2 40" TVs, a microwave and carpet bubbles. With a few of us going down there this Sunday to break it in, I'm planning my first ever attempt at a running diary. If this diary sucks balls, I can only take partial blame because the other 3-4 guys there are as much responsible for it being exciting as I am.

Potentially exciting moments in the man cave this Sunday include:
-That first moment Neil turns on both TVs (obviously).
-That first moment Neil warms up our Hot Pockets in the microwave.
-When Ben (a constant checker of fantasy scores) continually updates Neil (a non-checker of fantasy during game day) on their epic matchup, and Neil gets fed up, shuts both TVs off, and kicks us all out.
-When Neil's wireless internet doesn't get any reception in the man cave & we slowly re-take the living room from Colleen.
-Halfway through the first set of games, Mike forgets his 15 in-progress bets, takes out his cheat sheet (roughly the size & complexity of those laminated sheets that offensive coordinators hold on to) and flips out because all 8 teams in his 8-team parlay are winning.
-90 minutes later when 1 of those 8 teams tanks the 4th quarter.
-10 minutes after that when Mike reloads the BoDog account & places another 11 bets.
-Pueto listening intently as Mike lays out his reasoning behind all his bets, and then decides to "get in on that action" even though Mike has repeatedly demonstrated his "drunk behind the wheel" approach to betting.
-When everyone decides to give me the silent treatment because they know I'm transcribing everything that's said into a blog post.

Finally, a quick story for you all. Did any of you ever notice my tendency to panic or "meltdown" in critical situations? Me neither, until recently. Co-ed, recreational, slow pitch softball has taught me that I can be slightly above average at certain things 98% of the time, but when the most important moments come up, I shrivel up like a nutsack in ice water. There's no better evidence of this than what happened this past Wednesday night. First, remember that I'm the pitcher on our softball team. I rarely walk anyone & more often than not strike out most of the girls who face us. In the bottom of the last inning, after choking away a 4-run lead (with the help of my awesome teammates), our opponent had runners on 2nd & 3rd with 2 outs...tie score. A decent-hitting guy was up for them, and when I decided to intentionally walk him to face the girl batting next, 1 of my teammates said, "Good idea, unless you feel like you might accidentally walk the next person." Bro...c'mon. Walk the girl who could hardly lift the bat & struck out twice already? Please...

The 3 pitches I threw to her were balls so far off the plate you'd think I was attempting to throw lefty for the first time in my life. And there you have it, my first ever experience issuing a walk-off walk.

Anybody wanna co-manage my team with me next year?