The Art Neuro Weblog

A Hairy Kind of Question From the Jack Kerouac Memorial League
In the Jack Kerouac Memorial League,  the current league leader the 'Alsorans' started the season with John Smoltz, Billy Koch and Rob Nen as his options for collecting points on 'saves'. He hada great draft, beating me out for the services of Koch; which prompted me to trade Alfonso Soriano for Mariano Rivera and Ichiro (stolen bases, yay!).
 
As the season wound on, the Braves hardly got into saves opportunities, so Smoltz, while pitching great, was not earning saves. Billy Koch turned in some ugly outings and was quickly replaced from the closer role, and so together with an ERA over 6.00, was no longer getting saves. Rob Nen, who missed all of 2003, promptly failed to come back and so never got into a game, let alone a save situation. The third situation really put not only my friend's fantasy team 'Alsorans' in the hole, it threw the real life San Francisco Giants in a spin, and sadly, into the option of using one Matt Herges as their designated closer, so to speak.
 
The funny thing (and I ought not to laugh because my team is slipping down the ladder again) is that Matt Herges does get saves, occasionally (in fact he currently sits on a total of 22), but his ERA is currently 5.86 and his WHiP is sitting at a ghastly 1.74.  And the Giants still insist on religiously trotting him out in 'save' situations. Just before the All-Star break Herges blew three save opportunities in a row, and still collected 3 wins thanks to the hitting support.
     "Which is fine, because I need 'wins' too," relates my friend. Recently Herges blew yet another save, but ended up earning a 'Hold' instead,
     "Which is also fine because I'm short on those too," relates the Manager of the Alsorans.
Then of course Herges gave up 2 homeruns in an inning and not even Felippe Alou nor my friend could abide by that, and so my friend dropped Matt Herges from his roster, for Scott Eyre. There's only so much damage to a team's ERA and WHiP a fantasy manager can take, and what Matt Herges was doing to get his save was just south of Pyhrric. There's even speculation that Scott Eyre might take over the coveted 'Closer' role. IOW it's a genuinely, bona fide, bad isitutation for the SF Giants. 
 
Now my question is this: If the 'Alsorans' are struggling so badly with their relief pitching, how come my team is the one sliding south on the ladder? :) 

I had a Dream
...I was in Van Halen. Actually, in my dream, I joined the band's organisation as tour manager; not to play music, which is less weird. A bit of perspective on this: I am of the generation that is allowed to have such a deep-seated fantasies that bubble to the surface when my superego is down for the count. Air Guitar is part of my skill-set. However, I have no idea why my subconscious wanted to be their tour manager, but there you go. You get to watch them play every night; I can see the up-side.   The next day it turned out that Sammy Hagar has recently rejoined the band, which is a bit like Yogi Berra or Reggie Jackson rejoining the Yankees until you realise Alex is 54 and Sammy's 56.   
Christ almighty. Eddie's 49, and divorced from Valerie after 20years; and has battled off cancer. Yowza. I really don't know how I feel about that one.    

- Art Neuro