Matt Bleeping Stairs

I've been playing Rotisserie baseball for 25 years now, since the year the original book came out and probably 10 years before anyone invented the name "fantasy sports." It's an American League-only league, which is nice because I can root for the Phillies without having to root against my own team. This also means that I know every player in the league. of course, most of them are just stat lines to me, not personalities. Matt Stairs is different, I guess just because he's such an unlikely-looking player. Watching him run after a ball in right field is pretty comical, similar to the way John Kruk used to run. And he was always a mid-season pickup in our league when you had an injured player and needed to add some home runs. So I couldn't be happier for the guy. It's my favorite personal story so far this year.

I should also add, I don't think I've ever heard a player interviewed after hitting a home run and having them say, "Yeah, I was trying to hit it out." They always mumble something about just trying to make good contact, or looking for a pitch to drive, because it's bad form, I guess, to be swinging for home runs. And every baseball interview has been ruined for me by Bull Durham, so this is very refreshing.

I was afraid if I started on baseball I'd never stop, but here's just one more thing- just as important as the home runs was the pitching performance of Eyre and Madson in the 6th inning. The Phillies could have fallen apart after yet another atrocious Ryan Howard error, but Eyre and Madson got out of a second and third, nobody out situation without giving up even one more run. I don't have the relevant books on runs scored in these situations, but I know that if you have a runner on 3rd and nobody out he scores over 90% of the time, and I think the average runs scored from that situation is around 2. So stopping them there was key. As lousy as it felt being behind, it was only 2 runs.