Baseball's Firing Spree - Who's Next? Me?

It seems that firing managers is all the rage these days in Major League Baseball. Just last week, the Mets, Mariners, and Blue Jays fired their skippers.

It’s been an unprecedented deluge of pink slips, which begs the question – Is anybody safe?

It makes me paranoid - which is a relatively unfamiliar state of mind for me. Last time I felt this nervous was when I took a ballpoint pen home from my last job – accidentally – and didn’t return it for over an hour. I was scared stiff.

But now – am I at risk to be fired from my fantasy baseball managerial role?

My team, “Brokeback Outfield,” is in next to last place. We’ve been there pretty much all season. But before the season began, Brokeback was an outside favorite – the educated critics’ pick, if you will – to make a run for the championship. Instead of challenging for the title, my team has been an unmitigated disappointment for the past 3 months.

Nightmare - plain and simple.

I’ve insisted on believing that my players would break out of their season-long slumps any day now, and refrained from making any big trades or free agent pick-ups that could potentially change my team’s chemistry for the better.

My bad luck has astounded me and the rest of my league. And there’s no sign of a breakout from this all encompassing fantasy baseball recession. Pitchers, hitters, fantasy batboys and ballgirls. They’re all playing like crap.

And maybe it’s my fault. How else can one explain it?

Why, just the other night, my team went 2 for 59, with one run scored and one RBI. You couldn’t orchestrate a worse performance if you tried. I don’t even remember how my pitchers played, but I’m sure it wasn’t much better.

The only member of “Brokeback Outfield” who’s actually having a good year is Mariano Rivera, and with my luck - and with Rivera’s age – his arm is bound to detach from his shoulder socket the next time he throws a split-finger fastball.

Mo Rivera's been awesome this year - a lone bright spot for my team. But when will that arm of his snap off at the elbow?

Alas, my only comfort is that this is all for fun. Fantasy baseball is not real life, and there’s nobody who can actually fire me from my managerial position. At least, I’m 90% certain that’s the case.

Sometimes the line between fantasy and reality is blurred, and I get confused. In a perfect world, I’d keep both my fantasy baseball job, and my real job through the end of the season. Still, I can’t help but feel that only my real job is secure – as long as I don’t take any office supplies home with me.

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