Leading a Semi-Charmed Kind of Sports Life

There's a Seinfeld episode where George realizes that it's better to get up and leave the room after telling a great joke and go out on that note, than stay and have the possibility of ruining the mood. I sort of feel like that in my last year of sports. It hasn't always been championships and parades, but, for the most part, it's been pretty close. Here's what it's looked like:

Like Victor Cruz at the Grammy's, I've been salsa'ing with my sports year (sports grid)

February 2011: Won a quarter of the Super Bowl squares. No skill, nothing you can do, but pray, but I took home a nice sum of money just for the score ending up on a random set of numbers. Thank you, Green Bay Packers!

April 2011: Despite knowing very little about the NCAA tournament, I took home the title before the final game was ever played in my only money league. That makes it 4 times in the past 5 years I've come out in they money in March Madness brackets. Proving, once again, that knowing less is sometimes more.

August 2011: Pitching wins championships ended up not only being a mantra in real baseball, but fantasy baseball as well as a 16-team league strategy of hoarding pitchers led to a huge division title in one of the tougher fantasy baseball leagues I've ever played in. I am pretty good at fantasy baseball, but that still was one of my greatest seasons to date.

September 2011: Not only did the Yankees take an improbable AL East crown, but I watched the best final day of the regular season in the history of the game which also saw the Red Sox (and Jonathan Papelbon) blow a huge September lead to take "choking" to a whole new level. "2004" can now be countered with "2011". I will always remember flipping back-and-forth between the live games and MLB Tonight, watching the insanity unfold.


January 2012: After starting out 0-3 in my work league (with two losses to auto-picked teams), my fantasy football season looked done. A ridiculous winning streak later took me to the playoffs where I got to knock off the # 5, # 1, and # 2 seed on my way to the championship (sound familiar?!). There was money involved in this work league but the real prize for first place: another vacation day for 2012.

February 2012 (and beyond): In December, against the Jets, the Giants were at 7-7, down 7-3 and were back at their own 1-yard line. Victor Cruz caught the pass from Eli Manning and the Giants never stopped salsa'ing the rest of the season. The Giants improbable playoff run ends with another improbable Super Bowl over the New England Patriots. I attended the only home playoff game and then got to see the Ticker Tape Parade.

The New York Rangers are in first place. Linsanity is taking over Madison Square Garden. The New York Yankees are making great, under-the-radar moves to gear up for the 2012 season. I got a chance to write a pinch hit post for the LoHud Yankees blog. And, oh, I took three quarters of Super Bowl squares again making it an amazing 4 out of the last 4 years I've won money in that luck-only league. I'm not sure what the rest of 2012 will bring, but I feel like I'm living the good life, sports wise, the past year. Let's hope it continues with a few more parades down the Canyon of Heroes.