FANTASY BASEBALL, CONTINUES

It is now week nine and my fantasy baseball team, the Landisville Sluggers, sport a 6-2 record and sole possession of first place in the Eastern Division. I have been fairly successful at slotting the right players into my weekly lineup, watching those trends in hitting and developments in injuries. I even benched a star player, Erin Ethier of the Los Angeles Dodgers three weeks ago whose head didn't seem in the game. Because he's been so "iffy" and I have plethora of good outfielders, I finally released him and replaced him with a new player who has been a late bloomer, Todd Helton of the Colorado Rockies, who seems to be reaching his stride. Every once in a while my picks have proven ill-advised because like Nick Johnson of the Washington Nationals, they have started going cold right after I gave them a starting slot or Michael Cuddyer of the Twins, who was injured his first week with me and is "day to day."

There are no perfect systems - Evan Longoria, the number 2 player in the league seems to have grown strike out happy lately. Casey Blake of the Dodgers and Hanley Ramirez of the Marlins have developed injuries that won't end their season but make their play more sporadic. Instead of playing 6-7 days per week, they play 4-5 (and when they don't play I get no points) but I leave them in the lineup because on their really good days they get me a whole lot of points.

There are no perfect systems. You cannot put life on auto pilot. You cannot remove all the risk and/or stress from living. Even the best plans need a PLAN B and when no plan works, you need to deal with the consequences, learn and regroup - and move forward.

By the way, my team is still doing fairly well this week even though I am playing the highest scoring team in the league. Their bats have grown even more cold than mine and only their pitching staff - the Yankees - have kept me from leaving them in the dust after the first two days.