Judging by the title of this post, you may think that I am struggling in fantasy baseball. Au contraire my friend, au contraire. I am in first place in my division and second place overall, only behind my good friend Bones. What I want to talk to you about today is the powerful emotions that drive fantasy baseball and its participants. 

It's like the fairy tale gone wrong: the King (LeBron James) leads his team (the Cavaliers) and his people (the beloved city of Cleveland) to the best record in the Eastern Conference. Then he sweeps through the first two series in the playoffs winning almost every game by double digits. But it's all a cruel, twisted tragedy if his Cavs don't make it to the NBA Finals. 

Well things aren't looking so glamorous in never never land right now. The Cavs are down 3-1 to the Orlando Magic and facing elimination tonight. They've lost 11 out of the last 15 to Orlando and they can't seem to come up with an answer for Howard, Lewis, or Turkoglu. If the Cavs lose tonight, the city of Cleveland as we know it may never be the same. NY papers are already predicting LeBron to NY in 2010. It's not looking good for the already love-starved fans of Cleveland. And it's not to the fault of LeBron. He's averaged around 40 points a game in the series so far, and if it wasn't for his season-saving shot. The Cavs would have been swept right out of the playoffs already.  

I guess now is the time when the Baby Marlins have the opportunity to shut up every Sportscenter and ESPN.com analyst that predicted them to a losing season, or crumble under the pressure of a hot start followed by the realization of every prophecy about them.  Moral victories, such as Cody Ross pitching a scoreless ninth inning in an embarrassing loss, don’t get you to the playoffs, and they certainly don’t attract fans to the stadium.   

After seeing Dwyane Wade and Charles Barkley in about five thousand T-Mobile commercials during the first couple days of the NBA playoffs, I decided to do my own little version of my Fav 5 this week.

NBA

DA BULLS. Anyone who goes into Boston and takes Game 1 from the Celtics are definitely in my Fav 5. I don't care that KG is gone or that Danny Ainge had a heart attack or that Glen "Big Baby" Davis is going through an identity crisis right now, I never feel bad when Boston looses. And it's especially satisfying to see the Bulls win their first meaningul game since MJ's era. 

The Yankees play the Chicago Cubs in an exhibition game on Saturday, the second game played in the new Yankee Stadium.

I'm going to step in for a minute to write about a topic I know will get Bigs and Bones stirred up: reasons a Texan could maybe possibly somehow like the New York Yankees a little bit. (Backstory: I'm from Texas and now live in New York; Bigs is also from Texas and a lifelong Rangers loyalist; Bones is from New Jersey and calls the Yankees his team.) Watch! This should be fun.

So without descending into sports-fueled troglodycism, I'll say that, being a Texan (we'll never forget 1996) and a fan of lesser AL East teams, the Yankees have always been Enemy Numero Uno. But, also being charmed by weird things about baseball teams like logos and stadiums, I find myself slowly warming to them after visiting their new home on Saturday.

After the jump, my five best excuses for starting to maybe be a Yankees fan.

The more I read about Scott Boras, the more he reminds me of Jigsaw in the Saw movies. Dealing with him is like a deathtrap, you might come out alive but you’re going to loose (a) a body part (b) a lover (c) your money or (d) your fantasy franchise player.

Exhibit A. Boras is trying to get more than $50 million for Stephen Strasburg, the San Diego State flamethrower who hits 103mph on the radar gun, as the first pick of the 2009 draft. Ironically, the beguiled Washington Nationals have the first pick of the draft this year. They had the first pick of the draft last year and they failed to sign him (Aaron Crow). So now that Boras knows they’re in dire straits he plans on doing what he does best: ransoming overpaid athletes and exploiting desparate franchises.

So if you’re the Nats do you shell out $50 million for one of the most hyped prospects of the past decade? I say no, and here’s why...

The Big East rolled on last night. Anyone who didn’t think they were the best conference in America obviously didn’t listen to me or the rest of those self-professing basketball experts. Pittsburgh survived a scare against Xavier who had an 8 point lead at the half, UCONN handled Purdue easily, and Nova put the lockdown on Duke’s offense. Michael Wilbon thinks UCONN is the team to beat so far, but I’m not ready to hand over that title just yet after seeing Nova beat Duke by 23 and hold Gerald Henderson to seven points.