The battle was definitely going my way throughout most of the 2-week period, and the Gordon Gekkos had accumulated a sizeable margin in most of the batting categories. But Monte rarely goes down easy (I mean, his namesake actually attacked his own master, the peaceable Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy). I had a 13-9-0 lead at the end of the 2-week period and was just waiting for the obligatory call of congratulations from my opponent. But then the dumb league decided to count the stats of the 1-game, postseason playoff between the Twins and Tigers. Ever monitoring, and quick to enact his strategy, Montecore proceeded to pick up all the Twins/Tigers players he could and put them in his lineup in a last-ditch effort. He would need 9 hits and 2 walks to tie, and an additional 2 stolen bases to win.
The time for the 1-game playoff arrived and I raptly followed on the web, on my phone, and on TV. Would M. Tolbert rope a single to left? would N. Punto draw a walk? would they both try for a double steal? would A. Everett come off the bench for a bunt single? Who knew that these AL Central no-namers could cause so much stress? For those who watched, the game went into extra innings and the fantasy implications from all the different combinations and game-ending scenarios became too much to bear, and I had to turn it off when family dinner just couldn't be postponed any longer. But I kept that laptop nearby, and a strange thing happened--that little "0" in the third column of the Win-Loss-Tie scorechart, quietly transformed into a "1" by stealing a digit from my loss column. In the top of the 12th with the bases loaded and 2 outs, Gerald Laird was the Tigers' last hope and the Tiger's demise. He struck out swinging against Bobby Keppel, thus erasing my loss in the strikeout category, and propelling the Gordon Gekkos to an 11-10-1 victory over Montecore.
Detroit Tigers catcher Gerald Laird reacts after tagging out Minnesota Twins' Alexi Casilla (25) during the 10th inning of a baseball game Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2009, in Minneapolis, during a tiebreaker to decide the American League Central title. He got the job done behind the plate, but not beside it.
And if that victory wasn't enough, I also won the 14-team office league. It's all about markin' twain.
