1. First thing this morning, I darted down to Sam's and met up with Ed and Darren for breakfast. Ed's been working long hours for the last couple of months and I've been out of town a bit and so I hadn't seen him for a while. Darren's work has him on the road a lot -- he would be driving to Orem, Utah after we finished eating -- so it's fun when he's back in town that he gets together with his dad and I enjoy it when they invite me to join them. Because Ed and his fellow workers have been so hard at it, we haven't been meeting lately for breakfast on Friday mornings. So, today, not only was it a lot of fun to see Ed and Darren, it was good to be back in Sam's. I enjoyed seeing Terri and Lisa again and I enjoyed my eggs benedict.
2. Today the regular baseball season ended. With it came the end to Silver Valley Leagues 1 and 2 in ESPN Fantasy Baseball. Since April, once I made my morning coffee, the first thing I've done every morning is find out which of my team's players played that day, checked to see if I wanted to drop any players and add free agents, and set my lineups for the coming day in both leagues. During every day, I've looked at my phone fairly regularly to see how my teams are doing. Participating with Cas and Seth and Ginger and Fitz and Kennaugh and four other guys I've never met in these leagues has been a blast.
The daily competition was fun, but best of all it got me back into following baseball closer than I have for years. I know that I quit following baseball closely years ago because I didn't have other friends who were deeply into it, but that changed when I moved back to the Silver Valley. It's been rejuvenating to talk and text baseball with Cas and to see Seth and Ginger at the Lounge and talk baseball with them. I can't do what I could as a much younger guy and recite every team's starting lineup, but I am more familiar with teams and players than I have been in a long time.
I look forward to the Major League Baseball playoffs, starting on Tuesday, but I'm a bit dejected that this season of Fantasy Baseball League is over.
In League 1, I never succeeded at putting together an effective pitching staff for the Sunnyside Oddfellowz and I finished 7th out of ten teams in that league.
In League 2, which features head to head weekly competition, however, my team, the Kellogg Johnniez, finished the regular season winning four out of the last five weeks' matches and advanced to the winner's bracket of the playoffs and finished in the money, in third place. The Johnniez had good hitting up and down the lineup, but the Johnniez's pitching staff was inconsistent. I'll try to improve both my pitching staffs next year, but Major League Baseball today is dominated by great hitters and I think putting a strong staff together will be very challenging.
To fill the void left by the end of the Fantasy League, I'll prepare for the 2020 player draft, coming in March. For the 2019 season, I let ESPN's computer draft for me, but, unless I'm busy with something else, I'll do my own drafting next season.
3. Christy and Everett hosted family dinner tonight. Christy's dinner was a perfect answer to the weird cold snap we're in the midst of here in North Idaho. For starters, she fixed us each an Old-Fashioned and then, to further ward off the this late September chill, she served a hearty beef barley soup. In the spirit of enjoying comfort food, Christy also prepared each of us a wedge salad with a very tasty homemade bleu cheese dressing. For dessert we had a delicious cake that I remember being something like almond bourbon (but it might have a better name than that) accompanied by small pours of Amaretto. It was a night of lively conversation and I got kind of dizzy when the calendars came out and we all talked about the activities coming up in October: I'm going to hear Bob Woodward speak in Spokane, Christy and Everett are going to Priest Lake, Carol and Paul will be in Moscow for the Univ. of Idaho homecoming, Carol will be traveling to Utah, and I'm sure I left out something.
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