Kruk is a moron

Watching the Astros/Yankees Wildcard game tonight…

“Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Some of these (Astros) rookies don’t realize the Yankees have won 27 championships” – John Kruk

A) Really? People who play so much baseball that they’ve made it their PROFESSION, have no clue about the history of their sport? Players under the age of 30 have never heard of the New York Yankees? Really Kruk?

B) What the heck does it matter? No one on the current Yankees roster was there for 26 out of the 27. Why would championships from the 1960’s have any bearing on this current team?

He makes my head hurt.

2015 Fantasy Baseball – Final Results

With the 2015 regular season coming to a close, so does Fantasy Baseball. I’m actually stunned, honestly so, that my own team pulled off an upset win over Duff’s team for the championship. My season record was barely over .500, but we went on a 7-week streak towards the end.

2015_FantastyBaseball_Finals

I can take zero credit for it, I just had the good fortune of having both Clayton Kershaw and Dallas Keuchel in my rotation when they were hot. My outfield was weak, the rest of my rotation was weak, and I had to pick up about half a new team mid-season due to injuries. I took a couple longshots on rookies that panned out. Last year that same strategy bit me in the butt. Both Carlos Correa and Rougned Odor turned out to be pleasant surprises.

I’d like to thank everyone for playing this year. I had fun, I hope you did as well. Duff, I’d like to send some Padres your way as a consolation prize. I think I already have your address around here somewhere. Let me know if it’s changed recently.

Just for fun I think I might post up a comparison between the players I started the season with, and the ones I ended up with, but I’ll save that for another day. Thanks everybody!

What happened to September?

I swear yesterday was the 4th of July. I don’t remember most of August and I have no clue what happened to September. Life. Life happened. My kid started school, my job ramped up 400%, a guy at work quit, my buddy needed personal intervention-style help, my church asked me to be a deacon, it was completely nuts.

At work I went from having tiny projects here and there to two massive projects running through the end of the year. They require constant attention and are completely stressing me out. Added to that, one of the other guys quit and now those of us that remain will be pulling double duties until he can be replaced, if he’s replaced.

At home, we were surprised by some bills that we thought we had covered and that zapped up pretty much all of our income last month. So much so that even though one of my best friends from college is getting married next week, I couldn’t afford a plane ticket. I’m pretty ticked off about that one. I have no one to blame but myself.

At church, they nominated me to be a deacon, which was both an honor and a scary proposition all rolled into one. I declined, but only because I felt like I could be more help in other areas at church, and volunteered for the “IT Ministry”. I need to make t-shirts with that on it, lol.

I think, in the past 30 days, I’ve looked at baseball cards or video games a grand total of 3 times. I think I sorted the contents of a blaster, and played Rocket League for about an hour. That’s it. That’s how insanely busy it’s been around here.

October better calm the heck down, or I’m going to be nuts by the holidays.

Batting around

I don’t actually own that much in the way of “sports memorabilia”. Having entire gloves, bats, shoes, etc., is just too expensive. I don’t have any disposable incoming, I’m not a doctor or a lawyer, so paying hundreds of dollars for stuff is just not going to happen. I do have a signed Jim Rice jersey that Sam found for me, and a couple balls I’ve had signed in person. That was it, until today. Today I’ve added a signed bat to my collection.

So, who signed the bat…?

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Anyone want BUNT cards?

I’ve given up on BUNT. I tried to like it but it’s just impossible. It’s impossible for me to enjoy an app that doesn’t know what its trying to be, outside of a basic pay-to-win money grab, and that’s not something I can support.

Originally, I was told it was a “card collecting app” and that you collected digital cards. Ok, that’s fine, but what’s the point?

Then, as I’m trying it out, it completely shifts focus to “it’s like fantasy baseball, but with cards!”. Ok, I like fantasy baseball, but it has major issues with it’s contest formats. The contests really boil down to a “DraftKings” type format, where you’re picking cards each day, but its not about the skill in picking the players, it’s about having the players with the highest “boost” in points value. There are parallel cards to the regular ones, offering ever higher levels of points multipliers. If you don’t have an entire roster of Gold (2x pts) cards, at the bare minimum, you’re not winning squat. Even if you do win, you get coins, which in turn you use to buy packs. The packs have cards. Cards get you points, points get you coins, coins get you packs, packs get you cards.

At that point you’re in a never ending spiral of opening packs to find better cards to play. That pretty much describes the “pay to play” universe of micro-transactions, and that’s fine if that’s your thing. Its the same concept as Candy Crush or Clash of Clans, or anything else people are addicted to on their phones. Its just not my cup of tea.

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