BBFL: Gorillas Hard To Catch

Monday, June 09 2003 @ 09:17 AM EDT

Contributed by: Coach

Huge primates are much more agile than enormous sea mammals. My Toronto Walrus edged the Sub-Urban Shockers 10-2 last week, and when I checked the standings this morning, I expected to be within seven or eight games of first place. Incredibly, I lost ground on the leader, as the mighty Gashouse Gorillas, led by Snellville Jones and the ghost of Pepper Martin, laid a 10-1 whupping on the Moscow Rats.

Baird Brain, AGF, Billies Bashers and (here come the Welshmen) Mebion Glyndwr would round out the qualifiers for the championship round of the playoffs if the season ended today. It doesn't, of course, and in head-to-head, amazing turnarounds are commonplace. Jonny German, who does a great job compiling our unofficial Roto stats each week, climbed from 18th place up to 14th with an old-fashioned K-Town Mashing (10-2) of the Eastern Shore Birds, and a run of two or three big wins can vault any team into serious contention. The first-round byes for finishing first or second are a nice reward, but as long as you finish in the top six, the regular season standings don't mean much in the quest for the Grail, I mean T-shirt.

Here are the standings after 10 weeks:

 # Team                      W-L-T    Win %   GBL 
 1  gashouse gorillas       81-34-5   .696    --
 2  Toronto Walrus          70-44-6   .608   10.5 
 3  Baird Brain             67-44-9   .596   12 
 4  AGF                     67-49-4   .575   14.5 
 5  Billies Bashers         65-49-6   .567   15.5 
 6  Mebion Glyndwr          63-55-2   .533   19.5 
 7  Red Mosquitos           59-53-8   .525   20.5 
 8  Reykjavik Fish Candy    56-58-6   .492   24.5 
 9  Sub-Urban Shockers      55-57-8   .492   24.5 
10  Springfield Isotopes    55-58-7   .488   25 
11  Eastern Shore Birds     57-60-3   .488   25 
12  Nation Builders         55-60-5   .479   26 
13  Chatsworth Halos        55-61-4   .475   26.5 
14  K-Town Mashers          55-63-2   .467   27.5 
15  Jicks Rays              52-61-7   .463   28 
16  Hannibals Cannibals     52-62-6   .458   28.5 
17  Geoffs Grumpy Group     50-66-4   .433   31.5 
18  Moscow Rats             47-65-8   .425   32.5 
19  Thunderbirds            44-72-4   .383   37.5 
20  Garces_not_on_roids     39-73-8   .358   40.5

I haven't been talking much smack in this league -- though I may remind Jordan of our matchup for the next year or so -- because my team hasn't been firing on all cylinders (losing Bernie Williams and Tony Armas Jr. hurt, and so did the Jason Giambi impostor). I also seem to have a tough opponent every week; AGF continues that trend. With the Giambino putting up a 1.259 OPS last week, I'm starting to feel better about my club; call me cautiously optimistic. Had the Walrus played the Gorillas in Week 10, it would have come down to the fourth decimal place in batting average; we tied there at .317, while I "won" six other categories to Snellville's five. Like any HtH match, it's a small sample size, so that's not the most accurate yardstick, but I'm looking for hope wherever I can find it.

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