We're Number 10! Go team!

This is my first-ever season as a fantasy baseball team manager, and I'm not in dead last! In fact, I am not even second-to-dead last: my team has been 10th out of 12th for weeks now, and that's with me even forgetting to play my starting pitchers for a couple of weeks. Imagine if that happened in the majors: if Bruce Bochy just forgot to put in Tim Lincecum for a couple of weeks. The Giants would be terrible!

Oh, wait...

Anyway, fantasy baseball turns out not to be as difficult as I thought it would (assuming you're not actually trying to be a contender, which I'm clearly not), but it has highlighted a fact that's dogged me through most of my career as a baseball fan, which is that when it comes to baseball fandom, I am a statistical outlier: I pay almost no attention to the statistics of the game.

As most people know, poring over minute statistical details--WHIP, ERA, OBP--is like mana to most baseball fans. In fact, it's a sweet treat for most announcers, too--that's why it's not out of the realm of possibility to hear one announce that a particular players is, say, leading his division for stolen bases among players whose last name includes at least three vowels.

While I'm all for crazy-ass math, I am just not this kind of fan. I couldn't tell you the ERA of my favorite pitcher or the batting average of my favorite slugger. In fact, I'm not even sure I could name the Oakland A's outfield right now, and they are my favorite team. I defy you to question my devotion to them: I cut open my hand last year severely enough to require multiple stitches and didn't so much as yelp. When the A's lost the ALDS to the Twins in 2002, I wept uncontrollably for an hour in the left-field bleachers.


Rollie Fingers: 114-188 career win/loss record; 341 career saves; 2.90 career ERA; leads Hall of Fame relievers with handlebar moustaches in delinquent Wisconsin tax payments