by ROBERTVOZZA » Tue Mar 14, 2006 5:54 am
While TRich's was 34-19...My team had the worst record in the League and was in the Division with the team with the best record...I still felt that my team was much better than their record, but if I wanted to have any chance in hell at making the post, I better make some changes - after several trades that didn't work out as I had hoped - Including Bonds, I finally landed a few players that seemed to click - Anderson in the cleanup spot as DH vs RH, improved my middle D with Everett and Harris and traded Rivera for Ryan, shored up the middle innings from the leftside and moved Lidge from setup to closer fulltime both sides and set my sights on the WC...
Which I was still 9 or 10 games behind with 9 teams I had to climb over - This was when TRich, who had best record most of the season, and Charlie looked as tho the Central and East were locked up and I believe BIG was still in 1st place by several games. A favorable schedule with a lot of games at Shea - including 2 separate sets at Penn's and 2 at Bigs, caused me to design a team that could win more at Shea than it would lose. Slowly and methodically, I began to take series after series - I think 9 in a row at one point, but was still sub .500...Then a sweep by either Ty or Charlie set me back and I thought the run of good luck might be over.
But i never ave up and maintained my focus thru some injuries and a couple of sweeps here and there, but the breaks just started falling in my direction and lo and behold, here i am right in the thick of an intense Division race and competing for the WC as well with several teams - With 12 games to go(2 sets with TRich, who for most of the season was thereason I fell so far behind.) He literally owned my teamin the 1st half. I think I may have been 2-10, if that...
So this has been quite a turnaround and an exciting run for this - My very 1st Shea team this year. Win or lose, it has been tremendous fun. The LOTO group always seems to bring out the best in my teams. I think it is because the level of competition is so good that you can never snooze.
Definitely a tribute to the tremendous players here. GL to the rest of the playoff hopefuls down the final stretch. I play my last 9 on the road....EEEK!