Land of the Lost: My Fantasy Team Sucks

My fantasy team sucks. I don't like admitting it, there is professional and personal pride at stake here, but it remains true. My. Team. Sucks.

I play in a league with a bunch of guys from back east. It's a clutch of Sox, Yankees and Rays fans. Yes, I said Rays fans. And one of them even attends games at the Trop. Right now every one of them save two are ahead of me in the standings.  [sarcasm]Luckily for me, no one posts on the message boards and each fellow in the league is highly sympathetic to my plight[/sarcasm].

Just last year I won this league. I used to write fantasy columns for God's sake. What is wrong with my team? First, let's look at the standings at the end of April. I have always wanted to have a monthly record of standings in my leagues and this blog gives me a great platform.

 

Click for a larger image.

My team? That would be the eighth-place Sleestak. This has been my team name from the very beginning of the league in 2004. Yes, the Sleestak. What? You're not intimidated? These seven-foot tall lizard men created by Sid and Marty Krofft once inspired fear and dread in little kids every Saturday morning. Now, after Will Ferrell's campy rendering, they are joke. Just like my team. Maybe I can blame Mr. Ferrell for my woes.

 

Sleestak. You Scared Yet?

Good God! Look at them. Seven feet tall. Armed with crossbows...and very small sticks. If that doesn't terrify you, how about this: Bill Lambeer is one the Sleestak pictured above! Really! Bill Lambeer was a Sleestak. Interesting that the monsters that scared me and absolutely terrified my little brother (more on this in a second) were portrayed by a dirty, seven-foot-tall sharpshooter who would terrorize me as a teenager when he played for the Detroit Pistons. Most monsters get one great turn even if that turn is serialized like Jason Vorhees or Michael Myers; Lambeer had two. OK, three if you count his stint as coach of the Detroit Shock. But since no one watches the WNBA, I am pretty sure he didn't actually scare anyone. Certainly, not the Philadelphia 76ers, who interviewed him for their head coaching position.

My brother, Sean, was very, very scared of the Sleestak. I could make him cry just by imitating the hissing sound they made. To be fair, the unmistakable hiss of the Sleestak was creepy as hell. To be unfair, I could also make Sean cry by humming the theme to Jaws when he was in a swimming pool...or the bathtub.  Or by talking about Sasquatch and wondering if any lived in the woods behind our house. Or by going "bzzzzzzzzzz." He never should have stayed up late that night to watch The Swarm. Sure, my brother can kick my ass now but he was a Grade A pussy back in the day.

Note: I have no idea how the Sleestak shot their crossbows with just two fingers. But Land of the Lost was all about suspension of disbelief. I mean, essentially it was a plastic dinosaur kit come to life...plus Sleestak...and Chaka. Chaka is my only real problem with Land of the Lost. Chaka was the Jar Jar Binks of the show: annoying and in the way. In the way of what? In the way of fucking dinosaurs, man! If only Grumpy or Alice had been able to chomp his hairy little ass. Just like rastaman Binks in the Phantom Menace, I needed Chaka to die and stop ruining my show.

 

This picture almost makes Chaka look cool. He wasn't.

So, before I was distracted by a pop culture, nostalgia-tinged time warp, I was supposed to tell you about how my fantasy team blows brontosaurus balls--and for the paleontologically correct out there,  no, I will not be referring to them as Apatosaurus balls. Did Fred Flintstone eat Apatosaurus burgers? He did not.  OK, next post, we talk about Sleestak, the incredibly bad fantasy team, not the incredibly cool TV monsters.