A lot of fantasy baseball leagues are winding down right now, and many straight rotisserie format leagues already have a certain winner. Such is the case in a 10-team NL-only league I play in, where the top two slots are etched in stone, with four teams fighting for third, and then the bottom four light years behind.

Having no chance of winning the league championship leads a lot of teams to give up completely by the end of the year. Fantasy football gobbles up a lot of formerly interested fantasy baseball owners, as well.

Yet I press on. In the aforementioned league, I maintain a tenuous hold on third place, where I’ve been for the majority of the year. My team is good, but not great, and I just haven’t been able to get over the hump.

Despite my continuing efforts, I was passed by two teams for a short time in late August. To my chagrin, neither owner appears to even be playing anymore. Worse yet, one of them hasn’t made a successful move all year.

He’s made exactly three moves all year. First, he picked up Placido Polanco – after he was traded to the Tigers and had lost eligibility for our league. Then he traded Jake Peavy from a deep starting staff to fill a need in the bullpen with Chad Cordero. Good trade – except he never put Cordero in the lineup.

Then came the real kicker. He picked up Matt Lawton – after he was traded to the Yankees. Apparently the Polanco situation never really sunk in for him. I’m very curious whether he happened to look at the waiver wire twice all year after the biggest trades to the AL, or whether he waited all season to find someone worth picking up and thought he finally had them.

The other team that passed me inexplicably has two empty spots on its roster, despite having the healthy players necessary to fills the slots right there on his roster.

I’ve come up with the following theory: I think they’re trying to demoralize me, so I stop playing.