Like Moses parting the Red Sea, this season of Jewish Fantasy Baseball was a miracle.
If you recall, we last left the chosen team in a dead heat for first place in the division, with a 4-4 record. Last year's team managed to win only three games, despite the breakout of star(of David) Ryan Braun, so I already considered this year to be a success at that point. Little did I know that this little band of mashin' maccabees weren't done yet.
They went on to win four more games, bringing their final record to 8-9... good enough to tie for first place in the division. Unfortunately, due to the tiebreaking procedure that awards the playoff spot to the team with more total points, the Jew Crew missed out on the post-season. By 46 points.
That's right. 46 points! That's nothing. That's a good week for Ryan Braun. I blame myself... with my trip to Israel, I stopped following the team for a couple of weeks. When Ryan Spilborghs hit the DL, I wasn't there to replace him with Gabe Kapler, Gabe Gross, or David Newhan. Between these three Jewish superstars, I probably could have cobbled together those necessary points.
But I digress. People, a.k.a. Nazis, said that a Jewish Fantasy Baseball team couldn't compete in this wild world of fantasy sports. This team proved that they could.
Braun showed little slowdown from last year's performance, Kevin Youkilis is on pace to better last year's point total, and bit players like Kapler, Geoff Blum and Spilborghs all contributed bigtime during stretches of the season.
This season also saw the breakout of a new star(of David) in the baseball world. Texas Rangers second baseman Ian Kinsler. Although he may be done for the year due to a sports hernia, he led the Hebrew Heroes with 536 total points, second only to Jew-In-Name-Only Lance Berkman. While I thank the Berk for his valuable contribution to the team, there's no denying that Kinsler was the chicken soup that kept the whole matzoh ball afloat.
His numbers on the year: A very Mensch-like .319 AVG, 18 HRs, 102 runs, 71 RBI, and 26 SB.
Kinsler, like the Dead Sea, wouldn't let this team drown. And he is this season's Adam's Life Sluggin Semite of the Year:
Congrats!
