The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

Being an Atlanta Braves fan has been difficult through the years. Sadly, as an Atlanta Braves fan, I think I've become immune to the seemingly inevitable annual disappointments that come with the territory. It's been especially difficult these past couple years. They all but had the National League Wild Card a year ago, before they decided to collapse and lose the Wild Card spot to the St. Louis Cardinals on the final day of the regular season. In the Wild Card game this year, they faced those very same Cardinals. The Braves had the best defense in the regular season as far as fielding percentage went. Against the Cardinals, they decided to commit three errors. Then in the 8th inning, with runners on 1st and 2nd and one out for Atlanta, a ball was popped up between shortstop and left field and an umpire called an infield fly rule quite late as the ball dropped between the two players. That would have loaded the bases with just one away, but due to the late call by the umpire, a...

Alright, so my team began playing better in recent weeks, thanks largely to my team getting healthy again - Matt Kemp being the most notable return. Then late last week, Emilio Bonifacio - the league leader in steals - got placed on the DL for the second time and won't be returning this season. Michael Cuddyer got placed on the shelf the very next day. Now slugging first baseman, Paul Konerko, is on the disabled list. Brian McCann has missed a couple games. Brandon Phillips just came back after missing 4-5 games. To say my offense is a mess would be like saying Ben Stein is boring.

...and so it happened again. I'm really beginning to wonder if the football gods are pissed at me. I had 32 confidence points on Georgia Tech to beat Utah. Tech was up 14 in the 4th quarter and somehow, Utah came back to tie it and win in overtime. I had 26 points on Georgia over Michigan State. Georgia led 16-0 at one point and went up 27-20 late in the 4th, before Michigan State tied it. In the first overtime, State was intercepted and Georgia went ultra-conservative on their play-calling to set up a field goal and missed. State wound up winning in three overtimes. I had 18 points on Stanford over Oklahoma State. Stanford led 14-0 and never trailed throughout regulation. They had a chance to win the game with a 34-yard field goal with no time remaining. The kicker was Pac-12 2nd team All-American and Stanford had only failed to score once inside the red zone all season. The kicker missed and Oklahoma State ended up winning in overtime. Stanford gained 590 yards for the game...

Having the 14th pick of a 14-team league, dominated by quarterback stats, I felt pretty good going into the season having drafted Indianapolis Colts' starter Peyton Manning and Houston Texans' starter Matt Schaub. I knew that Manning would miss some games, but the early prognosis was that he'd miss 2-3 and that's all. It then became known he'd likely miss the season, so I picked up Jason Campbell, the starting quarterback of the Oakland Raiders. He then went down with a season-ending injury and I picked up his replacement, Carson Palmer. Schaub then went down with a season-ending injury, so I wound up picking the Kansas City Chiefs new starter (Matt Cassel went down with a season-ending injury also) Tyler Palko. After he struggled and former Denver Broncos quarterback Kyle Orton was waived, the Chiefs picked him up. I then decided to release Palko in favor of Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Hainie, who was replacing Jay Cutler whom was also said to have suffered a p...