The Diary of a Fantasy Virgin - Week 4 Oct 8, 2004 | More

So in New England, we had our first widespread frost on the ‘ol pumpkin this last week.  Most of New England is also collectively holding their breath watching the Boston Red Sox play in the post-season.  There is a populous of Yankee fans that get larger and larger as you close in on a radius of about 100 miles from the N.Y. border.  This is all fine with me.  When you win as much as the Yanks have, you are bound to get some tag-a longs.  Just look at the Montreal Canadiens in hockey.  Everyone loves a winner.  But the Red Sox are just so plucky.  And every year that they enter the postseason implies that …”This could be the year!”  Well we will see and the odds are never that good.  My thinking is that somebody has to win right?  This week saw a few teams on the bye week.  So for many it was a catastrophic week.   Ahem…maybe I should modify that second to the last word there.

Bye-tastrophe

We need a new word in the English language.  I recently read that there are over 14 million workers participating in fantasy football this year and that each manages their team while at work.  Well, what took them so long to figure that out?  I believe there are just enough to create a new word for the English language.  I posit that we need a word for losing due to a bye week.   I believe it should be the combination of bye and catastrophe…or byetastrophe

byetastrophe – Pronunciation key (bi-tas-tro-fee)

n.

1.      When your Fantasy Football team gets destroyed because your best player(s) are on a bye week in the NFL.

2.      When you cannot fill a team’s roster that week because your positional players are on a bye week in the NFL and you do not have any backups at those positions.

So now that we have a new word in the English language, let us use it now!

My Opponent Had a Byetastrophic Week

This week I had some players on the bench due to the bye week.  However, my opponent couldn’t even fill out a full roster.  It ended up being a frustrated week for my opponent and a much needed win for yours truly.  A win is a win and you never know when a byetastrophe is awaiting you.  There is a side of me that says…”Hey, that’s why it’s so tough to go undefeated in fantasy football…the bye week”.  So draft thee well and balance to your squad will come thusly.  So what did the Captain do?  He observed of course.

Captain’s Log – 10-04-2004 – 11:00 PM

Sometimes I wonder where the heck that September went.  The calendar never lies and it’s counting me and measuring me day in and day out.  “Artemis…fair thee well lad and get me a list of the gentlemen available to us this week”.  Arty obliged and all the whilst I was plugging holes in me lineup with gentlemen not on a neighboring atoll, all I could think is that every gentleman aboard the vessel gets that excursion yet I an’ Arty get no such luxury.  Ah, those are the spoils of being an owner and first mate aboard the Demolition I guess.  With that, I made an observation across the bow and through the waters.  Much to my disbelief, several ships had more than their fair share of missing crewmembers.  “The atoll must be a rockin’ this week” I stated to Artemis.  “Lookee there, ‘tis a veritable ghost ship sailin’ the high seas today” I exclaimed to the crew.  And sure enough the riggings were not manned and the ship just meandered.  And the week went by and our obstacle just passed through us and we overcame it by just having a full crew aboard.  Artie clanked a tankard of ale and aloud offered this bit of wellness…”Cap’n, may our next bye week not leave us with a Ghost Ship ourselves.”  And with that we sailed into a beautiful sunset as a chill in the air presaged the seasons were changing.  May the temperature not indicate the harshest times are yet to come.

Master D.

Tim can now be reached at tdavoll@fantasysharks.com and welcomes your opinions on the Diary of a Fantasy Virgin Articles.