Week Five

Tension.

A simple word. And perhaps, a word that never fully conveys what the user of it is trying to illustrate. For example, a person who is trying to finish the SAT's in time would say that they felt tension, but it's so much more than that. Ditto the person tossing loose dirt over the corpse of another bloodied streetwalker, trying desperately to cover their handywork before sun up. Was there tension? Of course. Was it the same feeling as trying to finish the reading comprehension portion of my SAT's? Actually, it almost was, because, admittedly, while taking the SAT's, my thoughts would often drift toward mudering prostitutes, burying them and planting a garden of pachysandra vines over the corpses. Why? Because I held steadfast to the belief that the pachysandra would act as a metaphysical prison to the souls of those poor ladies of the night. Now of course I know better and understand that we humans don't have souls and that pachysandra is really more of a shrub than a vine. But hey, I went to private school.

Another such example of tension occured during the fifth week of the baseball season, as my opponent in my longest running fantasy league was none other than my wife. It's a rough, sex-free seven days. The trick really, is to just not talk about it. We check our Stattrackers silently and follow our teams without much discussion. Eventually, as the week draws to a close, the one of us in the lead, also known as "me" will casually and very condescendingly say something like "gee, honey, you might win saves." If one of us says something like this to the other, you can rest assured that other person might ONLY win saves.

This week, however, something beautiful happened. We tied. Probably the best possible outcome (other than a 12-0 victory for me). No ill feelings are harbored. I don't have to complain about the 18 hits she got out of Hunter/Rowand and she doesn't have to complain about the 18 K's I got from Sabathia. All's well that ends well. (Though I am a little peeved that my 9 saves in the week weren't enough to win the category)

In my Keeper league this week, I was thankful, as were many others for the stats provided (finally) by Teixeira and Sheffield, who combined for 5 HR's, 13 RBI and an OPS over 1.200. Even David Wright chipped in with a pair of homers. It's been a long time coming. I also learned a valuable lesson: Never think you got a lucky break.I was playing a team with McCann, who re-injured his finger and had to miss a few games. "What luck," I thought. Sure enough, the next fucking day, Piazza fucks up his shoulder and is out for a month. More importantly, he's out for the rest of the week, and as it is a weekly league, all I can do is rip out my pubic hair in disgust.