The Morning Offering - May 18, 2005

Written by TiVo on May 18, 2005

Sheesh. I’m overwhelmed already. How can I possibly live up to the standard set by yesterday’s offering?

Before we get to fantasy baseball, I have a question: Have you ever been stuck between two stinky dudes on a plane?

This happened to yours truly a couple weeks ago as I made my way to the west coast for my sister’s graduation (photo here). As any Rotogod will tell you, I’m a little big to be sitting in the middle seat to begin with. But there I was, stuck between two grown men, one who hadn’t showered, and one who apparently had no use for AquaFresh.

They should take a whiff of you at the security checkpoint. Smelling like ass should be like carrying a gun.

“Sir, we can’t let you on the plane with that kind of stank.”

Anyway, on with the show.

Moment of prayer
Why God? Why can’t I have Brian Roberts? Father Time doesn’t deserve him. He cheats on his taxes. And his girlfriends. And I saw him slap a helpless golden lab puppy not too long ago. You know who saved the puppy, God? Me. Doesn’t that mean anything?

Not that you could pry Roberts from his owners’ greedy meathooks after he hit his 11th jack last night, but if you were to trade for him, would you pay based on what he‘s doing now? He’s all of a sudden a full-service roto guy (.382-10-32-13 going into last night), but he’s been doing it consistently for about five weeks. Would you trade the more proven Jeff Kent for him? Derek Jeter?

The Suckass posse
So has any keeper or early-round pick been worse than Oliver Perez, oh he of the 8.03 ERA and 1.92 WHIP?

Curt Schilling, you say? Well, Lou Piniella’s best friend does have a 8.15 and a 1.81 in three starts, but at least we knew coming into the season that he was an injury risk.

Has Mike Lowell been worse? Yep, but was he really a keeper? Eric Chavez? Yep, awful. Vernon Wells … ooh, good one. Jim Thome? Suckadelphia. You get the point.

On the flip, maybe only Jon Garland -- 8-0 after last night -- can challenge Roberts for the Totally Out of the Blue Award.

Scrub of the week
One of my favorite features in our 30-team league is Scrub of the Week. It's a weekly lineups league, and there’s a player or two that plays out of his gourd each time around. In the Virtual MLB, the player who scores points like he’ll never score again gets recognized in front of the entire group.

A sampling of this year’s winners: Joe Randa, Ronnie Belliard, Matt Lawton and Tino Martinez. For those of you out there saying “hey, those guys are good players,” I’ll have you know Tino edged Emil Brown and Tony Womack for the honor this week.

The best part might be the weekly write-up on our message board by co-commissioner Jeff Teneover. He always gives a golf clap for the winner, and closes by saying “Until next time all you scrubs out there, keep reaching for the stars, because any week can be your own personal All-Star game if you just believe you are good enough.”

Lightning-round
A’ight, let’s bring this thing home quick-fast:

• Manu Ginobili: Nasty (39 last night)
• New England Patriots: Draft haul way overrated, but nice off season (Re-signed Brady, added David Terrell, Chad Brown and Duane Starks)
• An alternative to higher-priced brokers... You ever see a commercial so many times you know it by heart, and you still don’t know what they’re advertising?
• Um, hey there (shit, I'm dumb): Few things are more awkward than walking toward someone you don’t know in a hallway and wondering whether you should say hello or stare at the floor to avoid it.
• Dirk Nowitzki: Looking like Exposo the Clown in this series. That’s Rotogodese for ‘someone's making him look bad.'
• Carlos Beltran: Nice stolen base. On April 10. Sure fucks with your SB totals when the easiest guy to run on is your team’s catcher.
• Go to school: Who is that rugrat that TNT is using to promote the NBA? Engrish, prease!
• Fantasy football: I read recently that 17 of the first 20 picks in an experts football draft were running backs. I love the RBs too, but are people really drafting Chris Brown and Steven Jackson around the same time as Peyton Manning, Daunte Culpepper and Randy Moss?
• Terrell Owens: I wouldn’t touch this guy with a stick in a fantasy draft right now, but I brought him up to deliver a message from Big Pun: You know you done fucked up, right?

  
  TO hasn’t spoken to the media in month, but they’re still getting life out of his last words, which might actually become famous last words. He took a flippant jab at the King of Philadelphia (hint: not AI), and now they’re calling for his head.
  

  Since the Eagles hold all of the leverage and are as likely to give in as I am to get six-pack abs again, TO’s options are really looking like a) sit out season or b) humble himself, return to Eagles, have great season, try holdout next year.

  The humbling part I’ve gotta see.

• Dumb link of the day: A poll on who would win if Mary Kate and Ashley fought Tia and Tamara from Sister Sister. Don’t ask how I found it.
• Stu Scott: If anybody -- besides the people that inexplicably pay him -- enjoy this guy’s commentary, I’m sure they also think Vanilla Ice was a great rapper. Stu’s getting worse each time out. He's got me sounding like an old person: “Just read the damn scores, will ya?”
• Almost clever: Recently, a poll on the Rotogods message board asked which team name in our league was the lamest. The six worst: Need for Speed, Dream Weaver, Big League Chew, New York Yankees, Roy Rogers and Hard Konerko Life.

  
  Our league-mates have since come up with such imaginative classics as HappyHappyChoiChoi, Did I Menchion We Suck?, What it is, Niekro? And I Mount Vernon. Those in addition to Beagle’s longstanding Livan Lo Duca Loca.

  An improvement to say the least.

We may not be able to say the same, however, about today’s long offering against yesterday’s short one.

On with your morning!

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Berate, belittle or big-up TiVo at Tivo@rotogods.com. Or find him lurking the message boards 24-7. Hip-hop and funk fans can also peep TiVo’s musical musings occasionally on allthangsfunky.blogspot.com

-- Written by TiVo on May 18, 2005