Article:My "What If" story...The "Casey Curse"

I have been a member at What If Sports since December of 2004, but thanks to the recent deal that Armchair GM got us with WIS (Gave us a free season of any sim league of our choice) I was finally granted the ability to test my managerial skills in a full season, not just the cheezy exhibition seasons. I know you are wondering, three years and this is your first? Well I am seventeen now and I was fourteen then, so in order for me to order a season I needed a credit card, which would require my mother into the deal. So I would offer to pay her the money if she used her credit card, but of course being the old hag (I love her to death though!)  she was she thought it was a waste of money. Anyways, back to myself being able to finally put together a full length season team. I put in the Promotional Code that was given to us on our message boards and WHAM! I was given my $80 million salary Cap. I should probably mention that I chose to do a Sim League in Baseball, which I would think of as my area of expertise.

I thought to myself how I would disperse this money amongst my players and of course I needed a star player, but not for too much. I then decided I would get on star positional player and one star pitcher. My positional player had to be my favorite player of all time, Ty Cobb of course. For my pitcher, why not get the guy that threw so hard they lowered the mound, Bob Gibson. After that I spent probably a half hour to an hour on adding and subtracting players from, in my mind, the perfect equation. I ended up with players like Matt Williams, Harry Stovey, Richie Sexson, Omar Vizquel (My favorite current player), Nyls Nyman (My best friends dad), Happy Townsend, and other players I though of being worthy enough to take my team to the top.

I felt my line-up was perfect. I had the fast efficient leadoff man, centerfielder Ty Cobb. The fast two hole who could lay down a bunt if needed to advance my leadoff man, leftfielder Harry Stovey. I needed a player who would bring in hits day in and day out at the three spot, I true hitting leader, rightfielder George Harper. In the four-hole I didn't put my home run hitter, I put an RBI man in third baseman Matt Williams. In the five spot I needed a free swinging bomber, first baseman Richie Sexson. In the sixth and seven spot I wanted players who could still do some damage in the bottom of the order, catcher Kirk Manwaring and shortstop Omar Vizquel. In the eight spot was my gold glove second baseman Jose Lind. I had key bench players in Jack Stivetts, Billy Ripken, Nyls Nyman, and some others. So there it was, in my eyes, as perfect a line-up as I could get with $80 million split between this and my pitching staff. My pitching staff's ace was none other than Bob Gibson. I also ha din the rotation Andy Coakley, Red Donohue, and Happy Townsend. My relievers were just a bunch of inning eaters that I hoped would get the job done. After I had entered in my roster I found out about my minor league prospects. I had a great reliever, a ten out of ten hitting shortstop, great fielding second baseman, and a speedy outfielder that I pulled up. The pieces were put together and I started off 10-5 and first in my division. I was on my high horse even though I knew it was a 162 game season. I had hit some road bump though, Matt Williams had around 350 at-bats in his season I picked him up from, so his stamina decreased a lot after only two game of play, so I knew I needed to replace him and I went to the waiver wire for help. I ended up dropping Matt and picking up Doggie Miller.

Now I sit here after another ten games have gone by. I have dropped nine of my last ten games. I am 11-14 and in fourth place. My team shows no signs of improvement. Ty Cobb is my lone warrior and batting over.400 and Stovey has around 15 steals. My great prospect reliever has 3 blown saves and has recently been demoted to mop up role. My hitting prospect shortstop is batting .257 and is no a great face on the bench. Bob Gibson, the big ace, has an ERA of 5.40 and has one win in seven games. Coakley has a 6.56 ERA and Donohue a 7.53 ERA. I now sit and wonder how the hell this happened? How does a team with not an amazing stacked line-up, but the right pieces just all of a sudden fall apart? How does my $9 million dollar ace have over a 5.00 ERA? I then realize it's the "Casey Curse"

My name is Casey and I have a curse. Ever since I was in my last year of the farm level of baseball (5-8 years old) I have suffered from a curse. My farm team was amazingly stacked, my dad somehow could teach us hyper ADD kids the same kind of baseball adults would teach eleven and twelve year olds. We, The A's, were unstoppable, but there was the Cubs. Yes, back then there was a farm championship and we were in a deadlock tie with the Cubs so it came down to one last game against the Cubs to determine the "champions". We ended up getting pounded and these much bigger kids were launching homerun after homerun ''(At a later date I would end up founding out that they had a few nine year olds, but no one cared because it was farm).  Then it was onto my second year in Minors (9-10 year olds)'' we were in a three way tie for first place and only two could go to the championship. It ended up being decided by a coin toss since all three teams had split with each other and of course our team lost the coin flip. I finally got my chance came in my second year of Majors (11-12 year olds).   Our team had gone from the worst team the year before to the best team. We were the number one seed going into the championship. We had housed four all-stars on the team, including me. Our third baseman and I were in the top five in batting averages in the league me getting the upper hand).   I was once again in an A's uniform facing off against the Angels.  We were the heavy favorite, the only thing the Angels had was the second highest batting average in the league and he led the league in home-runs.  Their catcher and my great friend (Who we intentionally walked every at-bat he had).  This was my chance to win a championship in majors and we were the home team.  It was the top of the fifth and we were up 1-0.  There were two outs and two runners in scoring position; it was okay though because their weakest player was up to bat.  At least he was supposed to be up to bat.  They instead batted out of order and inserted the kid who tore my dreams from my hand.  Our coach protested, which lasted about fifteen minutes.  My dad, who was the assistant coach, ended up pulling the coach of the field telling him it was okay because the kid up to bat was a no namer anyways and that we would have no trouble getting him out. The kid hit a three run homerun and we ended up losing 3-1. To this day I have yet to win a baseball championship. That my friends, is the "Casey Curse".

Thanks for listening to my ramblings :D