Although it's not the manager's fault (that would be Barney), we played shorthanded way too much. It seemed like every other week we had only eight or nine players. It's not fun playing with less than 10 because us outfielders always get screwed. "We're short a player tonight? That's okay, we'll just play with three outfielders instead of four..."  And that, ladies and gentlemen, makes for a lot of ground to cover in the outfield. I think I lost at least five pounds every time we played. Somehow, we finished in third place, but I think that's because the competition wasn't very strong. But the whole Playing With Only Eight got old real fast. It was frustrating as hell. I can stand losing, but it's tough to take when you lose to an inferior team because your outfield is frickin' empty. Hopefully, we'll have a full boat when the playoffs start next week. If not, I guess I'll just try to enjoy the buckets of sweat pouring down my ass crack.

  In the beginning of the season, I seriously thought we might win only one or two games. We lost a lot of our prime-time players (Hammy, Justin, and BD, to name a few) and a couple of the other teams in the league bulked up a bit. However, as the season is winding down, we're still in the hunt for first place. Hmm. Ponderous. Actually, the players we added aren't half bad. And I've noticed we have a little spunk as well. We don't quit, we get a little adrenaline flowing, and we play hard. Sure, I still shake my head at the batting lineup sometimes ("Hey, Barney! How come you're batting after two seventy-year-olds again?"), but we pull off a lot of wins against teams that are probably better. Go us.

  Dismal. That's all I can say. We're blowing dead bear and we're firmly entrenched in last place with a fabulous 1-9 record. It's ugly. Very ugly. After last week's shellacking, Barney, Justin, Kenny and I were standing around in the parking lot with one of our new players Mark discussing the team. Mark hit the nail on the head when he said that we quit when we're down and we don't have enough players (good players or any players) to play in this high of a division. We just stood there silently. We knew he was right. It didn't take him very long to figure us out. So, take all of the problems we have on the other teams (short players, rolling over and dying, and good competition) and that's this team in a nutshell. Brutal. Well, the good news is that season is half over. And the bad news is that the season is only half over.