On Vacation in Italy
A fantasy owner's travelogue

It was a dream come true – a trip to Europe together with my girlfriend. Two weeks in wonderful Italy. Yet in the days leading up to the trip, I found myself dreaming not of beaches or pasta, but of Oakland’s newest pitching phenom…

A couple of days before our scheduled flight, Rich Harden’s debut for the A’s was announced. I desperately wanted (and needed) him in my dynasty league, but according to our rules, I had to pick him up with a waiver claim. Luckily, he was scheduled to start on the day my trip began, so he was placed on the wire two days before and I was able to submit my claim.

Besides the Harden claim, I naturally had the same problem every fantasy player faces when going on vacation: how to manage my (rotisserie) team during the two-week trip. I hoped that there would be an internet connection in my hotel in Italy, but of course there was no way to be sure about that. I finally decided to put only my best sp’s, Roy Halladay, Greg Maddux and Freddy Garcia, in the starting lineup, and to rely on my closers in the other pitching slots. On the hitting side, the choice was easier. I decided to stick with my best hitters and neglected any matchup analysis for these two weeks – still hoping that I could log in at least every other day to check and do some fine-tuning.

When I finally arrived in Italy, Harden had already pitched his first game for Oakland, and I hoped my claim had been successful. It was just plain hot, with temperatures in the high 90s, maybe even in the 100s, but the country was truly beautiful. We stayed in a nice hotel in southern Tuscany, in a small town about 150 miles north of Rome – a perfect vacation spot, if it weren’t for the fact that my wishes for an internet connection to be available somewhere in my hotel or the vicinity did not come true. My hopes to find an American newspaper somewhere, in order to at least be able to follow the box scores, quickly diminished when I visited the local newspaper stand – nothing! Hundreds of Italian newspapers (with large sports sections entirely devoid of baseball) and several German ones…

There I sat for the next couple of days, lying in the sun on the beach and wondering how Rich Harden had performed in his first outing, wondering if I got him from the wire, and worrying about how the rest of my team did. On day three we visited Florence, the biggest city of Tuscany, and finally I was able to find a USA Today there. Of course I visited the ‘dome’ (a cathedral, not a stadium), the beautiful inner city, and the Ponte Vecchio first, but then I had time to read: Troy Glaus placed on the DL – oh no! I hoped that I had decided to play Eric Chavez at 3B, rather than Glaus (a difficult decision that had given me headaches throught the whole season), but I simply could not remember.

Two days later, I was lucky again, getting the Monday edition of the International Herald Tribune with all the weekend’s results: Harden had pitched a great game in his second appearance (although not knowing whether my waiver claim had gone through made it difficult to know whether to root for him), Halladay dominated the Orioles (yes!) and Delgado connected for his 30th home run of the season. All that was great news…but the doubts (”Did I get Harden? Am I still starting the injured Glaus at 3B?”) were still omnipresent.

Over the next days we visited the most famous wine region of Tuscany, Chianti, saw a couple more domes (I guess even the smallest village has a monstrous church over there) and nice, old small towns. Those were really nice trips, in spite of the heat (again in the high 90s). But it took me until Wednesday of week two to get another USA Today, this time at Pisa (yes, the Leaning Tower looked very impressive up close), which provided me with information again.

Another Delgado homer, another Foulke save, an Abreu round-tripper, but also a devastating Garcia loss were the highlights for my team. Clement pitched another good game (”Wasn’t he still available for some reason? Maybe I should pick him up as soon as possible”), and he appeared to be settling down now after his shaky first half. The Braves continued to dominate.

The last two days went by with trips to Lucca (I had never heard of it before, but it was an important city 800 years ago) and some relaxation at the beach, and when I was finally on the plane again I could look back at a nice journey through Tuscany. If only the papers had more baseball news instead of soccer, though… Once home, I immediately returned to fantasy business, and as you may have guessed, Rich Harden had not made it to my team. Another owner had stolen him from me with a higher waiver priority … but I did put Eric Chavez, not Glaus, in at 3B. Clement was of course long gone, too. However, my team climbed to second place, so overall my absence did not really hurt that much.

 
Dan Spazierer returned from his vacation with both a tan and a higher waiver priority than before.