If Dante played fantasy baseball...

Did everyone hear about the nearly-catastrophic-almost-curse that was placed upon the new Yankee Stadium? Some jokester buried a Red Sox jersey underneath the concrete floor of the visitor’s locker room. Crisis averted, however – construction workers with a jackhammer broke up the floor and removed the offensive article of clothing, ensuring that Yankee Stadium will remain untainted by Red Sox cooties…

Of course, now I wonder if that was such a good idea, for two reasons. First, I guess the motive behind that concrete-encased jersey in the visitor’s locker room was to jinx the Yankees – but then why wouldn’t you bury the jersey in the HOME TEAM’S locker room?? If you wanted to curse the Yankees with Red Sox cooties, wouldn’t you bury the jersey some place where the Yankees will continually congregate? If the jersey was under the floor of the visiting team’s locker room, wouldn’t it jinx the visiting team? And second – how do we know that forcing a Red Sox jersey to remain trapped in Yankee Stadium forever wouldn’t have jinxed the RED SOX? Think about it – a Red Sox jersey, eternally entombed within the hallowed halls of its most detested adversary… stuck, ensnared, unable to move – unable to run away from the thundering cheers of the Yankee crowd, or the chants of “let’s go Yankees,” or the banging pots and pans that Freddy the crazy fan brings with him to every game. It would be constant Red Sox torment.

In fact, if anyone’s ever read Dante’s Inferno (anyone? Anyone?? C’mon, it wasn’t THAT bad… quite interesting, actually…) you’ll remember that Dante’s interpretation of the ninth level of hell – the level reserved for the worst of the worst, where Satan himself spends eternity – was NOT the usual “burning fire” image we’ve all grown accustomed to. No, Dante envisioned the center of hell as a frozen block of ice – where the most evil beings in all of history were eternal ice cubes. And concrete is quite similar, actually – it’s cold, it’s hard, it traps anything within it in an unrelenting grip… it has to be jackhammered apart to release its prisoners. Honestly, I’m starting to think that the Red Sox jersey might’ve been better off in its tomb of concrete…

Meanwhile, I’m struggling with the fantasy baseball team FROM Dante’s ninth level of hell… okay, maybe the eighth level. I mean, it’s possible they COULD suck slightly more than they do, but realistically the only way to go from here is up. One of my fellow fantasy baseball-leaguers keeps attempting to bribe C.C. Sabathia away from me. Sabathia has been pitching like a nine-year-old girl scout with an arm full of unsold boxes of Thin Mints… so one might assume I am sick of the guy and wishing to get rid of him. But I see what’s going on here – it’s only a matter of time before Sabathia sells the rest of his girl scout cookies and can start focusing on his chosen profession once again. And when THAT happens, he’ll be back to pitching complete game shut-outs and racking up the points again. Obviously, someone is trying to take advantage of my understandable early-season frustration. But the guy was my first round pick, for pete’s sake – if I don’t have some faith in my first round pick, who CAN I have faith in??? (Where has our love gone, Sabathia? WHERE’S THE LOVE???) I don’t know – maybe someone buried a Red Sox jersey under Sabathia’s locker…

Come to think of it, maybe someone buried a Red Sox jersey underneath my new house in an effort to curse all of my fantasy baseball players… except that wouldn’t explain why RICK is doing so well right now. Unless…

Nah, he’s definitely a Yankee fan. Right? Yeah, of course he is. I think… :)