Fantasy Baseball Final results

The Major League Baseball regular season is about to wrap up, but the fantasy season for our baseball league ended last weekend.  Overall, for the injuries and weak performances of some players through the season, the Coca-Cola Kids ended strong.  They won the opening week of playoffs in the quarterfinals 11-8.  

Then, in the semifinal matchup, the Coca-Cola Kids were annihilated by the eventual league champions 14-4.  The funny thing about that matchup is that the Kids actually had a pretty good week.  As a team, they batted .288 with 8 Home Runs and 30 RBI.  The pitching staff matched the good week of offense posting a 2.81 ERA in 41.2 innings with four wins, three holds, and 47 strikeouts.  The eventual champs had a better week, a much, much better week.  In comparison, they batted .347 with 8 Home Runs and 29 RBI.  They scored 48 runs compared to 29 by the Kids.  Pitching is where the eventual champs ruled however, they posted a 2.09 ERA in 43 innings with three wins, one save, and 55 strikeouts.  They had five quality starts to the Kids' one quality start.  The Coca-Cola Kids were simply outmatched.  

The semifinals really fired up the Kids in the finals.  The Kids took on the regular-season champs for the third-place matchup.  The Kids won 10-8.  It wasn't as strong a week as the semifinals, but it was enough for third place.  Not a bad finish for the only team in the playoffs with a sub .500 record (185-188).  The Kids are happy with the third-place finish but are overall disappointed with the effort through the season.  

The owner of the Coca Cola Kids has some decisions to make over the off-season.  Who to keep, who to trade, who to cast off.  The league has a keeper rule for up to four players.  Who will the Kids go with?  They have a strong outfield with Reynolds, Robert and Castellanos but the consistency with Abreau and Bryant are hard to let go.  Maybe the Kids will go with youth in Bichette, Hayes, and Mondesi.  It is a long off-season made a little easier gazing upon that third-place trophy, but there are decisions to be made.  

Storeroom Treasures: The Sump Pump

The sump pump scares me to death.  Why?  It has nothing to do with the little spiders that hang out near it.  It has nothing to do with the hole it fills in the basement.  What scares me is when I don't hear from it especially on a wet, rainy day.  In fact, this little motor instills so much fear in me that I got a friend for it as a backup when things get hard.  Regardless of my fear of this "storeroom treasure," it taught me a lot about my family and how quickly we come together when things get tough.  

About a year-and-a-half ago, my fears came true when we
received about 7 inches of rain in a matter of hours.  I came home from work to have my family show me the "lake" that had appeared in our backyard.  As I looked out on the extraordinary amount of water in our backyard, my heart jumped as I realized I hadn't heard that soft hum from the basement.  I ran downstairs and did the hard right "U" turn into our storeroom where the little motor and his friend live only to see water rise out of the hole.  I hollered to my family to get towels as I ran back up the stairs to the garage to get our shop vac.  By the time I got back downstairs, water has spread across our entire basement.  It was less than 3 minutes.  

It was an incredible night of frantic salvaging of stuff that we deemed important but had been sitting on the basement floor.  All this salvaging while also trying to stop the flow of water into the basement.  I finally reached down into the sump pump hole to discover that both pumps were running but just couldn't keep up.  I finally mustered both of my daughters who were scared and confused.  I got them each buckets and I started bailing water out of the sump pump hole.  They sloshed through the water to the basement bathroom and dumped the water from their buckets into the toilet.  As one daughter went to dump her bucket, I would fill the other.  All the while, my wife was in the living area of our basement, running the shop vac and trying to save our stuff.  About an hour after the rain had stopped, each girl had taken a break to eat a very late and cold dinner.  I continued to bail the sump pump hole.  Finally, an hour after the rain stopped, I noticed that I was making progress and the water fell below the pit line.  Then another 20 minutes, the pumps caught up and could expel all the water that was still rushing into the hole.  

It was an exhausting, frustrating, frantic night.  I sent the girls to bed around 10:30 and my wife and I continued to clean up water and dirt until about 1:00am.  The next morning my oldest daughter and I moved everything out of the basement to dry out in the 90-plus-degree, humid garage while my wife and youngest daughter ran to the hardware store for supplies.  Over the next several days, we tore out all the trim and flooring and brought in professionals to finish the job.  It took about 3 months before our basement was back to normal.  

The sump pump scares me, but when it failed it was amazing to see my family come together.  We "survived" our own tragedy of seeing some really special items (Christmas decorations, record albums, collections, etc.) destroyed and our house, which always seems "safe and sound," flooded.  The four of us fought hard to keep the damage to a minimum without complaint and we worked together.  I never wanted our sump pump to fail or our house to be damaged, but without that, I wouldn't have the satisfaction of looking back and seeing us all in that moment.  

We still have the same two sump pumps in the basement, and we have taken several precautions like everything on the floor of the storeroom is in plastic tubs, and we keep the buckets and shop vac next to the sump pump.  We also added a water level alarm.  Probably the most important thing is as a family, we have each other.  We know that we can count on each other when things get tough.  There may be some shouting, maybe some tears and loss, but we are there to back each other up.  I know that in times that may be less frantic than water filling the basement and in times that could likely be even worse, we've got each other's backs.  When it comes to that, I am a pretty lucky guy.  

Fantasy Baseball Playoffs begin!

The Coca-Cola Kids are in the playoffs!  The Kids finished the regular season in 6th place with a late-season push that brought them back from a low of 9th place in the league to 6th place.  It was a rough season for the Kids as injuries (Luis Robert, Adalberto Mondesi, Ke'Bryan Hayes) and a couple subpar performances from key positions (Lucas Giolito, Luis Castillo) kept the team from staying league elite.  Nonetheless, we enter the playoffs with underdog status.  The Kids have a history of causing some major upsets so stay tuned.  Here is the playoff roster: 

C: Buster Posey  Giants

1B: Jose Abreau  White Sox

2B: Javier Baez  Mets

SS: Bo Bichette  Blue Jays

3B: Kris Bryant  Giants

OF: Brian Reynolds  Pirates

OF: Nick Castellanos  Reds

OF: Luis Robert  White Sox

Utility:  Adalberto Mondesi  Royals

SP:  Nick Eovaldi  Red Sox

SP: Luis Garcia  Astros

SP: Frankie Montas  A's

SP: Matthew Boyd  Tigers

RP: Diego Castillo  Mariners

RP: Yimi Garcia  Astros

P: Alex Reyes  Cardinals

P: Jarlin Garcia  Giants

Bench: Ke'Bryan Hayes, Pirates; Ryan McMahon, Rockies; Trey Mancini, Orioles; Josh Rojas, Diamondbacks; Huascar Ynoa, Braves.

Welcoming Friday Favorites!

I'm starting a new monthly post of Friday Favorites!  This will be a series of Top 5 or Top 10 of some of my favorites in a variety of topics, and they will appear on the second Friday of the month.  

Some of these lists are inspired by the discussions I have with the most excellent Dan Zehr and Cory Clubb on the podcast CWK Pourover.  If you are ever up for some great conversation with an even more wonderful community of listeners and participants, check out this fun group.  We can sometimes be pretty serious, but most of the time craziness ensues for some great laughs.  Some of these Top 5 lists come from conversations with my daughters.  I often pose this question on car rides or at dinner, "What are your Top 5..?"  Most of the time that question is met with eye-rolling, but sometimes clarity and meaning come from those moments.

Anyway, to kick-off the first Friday Favorites, here are my Top 5 Mobile Apps: 

5. Marvel Unlimited - 10,000 Marvel comics at my fingertips?!?!?  Yes, please.  I can download 10 at a time when I don't plan to be connected to wifi for a while.  Take a look at my 2021 Personal Stats posts to see how often I use this app.  I can tell you, my library grows a lot faster than my consumption.  At least they don't stack up next to my reading chair!  

4. Twitter - This is my favorite way to keep in quick contact with everyone and to keep my ear to the ground of what is going on in my favorite communities.  It is my most wide-open social media in that I follow the largest groups of people and organizations.  All my other social media is much tighter and curated in what I follow.  Twitter is my ear to the ground.  

3. Instagram - Instagram and Twitter would have been tied for my consumption time until my family introduced me to Instagram Reels.  Those have caught my fancy.  I laugh, ogle at the cute animals, and am amazed at some of the dancing talent!  Oh, then there is the Instagram feed.  I love the visual aspect of Instagram; it allows me a quick view of the groups and people I enjoy.  It is a much tighter group than Twitter and Facebook. 

2. Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes - I just love games. I somehow found a good group of people to join who are super positive and help each other out.  There is something I have just enjoyed about the challenge of collecting heroes and villains of the Star Wars Galaxy, powering them up, and creating odd teams to do the fighting.  I probably dedicate 30-45 mintues a day building up my characters, ships and profile on this game.  

1. Topps card trading apps - I realize that this is kind of cheating (my blog my rules), but of the four Topps apps that I collect, at least one of them would always be number one with my phone apps.  I have told the story many times, but I will never forget my first introduction to Topps Digital cards.  I was at the Indiana Comic Con with my Coffee with Kenobi friends, Dan Zehr and Cory Club, when they introduced me to the Star Wars Card Trader app.  This led me to discover Marvel Collect, Bunt and Disney Collect.  I collect, trade and drool over these cards.  I am in real trouble when all four apps have sets I am chasing at the same time.  It happens...often...

These and other apps can be really consuming, and I just wanted to be clear that I most certainly do use the Digital Wellbeing function that my phone offers.  I limit the time I spend on each app every day, and the Wellbeing feature will just shut the app down once I reach the time allotted.  Please do me and yourself a favor and set those boundaries, because these apps are awesome, but so are the face-to-face people in our lives.  

Life's Puzzle

 Life can get challenging sometimes.  It can feel like things just don't go together.  I know often I can feel like I am constantly working for a goal or many goals, and while I am feeling super productive, nothing ever seems to be finished.  Everything seems to be a neverending project where the finish line seems to be moving further and further away.  Ever feel this way?  I do all the time. 

For some reason, at the end of this summer I got a card table out in our front room.  I found a puzzle that I had put away in my office since I had received it.  I got my kids together at the card table and I broke open the seal of the puzzle box and dumped out all the pieces on the table...all 1000 of them!  Probably not best practice for a family of two teachers and two students, but I did it.  

We followed the typical puzzle procedure, at least procedure in our house, of flipping all the pieces up and separating edge pieces from the middle pieces.  Then we assemble the border while sorting the middle pieces by similar color and so on.  The border came together slowly, but we hit a snag with three edge pieces left and seemingly nowhere they belonged, and there were a couple breaks in the edge that none of these remaining pieces fit.  Ugh.  It was suggested by someone in the house that we quit. Well, we moved on to start assembling some small images that were easy to find and fit together.  There was a burst of accomplishment, but the overall picture was a long way off.  I started to feel like I do in life sometimes.  Some of the pieces were coming together, but the overall goal was way off.  Every time we stopped for 5 minutes to work on the puzzle, we were productive but we were getting edgy as the school year/deadline was approaching, and the end was way off.  

It was at this point that I realized this is how I feel a lot of the time at work or with workouts or house projects or relationships.  We hit snags where things just don't seem to connect.  Even the little successes that come together are hard to see how they fit together with the larger picture.  It gets frustrating.  

But if we stick with it, the small successes start to come together, and before we know it, the larger picture begins to become apparent.  It is a good lesson for me and maybe it is a good reminder to all of us.  When things don't seem to be coming together and we can't see the "big picture" in life, remember that last puzzle you did.  Remember how sticking with it and appreciating the small accomplishments along the way help to bring the satisfaction of completing a goal.   

The Spirit of the Olympics

I love watching the Olympics.  I love watching the best athletes in the world showing off their skills and passion for the sport.  I love how these athletes and their stories inspire me. Interestingly, this year I found another source of inspiration from the Olympics, the commercials.              

I normally don't like to find myself wrapped up in commercials, but some of the commercials this year were quite inspiring.  There was a commercial by Toyota (see below) where a mom is on the phone with an adoption agency and they are informing her that there is a baby, but there are issues.  The baby's legs will have to be amputated.  The agency woman says it won't be easy.  All during this commercial while we hear the voices of the mom and the agency, we are watching a little girl with amputated legs learning to swim, then as she gets older we see her continue to swim to the point of an accomplished swimmer.  In the end, we see this swimmer come up to the edge of a pool which is the kitchen of the mother on the phone. The swimmer looks on as the mother tells the adoption agent it may not be easy, but it will be wonderful.  The girl in the water smiles and swims away.  Toyota grabs our hearts with the message that anyone can succeed when given a chance.  It is a beautiful message.  

The other commercial that really grabbed my attention and gives hope is the spot that shows kids watching athletic competitions on T.V. when something unfortunate happens like a collision of athletes or a trip and stumble in a long race.  But, each of these instances shows the professional and compassionate athletes give up the competition of winning to help their opponents to their feet.  They are beautiful moments of the spirit of competition, but in these commercials with children watching, it seems even more impacting.  Specifically, one is a famous track race where a runner stumbles and falls.  The runner next to her stops to help her opponent up off the track.  Then we see the child watching in her own sport, and helping another child up off the field after a fall like she had seen on TV.  Another boy watches one soccer player accidentally trip another on the field, and instantly stop to help the opponent up.  Then we see that lesson learned as the boy on his own soccer match helps an opponent up.  The message, by an advertiser whom I do not remember, teaching sportsmanship and compassion is one that we need to see not only in sports but in all aspects of our lives.  

Like the Christmas Spirit, I would love to see the spirit of the Olympics last far into the days after the games have closed.  This spirit of years of dedication and sacrifice to be the best but without losing the focus of human compassion is what this is all about.  Let's look into the eyes of others, and help those who are struggling. Let's help others up off the field and get them back on their feet.  We always need to strive to be our best, but we don't have to be our best at the cost of others.  Let's be a positive example for the generations that will follow us and teach them compassion, sportsmanship, and love.  Let's pass on the hope that goodness always wins.            

                                                     

Teachers in the Dungeon: A Podcast

I have been excited to announce a new podcast that I have co-created and will co-host.  The show is titled Teachers in the Dungeon where co-creator and co-host, Dan Reem, and I will recap and analyze the games we play and Dungeon Master (DM).  I can give you a hint from some pre-recording, we make a lot of mistakes as players and Dungeon Masters.  If anything, as listeners who aspire to play, DM, or have played for years, it will make you feel better about giving the game a try, because through it all, we have a blast playing.  

At the beginning of this journey, we will have a couple different kinds of episodes.  As mentioned above, one type of episode will be our game recap and analysis shows.  We will also have episodes called "Random Encounters" that will discuss random topics of D&D and role-playing.  Our goal with Random Encounter episodes is to work through 5e rules, table observations, educational opportunities, character creation, and any other random topics that are on our minds.  Down the road, we hope to interview players and content creators from the 5e community.  

Episode 1, to release today August 10, breaks down where the show concept grew (my brain), and a bit about our backgrounds as players and DM's.  When we "dive into the dungeon" in episode 2, you will join our merry band of third level explorers including Borem, Rix, Zedi, Caersws, and Dirichlet as they head into Telesaria a home-brew campaign created by Dan.  

Teachers in the Dungeon will release once a week on Tuesdays, so I hope you join us.  We are always looking for feedback, so hop on our social media or send us an email in the following ways:

Twitter @DungeonTeachers

Instagram:  TeachersInTheDungeon

Gmail: teachersinthedungeon@gmail.com

Website:  www.teachersinthedungeon.weebly.com

"Grab some dice and grab some fun and join the teachers in the dungeon!"