Fantasy Friday–week 3

I know you all highly anticipate my Fantasy Friday posts so let’s get started.  The questions this week, do I finally get my first win or am I still winless?  How many mistakes this week and how many points did that cost me?  I will say that I did win an award this week.  But more of that later.  The final score was -

What the hell is that?  51 points?  He must have benched all his starters after the last poor performances.   Let’s take a look.

Projected to score 102 and only scored 51, that alone should tell you what happened.  Nobody performed worth a crap.  Let’s check out what I could have done to win.

QB – Philip Rivers scored a whopping 17 points.  17 freaking points.  And he was my keeper from last year.  Chad Henne (GO BLUE!!!!) scored 25 against Cleveland.  So now he has outscored Philip Rivers 2 out of 3 weeks.  But how can I start Henne over Rivers.  I might have to soon because it’s hurt me in 2 of my 3 losses.  So from the start, 1 mistake that cost me 8 points.

WR – Reggie Wayne scored 1 point.  1 freaking point.  I don’t like starting Wayne.  I know how good he is, but when it isn’t Manning throwing you the ball, it doesn’t really how good you are if you don’t have anyone to throw you the ball.  But I didn’t have a choice this week with Manningham (GO BLUE!!!!) out with an injury.  And Jordy Nelson, who had scored 23 points the first 2 weeks, scored me 2 points.  I give him a start and you see what happens.  Question is, could I have done better?  I already said Manningham was out, but I also had Mike Sims-Walker on the bench, he scored 2.  So yes, another mistake but only for 1 point.  2 mistakes for 9 points.

RB – Blount didn’t have a horrible game, 8 points.  I don’t know much about him so I can’t complain.  Especially since he was my highest scorer from all the positions other than QB and Defense.  But Mendenhall against the Colts defense and I only get 3.  Your killing me man.  Granted the Colts D actually looked good but it helped that the Steelers O looked bad as well.  Mistakes?  Of course, Brandon Jacobs, who hasn’t done anything all year, actually put up 11 points.  So essentially, my players only like to perform well when I bench them.  I guess maybe I should keep Henne and Manningham on the bench so at least the Michigan alumni have a great season.  Doesn’t seem like I can do anything to expect more points.  3 mistakes, 17 points.

TE – I used my 1st transaction of the year to pick up Scheffler after he had a couple of great weeks.  I had to replace Aaron Hernandez who is out with injury so I didn’t have any other choice here so yeah, no mistakes.

Def – Who would have foreseen that I should have started the Colts defense when they were going against Pittsburgh.  I took Green Bay against Chicago, figured it was the obvious choice.  WRONG!!!  The Colts defense actually put up 26 points.  So another mistake for 12 points.

So in conclusion, 3 mistakes for a grand total of 29 points.  Sounds horrible, but as bad as my players have performed, I still would have lost big.  All around, just a very poor week.  Not really a damn thing I could have done.  Here is what I was up against.

Yep, ass kicked.  I did mention I won an award.  Technically, it was the 2nd time out of 3 weeks I won this.

Yeah!  I suck.  Suck so bad, I’d think about discontinuing Fantasy Fridays, but I do enjoy dissecting myself.  And it’s my blog so too bad.  Next week I take on my brother so I could really use a win for that reason as well as I really need a win.  So until next week.

Trade from AJ

I sent some Yankees cards over to AJ of “The Lost Collector” awhile back and he had told me he didn’t have any cards for me and I told him it was fine, hit me up when you do.  That is one thing I really love about trading with fellow bloggers, they always get you back.  I don’t even make a list of my trades I send out because I know I’ll get a return package when they can get to it.  And I’ve done it in the reverse order as well, Dennis of “Too Many Grandersons” gave me a huge box of cards for my PC’s and all I had were about 20-25 cards for him.  He said it was cool, hit him back when I do.  But he hasn’t said anything about me owing him, he hasn’t hounded me or even mentioned them, in fact, he even hinted he had some more cards for me.  And that’s what I did with AJ, we had traded before so I knew he’d hit me back.  I had forgotten all about it until he e-mailed a few weeks back to let me know he hadn’t forgotten about me.  I told him it was cool, I look forward to not knowing and all of the sudden, there’s a bubble mailer in my mailbox.  Or rather, my wife hands it to me while rolling her eyes.
Here are the awesome cards he sent.

A Magglio Ordonez rookie, I liked Mags until he left demanding more money.  That always leaves a sour taste in my mouth.  But I still need his Sox cards so he’s still welcome in my team collection.  A Mike Hart numbered to /49 which would be a Colts and a former Michigan player.  More on him later.  If you look at my Photo Cleansing posts, you know I like Michael Jordan, what do I like better, Michael Jordan in a Sox uniform.  And check out the Paul Konerko rookie, he looks so young and was still a catcher.  And another Dodger Konerko.  I remember having him on some Reds cards as well when I collected before but I haven’t come across any yet for my PC.  And the first card pictures, a Chris Webber, but wait, is that a Sox player on there as well.  Let’s take a look.

It’s a Sox player, but wait, that’s Alex Rodriguez.  What is he doing in a Sox uniform?  Even the back of the card says he’s a prospect for the Seattle Mariners.  I went to baseball-reference.com and looked up his minor league record, even though he was drafted by Seattle I thought maybe he played for the Sox organization and went back to Seattle.  So after further review, I have no clue why he’s wearing the Sox uniform.  I’m telling myself that’s because he has always wanted to play for the White Sox, yeah, that sounds good.  If you know why he’s depicted in a Sox uniform, please let me know.




A Robert “Tractor” Traylor autograph from Sage.  This is a great card, I remember watching him play at Michigan and for those who hadn’t heard, he past away just a few months ago.  I had looked at picking up an autograph on ebay after his death but I figured I’d wait a bit, mainly because I’m a cheap ass.  Now I’m glad I did,  Great card for the Michigan collection.


A Mike Hart auto numbered to /99.  I really love this card, I pulled this one out and immediately showed it to my wife.  Although it doesn’t technically fit in my PC because I decided not to collect Colts cards and I only collect Michigan players in their Wolverine uniforms, I’m still keeping it.  Mike Hart was one of my favorite players when he was with the Wolverines.  Did you know he only had 3 fumbles his entire college career.  That alone is pretty impressive.  But he always seemed like a good guy and he played with everything he had.  I’ll always love guys that leave it on the field, who play their asses off, no matter what.  Mike Hart was one of those players.  And I think after receiving the 2 Mike Hart cards in the mail, that I must add a player collection of him.  How could I not, all his cards should be Colts or Michigan cards.  And he was huge at Michigan.  Lord knows, we could use another RB like him right now.

And finally, if you know AJ, he’s trying to collect this set.  I seen this card when he posted about the lots of these he had won but I never thought he’d send me one.  I really hope it was a dupe and he doesn’t have to still get one for his set collection.  As you know, I do love the vintage.  This is a 1968 Topps game card of Gary Peters.  I don’t blame AJ for going for this set, they are great looking cards.  I had run across a few searching boxes but never came across any Sox.  So this one was a definite welcome to the White Sox Collection.
So thanks again AJ, for the great trade.  And if you haven’t checked out his blog “The Lost Collector” then please do so.  He has been a great trade partner and a great blogger.

Goodbye Ozzie

First off, being a Sox fan, I feel I should comment on the whole Guillen situation. I’m sure you might have heard about it. I didn’t expect him back next year, I also didn’t expect it to happen with 2 more games left. I love Ozzie, I know a lot of you don’t. But I didn’t like how this all went down, and I don’t like it from Ozzie’s side. Demanding an extension on your contract after the year we’ve had, seriously? It brings back shades of Frank Thomas asking for a big raise contract after being injured for almost 2 years straight. Pssst, if you want an extension, you have to ask when your on top. Like I said, I love Ozzie and I certainly wouldn’t have changed hiring him. But Hawk Harrelson made a good point last night after the announcement was made. He said that Ozzie has been more subdued and quieter the last few years, and it showed in the players performance. We had high expectations going into this season, and have bombed miserably. Is Ozzie to blame? Maybe some, but they are professional ballplayers and a lot of them didn’t do crap all year. I’m not a fan of coaches and managers taking the firings for a bad year, but that is the business. That being said, I have grown tired of Ozzie’s game. By game, I mean managerially. So I don’t have a problem with him leaving, it’s time.  I’ve said before he manages too much with his heart, and it costs us some games.

And I’m also glad it wasn’t a big blow up. Ozzie asked for the extension, Jerry (Reinsdorf, owner) said no. Then granted Ozzie his release. Granted his release meaning Ozzie asked to be released. Sox didn’t fire him. Also, Joey Cora was made interim manager by Ozzie, he just assumed. The White Sox did not fire Joey because he was leaving to go with Ozzie, they decided it would be in the best interest if he didn’t manage the last 2 games since he was. I’ve read all kinds of things from all kinds of people. I am a Sox fan and I get my info from people in the Sox organization via twitter, blogs, post-game interviews. Stuff most of non-Sox fans don’t read or watch. It amazes me how many different stories that are out there. I’m not saying I’m right, I’m just saying I’ve heard differently and I’ll rely on my sources more than most out there.

So in final, goodbye Ozzie, good luck in all your future endeavors. Thank you for being you for the last 8 years. You’ll always be a Sox in my heart.  But it’s time for us to move on.

Contest plug

“The Carb Hobbyist” is having his first contest.  As someone who had his first one a little while ago, good luck.  And he’s doing a lot more for his contest than I did, lots of chances for entries.  Go check out his contest at the link below.  And stick around and read his blog too.

http://cardhobbyist.blogspot.com/2011/09/time-for-my-first-contest.html

I stole this from his blog, because it’s too funny.

Cheap Ebay hits

I’m working on my Google document lists today.  I’ve finished the additions to the Player Collection pages, and added a Wolverine Collection page.  I’m working on the White Sox Collection page now.  I love collecting cards, and I love having them all cataloged, but I hate doing all the work to get them there.

I picked up these 2 cards when I bought some cards for Dennis of “Too Many Grandersons” that I owed him.  It was $2.75 for unlimited shipping and I had already picked up a small stack for Dennis so I figured, what the hell, might as well get a couple for me since the shipping was pretty much free.

A couple of Wolverine auto’s for my Michigan collection.  I’m going to consider my shipping free so I paid a total of $4.79 for these 2 cards, a little more than I usually try to pay on ebay but it was really hard to buy cards and not be able to keep any for myself.  He actually had 2 of the Adrian Arrington’s but Dennis already had that card so I just got the one for myself.

Michigan Saturday

I’m going to try to use the “timer” on this thing and set this to post tomorrow.  We’ll see how well it works.

*Update – It didn’t work so it’s getting posted after I’ve already been to the game.  Sorry

Some of you may know, that tomorrow I’m heading up to Ann Arbor again for the Michigan/San Diego State game.  I’m looking forward to it, who wouldn’t be.  It should be a good game, I’m definitely thinking it won’t be a blow out.  My friend Frank and I are heading out at 8am, or rather, we are probably on the road as this is posting.

I love going to the Big House.  The atmosphere, the tradition, the crowd, it truly is unbelievable.  Not to mention watching my Wolverines live.

I don’t have much else to say, so let me check and see what pictures I have saved that might be post related.

HeHe.  Forgot I had that.  Can you say Oops!

Denard is a do everything QB, and apparently that includes flying.  Taylor Lewan (#77) is trying to keep him down before he flies away.

I think that’s all the pics, oh wait, one more.  From College GameDay.

Fantasy Friday’s–week 2

Before I start my Fantasy Friday report, wanted to let everyone know that I now have a fan page at Facebook.  And I am now on Google+ as well.  So become a fan and a friend today.  Both links are on the right side of the page.

Here we are at week 2 in fantasy football.  And I still suck.  After scoring 93 points last week, I improved to 112.  But my wife, yeah, I lost to my wife, scored 123.  So after an 0-2 start, I’m thinking about firing my head coach.  They always take the blame for the team performance, why should fantasy be any different.

Let’s break it down and see how bad I sucked.

QB - I made the right call with Philip Rivers.  Chad Henne (GO BLUE!!!) only scored 19 points this week.  That was is kind of a gimme anyways.  Henne may have outscored Rivers last week and may do it again, but he’s not going to do it consistently.

WR – Being a Colts fan, it’s hard to start Reggie Wayne knowing he doesn’t really have anybody to throw him the ball.  But he had a pretty good outing last week so I started him again.  Bad move as he only scored 4 this week.  Mario Manningham (GO BLUE!!!) apparently got injured and ended up with only 3.  So a whopping 7 points from by WR’s killed me.  If you remember last week, I should have started Jordy Nelson, he had scored 11 points.  And this week, he scored 11 again.  So that mistake hurt.  I guess I should have learned my lesson last week.  I also had Mike Sims-Walker riding the pine and he scored 6 so I guess that makes 2 mistakes that cost me +10 points.

RB – I got 24 points total out of Mendenhall and Jacobs.  Which isn’t horrible but is a lot better than the 5 points I got out of Mendenhall and LeGarrette Blount last week.  I benched Blount for Jacobs this week, I just don’t know much about Blount and after last week, I benched him.  It wasn’t an easy decision, probably the toughest I made this week.  Did it pay off?  Nope.  Blount went for 2 touchdowns and ended up with 19 points.  So while the 24 points from RB was great, it could have been 33 points.  3 mistakes for +17 points.  And a win.

TE – Aaron Hernandez had another good week for the TE position.  He ended up with 10 points.  I figure as long as Brady is throwing the ball that much, he’s got to end up with some yardage and possible TD’s.  But apparently he got hurt this game because they are saying he probably won’t play this week.  I have Heath Miller on the bench who has scored 3 points total so I’m screwed.  I went ahead and used my first add/drop transaction.  Picked up a guy that has scored a couple of TD’s already this year.  Hopefully he’ll add to that this week.  I figured since I’m 0-2, I had to take a risk with this.  No mistake here this week.  Yeah!

K – My thought process on Vinatieri beat me last week.  But helped me this week as the Colts couldn’t get in the endzone until the very end of the game.  He had 4 field goals including a 50+ yarder for bonus points.  Josh Scobee only had 5 points this week so another non-mistake here. Yeah!

D – This is a gimme as my bench defense is the Colts.  So I won’t even go there with them.  Yeah!

So I ended up with 3 mistakes that cost me 17 points.  And that would have been the win.  And bragging rights in the household.  If I don’t get my team winning pretty soon I’m going to end up out of the money early.  Here was my wife’s team for the week.

They projected me with a 10 points win.  And that’s why you play the game, projection’s don’t mean a thing.  Here are the standing’s after 2 weeks.  Try not to laugh at me at the bottom of my division.

3 teams at 2-0. 6 teams at 1-1. 3 teams at 0-2.  All 3 of us that are 0-2 all work together.  So that must be working against us.  I’ll ignore that another one from work is 2-0 and another at 1-1.  You’ll notice I’ve had 247 points scored against me, which is the highest total in the whole league, by quite a bit.  I feel bad for my brother, he scored 132 and lost by 5.  Ouch!

Will I finally get a win next week?  Will my TE add/drop pay off?  Who should I start at RB?  Should Jordy Nelson finally get a start?  Since my team name is ColtsFan4Life, am I going to mirror the Colts record all year?Stay tuned till next week.

Cars 2 Stickers to Baseball Cards

My son went to Walmart with my mom to pick up some jeans and shoes and since I got him the Cars 2 sticker album, anytime we are there he goes and gets sticker packs trying to fill his books.  Since he was with grandma, he mooched some packs off of her and talked her into a pack of cards for his dad.  They picked up a pack of 2011 Topps Series II for me.  Didn’t get anything huge but I thought I give him a post on my blog.  He’ll be excited about that.  Here’s what I got.

Here are all the base cards.  No White Sox.

Casey McGehee Gold and a Topps 60 of Jacoby Ellsbury.

Nothing special.  But I love that my 7 year old son thought of me while shopping with his grandma.  I’m sure grandma was rolling her eyes when he asked for one too.

Trade with Ron

Ron contacted me via email.  I don’t think he’s a blogger, just a card collector and wanted to share a bunch of Tom Seaver’s and a couple Paul Konerko’s for my collections.  Here is what he sent.



Along with mentioned Seaver’s, he sent these couple of Konerko’s.  I guess I didn’t realize how many cards he had as a Dodger.  I think I read on one of the many Dodger fans blogs that there were over 100.  And he looks so young in these too.  I certainly appreciated these as I don’t have a lot of his earlier cards.













The Tom Seaver cards were so great, I’m showing each one.
 
These both are from 2001 Upper Deck.  The first from The National Pastime set and the other from The Cooperstown Collection
    
I pulled these cards out of the package and I showed them to my wife and explained how back in the day, kids collected cards, and they put them everywhere.  I remember buying these Kmart sets and collecting cards off of other retail products.  Post cereal, Purina, King B, Quaker. I think I remember buying licorice for cards, Hostess Twinkie’s, Quaker granola bars and cereal.  They don’t do that anymore because kids don’t collect anymore in our dying hobby.  Or at least not like they used to.  These 2 cards are both produced by Topps for Kmart (1987) and Quaker (1986).
     
1986 Donruss and Fleer.  I love the 1980’s card because that was the top of my collecting years.  I remember trying to collect the big 3 (Topps, Fleer and Donruss) and that was about all unless they came out in other products.  I love how they have more sets now, but there are so many cards for a player collector.  The really bad thing is all my player collections other than Paul Konerko, are retired, and they still get card after card in the new sets.
    
I actually have both of these in my Tom Seaver collection but since they are both White Sox cards, they will both go to the White Sox collections so they are still needed.  1986 Sportflics and 1985 Fleer.

I believe these are from 1985 Fleer stickers.  They say Stop-Action photo’s on the back.  Of course, I scanned them in the wrong order so pretend your in a foreign country and go right to left.  I really like stickers and have been looking for this year’s stickers and my local Walmart and have yet to see them.  They have the NFL ones but I can’t find the MLB.  I need to get out to Target and see if they have them.
     
Fleer put out these Limited Editions in the 1980’s.  I just gave a couple of them away during my previous contests.  I like the looks of this 1987 set as far as the bordering goes.  Kind of plain, but classy.  And a 1984 Purina by Topps.


And the final single of Tom Seaver is this 1984 Fleer.  Already a great addition to my Seaver collection.  I loved getting these cards, and it’s nice coming from a fellow Seaver collector.

But wait, there’s more.  I mentioned all the singles, but Ron sent me a whole set of Tom Seavers.

This 110 card set called Tom Terrific was produced by Pacific in 1992.  I knew about the Nolan Ryan Texas Express set put out by Pacific but I had no idea about this one.  I love this set.  I only selected 6 card fronts and I put the backs of the top 2 just to show the title.  Some of the backs have other pictures, most have details about the front of the card.  This set is hugely informative with lots of action shots.  And it goes through his whole career as a baseball player with a card.  I’ve started to scan them all but it takes forever because I want to stop and read all of them.  This was truly a great set and a great trade.  Thank you Ron.

A good post about Manny Ramirez

I named the title that way just because I didn’t want anybody to skim this post thinking it was about his newest press.  I’m sure by now, you’ve heard about Manny and his domestic dispute last week.  Last I heard, he shoved his wife and she hit her head.  Doesn’t really matter, doesn’t really surprise anyone I’m guessing.   I’m not a Manny fan by any means.  Didn’t like him when he played for the White Sox.  I didn’t mind signing him for those few months because whatever you want to say about Manny, he can hit.  Well, except when wearing a White Sox uniform apparently.  But I have a personal story that involves Manny and I figured it would be a good time to share.

Awhile back, when Manny was still with the Red Sox.  My now, ex-wife and I took my then father-in-law to his first MLB game.  He was a Yankees fan and since I couldn’t get any decent tickets for the Yankees game against the Sox, I got White Sox/Red Sox tickets figuring a Yankee fan would root for my Sox.  Between innings my ex would hold a sign that said “This is my dad’s 1st MLB game” trying to get on TV.  We were sitting in the front row on the left field line.  After a half inning where the outfielders were throwing the ball around, Manny looked over to us, held up the ball and nodded.  I nodded back and he tossed it to us.  He threw it to 1 hop us because he was out in his position.  He threw it to my father-in-law.  While he sat back and waited for it, a kid reached in front of him and grabbed it and took off.  Manny looked at us and shrugged.  My ex wanted me to go after the kid.  I told her that her dad should have gone after it, I can’t take the ball from the kid.  She was pissed but she got over it.

I just wanted to give Manny a little good press since he can’t produce any on his own.  He impressed me that day, even though he probably didn’t think nothing of it, it made our day.  I did get my father-in-law to his first Yankees game that next year.  And what was going to become an annual trip to US Cellular Field stopped after his 1st Yankee game due to his passing in a car accident.  But I am glad we got him to his first MLB game and his first Yankees game.

Thank you Manny Ramirez and just because you don’t hit baseballs anymore, doesn’t mean you can hit other things, just saying.

Trade with Night Owl

I had posted some Lineage mini’s that Night Owl had wanted so he had contacted me about a trade.  If you know Night Owl, and most of us do, he loves the 1975 Topps and in turn, loves the new Lineage mini’s that look like the 1975’s.  I love his blog, both of them.  “Night Owl Cards” is great and you can tell he puts a lot of time into his posts.  They are humorous and informative, and he shows lots of cards.  And I’ll be sad because “75 Topps (it’s far out, man)” is about done but he says he’s going to start a new set blog after a small vacation from doing 2 blogs so I’m looking forward to seeing what set is up next.  I love baseball cards for the players, because I love baseball.  Night Owl loves the cards, he shows me things I didn’t even realize were there.  He’s way more observant with them than I am.  Which is why I love his posts.

But back to the trade, he sent me a stack of White Sox cards.  I won’t show you everything, they were all appreciated, but most of you won’t care about those.  Here were my favorites.

All these will go to my Konerko Collection.  I really like the A&G mini, I hadn’t seen any of these in person yet as I didn’t buy any packs of A&G.  Not a big fan of the set, too much crap that’s not basball.  I do like the baseball cards in the set, just not everything else.  So I always appreciate A&G in trade packages.  I might have the first 2 SP Authentic in my Konerko Collection but even if I do, they can go into the White Sox Collection.

A Gavin Floyd 2010 Topps Chrome Refractor.  I, like a lot of you, like the Chrome’s but I don’t have too many of them.  I like this 2009 UD Spectrum, you can see the purple in the scan so I’m guessing it’s a purple parallel but I don’t know for sure.  I haven’t taken the time to investigate it, but either way, I like the card.  Not so sure Carlos will be with us next year, but he was good for us, when he could stay healthy.

 

And Night Owl was nice enough to send me this beauty.  Mark Buehrle (who is my favorite pitcher on the team) relic from A&G.  I love these framed mini relic cards but I don’t like the empty spaces between the mini and the frame and between the mini and the swatch of jersey.  I’ve seen others where they are all tightly together and I like those better.  But I still like the cards, I like the outside frame.

 

So a big thanks to Night Owl and be sure to check out his blogs if you haven’t already. “Night Owl Cards” and “75 Topps (it’s far out, man)”.  If you’re a card collector than I know you’ll love both off them.

MS Walk and Chicago trip

There will probably be no post tomorrow.  I am heading out to Highland, IN for the Multiple Sclerosis walk I mentioned awhile ago.  After the walk, we are going to take my wife to Chicago because apparently, she has never been there.  Well technically she has, because I took her to a White Sox game last year but she’s never been downtown.  So we plan on window shopping on Michigan Ave and hitting the Navy Pier.  That’s what she has requested to do.  I get my kids back at 7pm in the evening so I assume I’ll be home fairly early but I don’t know if I’ll get around to posting something.

If you missed the previous post, click here.

Some of you donated, and that was greatly appreciated.  But I wanted to throw out one last chance to donate before we go.  If you don’t read this till later, I assume you can probably still donate.  Can’t imagine them turning down money.  If your not comfortable giving credit card info, feel free to paypal me some money (jccsst-ebay at yahoo dot com).  Otherwise, click the picture below to donate on the site.

This week’s Michigan game

All you card bloggers can skip this post, it’s my usual pre-Michigan game.  The few of you who are Michigan fans, carry on, and GO BLUE!!!!

Last week was just scary.  Going into the 4th quarter, I looked at the Notre Dame fans sitting next to me and said “You guys do suck, you should be up by at least 30 by now.”  Once again, we came out with a soft coverage giving them 8-10 yard passes all day long.  I don’t understand it.  If Notre Dame was as good as they say they are, they should have crushed us.  But since they let us hang on, we came back and won it.  It certainly wasn’t a pretty win, but a win is a win.  As much as I want Denard to be that QB that they want him to be.  I was screaming for him to run after we couldn’t do anything with the ball.  When he did make a good throw, the receiver dropped them.  Granted, the receiver bailed him out on a lot of underthrows too.  The turnovers for both teams were just ridiculous.  And the last 1:12 were such a roller coaster.  There was so much screaming between the Michigan and Notre Dame fans.  One minute I’m happy, next I’m pissed, then elated.  I could definitely do without this rivalry.  I don’t think my heart can take it.  We can use the next 2 weeks to work on a lot of our game because it has been missing for a lot of the first 2 games.  We can use the next 2 weeks to get better for the Big Ten season because that’s when all this really counts.

I really like the above pic.  I can’t go into this week’s game because I don’t know much about Eastern Michigan.  I know what I would like to see.  I would like to see good passes from Denard.  I want to see some throws over 20 yards that don’t go 5 yards over the receivers head or 5 yards short to where the receiver has to come back.  I want to see the receivers catch all the balls that hit their hands and in stride.  I want the running backs to average at least 5 yards a carry, it should be more than that, but I can accept 5 per carry.  I want to see a shutout for the Defense.  I want the defense to guard the receivers on the line and not give them a 10 yard cushion.  I want to see Michigan football.  I don’t like this bend, but not break defense.  I want to see us dominate Eastern Michigan, like we should.

GO BLUE!!!!

Fantasy Friday

I’ve been wanting to do some regular features and I’ve come up with a few.  None are all that exciting but it will be nice to have some other things going on other than trade posts.  I think I’m going with a regular feature on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Today will be the first one.
This is going to be a regular feature on this blog.  So if you don’t care about fantasy sports, then don’t drop by on Friday’s because they are now going to be know as FANTASY FRIDAYS.  Your supposed to read that with a deep voice and extend the words.  Let’s try it again, FANTASY FRIDAYS.  Wasn’t that better.  I play fantasy baseball and football so this feature will be around through most of the year. 
This was week 1 in the NFL and week 1 in our fantasy league.  And my team sucked.  I scored 93, which isn’t a horrible score.  It’s actually the 2nd highest score in my division.  The problem was, I played the team that had the highest.  Of course, if I was in the other 2 divisions, my score was 2nd lowest of 8 teams.  So essentially, I sucked.  I did win an award according to the standings page.

I’m going to have to print that out and put it in my trophy case.  NOT!
This is a keeper league and I had kept Philip Rivers as my QB.  The rules are there are unlimited trades until the deadline, sometime in November I think.  But you can only add/drop 5 times throughout the year.  So you have to be careful on how many of those you use. 
Here were my starter’s and their production for the week.

I should be satisfied with the 34 points that Rivers got me except that I had Chad Henne (GO BLUE!!!!) on the bench who scored 50.  Should have went with the Michigan alum.  I certainly didn’t see that one coming.  Reggie Wayne helped out with a TD, didn’t expect that either.  Manningham (GO BLUE!!!!) didn’t help me worth a crap.  49 yards receiving with no TD’s.  He probably stayed up too late watching the amazing Michigan win on Saturday night and couldn’t recover.  I can forgive a Wolverine for that I guess.  Shhh!  I know it was a late game Sunday but I need excuses for his lousy 3 points.  I had Jordy Nelson on the bench who scored 11 so I definitely could have improved had I started him.  So I’m up to 2 mistakes (+24 points) already.
The real downfall this week was at the RB position.  Mendenhall and Blount score me a total of 5 points combined.  Yes, total.  I didn’t watch the games so I don’t know what happened but ouch, that hurt!  What really hurts is the only person on the bench I could have improved with was Brandon Jacobs and he only scored 2.  But alas, it was more, I have to count it.  So now I’m at 3 mistakes for a +25 points.  I lost by 31 and I’ve made up 25, could I have made up the difference with the last 3 positions.  Let’s see.
Aaron Hernandez I certainly can’t complain about.  I remember hearing a lot of positives from him last year.  Kind of came from nowhere and made a name for himself so I took a shot at drafting him as my TE.  I had Heath Miller on the bench but he only scored 2 so finally, 1 position I didn’t make a mistake on.
When I drafted Vinatieri, I thought I was being smart.  I was thinking, no Peyton Manning means probably lots of field goals and less touchdowns.  Yeah, that didn’t play out to well for me.  I was right on the less touchdowns, but he had no field goals either.  My bench kicker, Josh Scobee with 11 points.  Damn it! (4 mistakes, +35)
And finally my defense.  Considering my choices are Green Bay and Indianapolis, that decision was fairly easy.  Let’s face it, Indy isn’t known for their defense and this year, they aren’t going to be known for their offense either.  So I got that one right.
So with the +35, I could have pulled off the upset because the 124 points was the highest in the league.  Of course, I’m not diluted enough to know that I’m going to make the perfect choices every week.  That just doesn’t happen, it’s all guess and chance.  4 of my players underperformed according to the projected scoring by yahoo.  And I certainly didn’t see Jordy Nelson or Chad Henne performing as well as they did.  Hell, only 3% of yahoo league owners started Henne and 10% started Nelson.
Here was my opponent (and yes, the BF is for Brett Favre)

As you can see, I was projected to only lose by 8 and I lost by 31.  His team overperformed by 25 points and I actually overperformed by 2.  But the 31 point loss only counts as a loss.  So I am 0-1 and in 2nd place in my division.

My opponent for this week – Manning4eva18.  Aka – my wife.  She only scored 89 last week, I might have a chance.  But she was only 1 win from the super bowl last year after a dominating season.  Question is, do I change any of my line-up?

Sports Illustrated meanest players

This came across my Google reader and while I’m shocked, I’m also not.  215 players voted that AJ Pierzynski was the meanest player in majors.

Now obviously, I don’t know him personally but from what I’ve seen, he’s a very likable guy and teammate.

I understand why opponents don’t like him with what happened in the ALCS with the Angels.  The Angels fan at work hates him with a passion.  But all he really does is play hard.  He does everything he can to win the game.  Chicago fans love him and he’s one of my favorite players on the team.  I know he had a falling out with Minnesota and I’m not entirely sure what happened there with teammates but I know everyone in the White Sox clubhouse says he’s a great guy.  Now I’m not stupid enough to think there aren’t secrets out there that they keep quiet.  But I know, everything I hear out of the Chicago media, is nothing but nice.

I love that when he strikes out, he slams his bat down.  He’s pissed, at himself.  Today he made the final out with 2 men on in a 1 run game and he slammed his helmet down.  He wasn’t mad at the umpire, he wasn’t mad at the pitcher or the other players, he was mad at himself.  That tells me he cares, he wants to win.  Why would you not want that on your team.  I see video footage of him all the time goofing off with teammates and the media.  When he’s on the field, he’s business.  But you see him before games or in video footage outside the game, he’s all smiles.

The SI article doesn’t say anything about the criteria for the vote or even if it was just a write down the meanest player.  Technically, it’s not an article but a photo gallery.  AJ is the kind of guy you love to have on your team and hate to play against him.  That doesn’t make him mean, that makes him a competitor.  I for one, am an AJ fan.  And I hope he retires as a White Sox because I don’t want to see him on another team.

Here’s a link to the gallery – Sports Illustrated

Photo Cleansing #10

For those that are new around here, I save photo’s I like as I go through blogs and when I get a few, I’ll post them here for your enjoyment. And it takes less space storing them here then on my computer.  Here we go.

We’ll start with the White Sox since they are finished for the year. They have been for weeks, but they will be officially probably tomorrow.  I still love the Sox, just very disappointed.

Just a cool shot.

Old Cominsky next to new Cominsky before it was US Cellular and before they tore down the old one.  Home plate from the old Cominsky is still there, in the now parking lot.

I like seeing Jordan in a Sox uniform.  Not that he excelled at it but I think if the strike hadn’t happened, he would have continued to improve.  Don’t know if we would have ever seen him starting in a Sox uniform, but it would have fun see what he could have done.

A late congrats to Paulie on his 2000th hit.

Ozzie, before he mismanaged our pitching staff.  And has probably served his last year as a manager here as well.

Can’t have a Photo Cleansing without some vintage baseball photos.

Satchel Paige and Jackie Robinson.

Willie Mays.

And how about a little humor before we hit some other spots.

The 1st church of the NCAA committee.

Sorry Dodgers fan, there’s a bunch of you, but I thought it was a pretty funny jersey.

Get used to seeing Peyton Manning like this on the sidelines, or at least when he recovers from his 2nd surgery.  It’s going to be a long year for us Colts fans.

I’m still rooting for them, just going to be a rough year.  We’ll find out how rough when we play Cleveland this weekend.

Not a Bears fan, but how could you not be a fan of his.  Walter Payton.

And you know we have to finish off with some Jordan.

I remember this shot, as should most of you.  MJ used to tear up Ehlo.