Dan Johnson, Robert Andino & Bryce Harper?

It has been a season of colossal collapses.  Shortly after the Braves tied the 1964 Phillies for the greatest squandering of a September lead (8.5 games), the Red Sox, in truly dramatic fashion, finished frittering away a 9 game cushion.  If you do not know about Johnson and Andino, I shall allow the good people from MLB.com to edify you below.  So, why the heck is Bryce Harper's name on the list?

On August 18th, the Harrisburg Senators played the last game of a three game set against the Aeros in Akron.  Jonesing for Harper's signature on a baseball, I bought the first row seats right next to the visitor's dugout.  Long story short, Bryce signed for a bunch of yahoos that were spilling over from the three rows back and, literally, signed for the retard next to me before sauntering into the dugout, leaving my desires unrequited.  I know that it seems utterly inconsequential.  I recognize that, in the grand scheme of things (whatever the hell that is), my lack of Bryce Harper's autograph is about on par with whether you trimmed your toe nails today.  Still, examined outside of a vacuum (I'll tell you later), the incident threw me into a spiral of despair.  As I struggled with the notion that life is comprised of only pain and disappointment, most other aspects of my life suffered.

One of those affected acitivities was... wait for it... my fantasy baseball team.  As I journeyed north for the long weekend that would undoubtedly include my acquisition of a prized sovereign, my fantasy team, The Long Ball (cuz chicks dig it), held a 29.5 point advantage.  As I utterly neglected my team, 20 points bled away in a week.  By the time that I finally regathered myself, it was too late.  Even as frantic transactions stabalized the situation, the lead continued to trickle into oblivion.  In mid-September, I relinquised 1st place for the first time since April.  Similar to Boston and Atlanta, I came into the final day still with an opportunity to avoid disaster.  I trailed by 3.5 and I had Matt Cain going.  Then Cain got scratched.  Crap.  In the end, the 120 transactions that shuffled my roster over the course of the 162 game schedule were inadequate and The Long Ball finished 2nd, 2 points behind.

To Jonathan Papelbon, to Craig Kimbrel.  To Derek Lowe and Daniel Bard.  To the fans on Yawkey Street and in Fulton County, as the long, cold winter begins, I will quote from from the Gospel of Baldwin, the prophet Stephen, the book of The Usual Suspects, "Bad day... fuck it."

Cheers.





P.s. Nice recap piece here.  Or as I said about 32 times, "Are you kidding me?"  Best night of regular season baseball that I have ever seen.  Maybe that has something to do with the fact that I had the Braves on the big screen, the Sox on my laptop and the Rays on an iPhone.  ;-j