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Fantasy League Whippets
June 4, 2010 | 2 Comments
Dear Garrison,
I joined a fantasy baseball league a little while ago and when it came time to name my team, I quickly decided on the Lake Wobegon Whippets. Like the actual Whippets, they spent much of the season near the top of the standings until injuries and suspensions due to PEDs weakened the lineup. The collapse that I always sort of knew would happen came soon afterwards and they closed the season in tenth place (out of twelve).
This season hasn't been much better. I know a lot about baseball and I've tried everything I can think of to get them out of this funk, but I'm beginning to think I picked a cursed name.
Come next season, should I rename the team or can a winning team actually be named the Whippets? Should I have gone with the Avon Bards?
Matthew C.
St. Charles, IL
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"Like the actual Whippets, they spent much of the season near the top of the standings"??? That isn't the Whippet story as I remember it, Matthew. The Whippets have always struggled to rise from the dark damp cellar of the Old Sod Shanty League. They would get dizzy near the top. Tenth place (out of twelve) would be a feat for them. The season started Memorial Day weekend with a double loss to the Uppsala Uftas and this was no surprise to the fans. When your ace is an aging knuckleballer who thinks too hard and your slugger is a pop-up artist and the guys on the bench dread the thought of playing, you need a manager who can shake things up, but this is tough in a town where everybody knows everyone. Guys put on the WHIP PETS uniform and seem to forget all they were told about how to play the game.
I have joined a fantasy fiction league, in which you buy the contracts of living novelists and bet on their earnings. I own Joyce Carol Oates, Scott Turow, Mary Karr, and T.C. Boyle, and am deliberating whether to pick up Lorrie Moore. Think she's got another big one in her?
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Ron | June 4, 2010 9:17 PM
Dear Garrison,
I appreciate your thoughtful response to Matthew’s questions. Lorrie Moore should have a big one in her. She makes chocolate milk seem sexy. I drink a glass or two a day just thinking about her. “Anagrams” was over my head. What would inspire reasonable adults to consider “Ron’s a rig” an appropriate name for a child? In the simplest case, “no” becomes “on,” as in “No thanks, necessary, Bubba, it’s on.”
Roger Pen Rose, my pick for my non-fiction non-fantasy league, wrote “The Road to Reality.” I love the title, and I am amused so few find the way here. Your daughter might like Ke$ha’s “Dancing with TIME.” I imagine you dance with time frequently. From the moment I heard you mourn the closing of Perine’s Bookstore, while I sat in the owner’s study, until today, I have abhorred your advice, on love. But found joy in almost all you do. Keep up the good work.
Joy to you, Rose.
FT. Dewey | May 20, 2011 1:01 PM
Arn't the Whippets the Houston Astros in another uniform?