I dropped David Weathers from my fantasy baseball team this morning. And I feel terrible for doing it.

I’ve said before that I’m not a cut-throat team manager. And my record shows that. I’m now 85 points behind the leader and more than 50 points behind my nearest competitor. I am losing by so much that it’s almost (bitterly) laughable.

My main strategy in fantasy baseball (as I’ve mentioned before) is to acquire as many Mets and former Mets players as I can and to create a team out of them. There are some exceptions. Pudge Rodriguez has never played for the Mets, but he seems like a nice guy and I have a thing for aging catchers (in this instance when I say aging I mean two years older than I — how sad!). Preston Wilson never played for the Mets, but his dad, Mookie, did. Livan Hernandez is my nod to the hometown Nationals (although if he doesn’t start picking up his pace a bit, or if he gets traded away, I might consider dropping his 5.87 ERA (earned run average) pitching arm from my team).

Last year I managed to pick up lots of Mets. This year, they seem to be in higher demand (fair-weather managers!) and Yahoo picked some other random players for me, including a closer who quickly went onto the DL (disabled list). When they did that I consulted my magic list of “Mets who don’t play for the Mets” pitchers and came up with David Weathers, who was the de-facto closer for the Reds. It was rumored he wouldn’t stay in the position for long, but he started the season strong and I wanted to give him a chance. He’s always seemed like a player on the up and up, respected by his teammates and not dissed by the overly harsh and powerful New York City media and fan bases.

Last year Weathers pitched a decent 3.94 with a 7-4 record and 15 saves. With him in the closer position, I hoped for similar or better this year. But with his ERA hovering dangerously close to 5, Weathers recently was demoted back to middle reliever. The Reds have acquired a new lefty who will replace both Weathers and Todd Coffey as closer, at least for the time being. Weathers is just pitching an inning or two a game thrice a week, which is hard on a fantasy manager, particularly when the pitcher also misses out on getting a notch in the hold category.

And my original closer came off the DL to pitch two innings of shut-out ball.

My heart broke a tiny bit when I clicked the “Drop this player” button. But I clicked it anyway.

What does that say about me?

I am sorry, David. You don’t know me. You didn’t know you were on my fantasy team, or, probably, on any fantasy team. And you’ve just been dealt a tough blow for a pitcher, being demoted back to middle reliever or, even worse, right-handed specialist. I didn’t make your day any better, even if you didn’t know it. Thanks for all the good memories, and I’ll be rooting for you. Good luck.

I hereby declare that I am a terrible fantasy baseball manager.

My players seem to play well especially well on the days I have them benched. Yesterday three of my benched players had OPSes over 1. (OPS stands for on-base percentage plus slugging. Being over 1 is good.)

A quarter of the way through the season and I have yet to win a week in my fantasy league. I essentially have a 2-3 ratio of wins to losses in the categories we score.

Can you come back from being 42 games behind the leader?

My only consolation? After last week, one of my league-mates is one game behind me.

When last we left our heroine, she was just turning out of the driveway of the Howard County Fairgrounds following an exhausting and exhaustive day at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. The bags were stashed in the back, the windows were down, and Brenda Dayne was chatting it up on the iPod — our heroine thought life was good. Find out how her optimism would be tested after this break.

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I am looking forward to this weekend (which will begin at whatever time I get this albatross of an obesity book from around my neck). Tonight, should the stars align and a time machine be invented and I finish this book surprisingly earlier than I think I will, there is a Cinco de Mayo happy hour over in Barracks Row. Michael has promised Mexican wrestling masks, which has potential, I think, for some intriguing scenarios.

Tomorrow is Sheep and Wool. I mean, come on — sheep and wool! And alpacas and angora bunnies and llamas and goats and sheepdogs and spindles and spinning wheels and fresh-squeezed lemonade and eclairs the size of your head and … and … and …

No, I’m not that excited. Why do you ask?

Check back Saturday night or Sunday for photos and a recap of events and purchases.

Sunday brings the farmers’ market. We’re trying something new each market in May. Last week was stinging nettles, which Rudi turned into a yummy soup last night based on Clotilde’s recipe. It was bright green! Rhubarb has been promised to go with the season’s strawberries. That might be something to try as a dessert. Although it will be hard to beat the pairing two days ago of strawberries, fresh whipped cream, and the rest of the chocolate torte cake Gramma made at Easter. (I don’t know how it lasted that long in the fridge either; who hid it in plain sight?)

And then we have a baseball game. I don’t remember who’s playing the Nationals this weekend, but given our record, it is a distinct possibility they will beat us. Since I know it is not the Mets coming to town, I can root wholeheartedly for the Nats to stop losing.

I hope to squeeze a lot of fun (and a lot of sleep) into this weekend. Next week is going to be another rough one at work, so it would be nice to feel that there had been some sort of break in there.

It’s going to be awfully quiet around the Burrow this week.

Rudi and I play in the same fantasy baseball league, which generally is fun because we talk strategy (neither of us does well) and whine about how we made the wrong player picks for the day or how our players do not seem to work well under our management styles. And we watch out for each other’s teams, alerting one another about injuries or days off or roster changes.

On the other hand, three or four times a season, we have to play each other.

And so for those weeks, we don’t talk baseball. Or it stays polite in a cocktail party kind of sense: “The Mets seem to be hitting well…” “Too bad for the Sox that Papi got hurt…” “Soriano actually seems to have stopped whining and started playing for the Nats…”

This will be one of those weeks. Rudi is less than ten games back from me and I’m sure he’d like to make up those stats based on my pitching. He has the advantage because he’s coming off a winning week. I have three straight weeks of losses (even if the first two losses were just by one apiece).

So think good thoughts for harmony in the Burrow. We’ll try to avoid watching sports on tv.

I would like to note that after Opening Day (and a single game), I am currently beating my opponent 9-1 and am in second place in the league.

I think it’s important to note this now, because if history is any indicator (or my inclination to pick players I like as opposed to those who play well), this is the last time I’ll be able to say it.