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I’ve officially got the fantasy football bug. Last year my Stumblin’ Irish, in the Cape Cod Oblong League, had the worst season in the history of fantasy football. I went 0-14. I lost blowouts, I lost nail-biters, but I lost and lost and lost.

Not this year. I have the No. 1 pick, which means Chris Johnson, and a healthy Tom Brady as my keeper. I like my chances. After last year’s historic badness, I’m going for the best turnaround ever, which shouldn’t be all that tough when you think about it.

I’ve been prepping for weeks now. I listen to podcasts, do tons of research and look at ESPN.com countless times every day, along with several other sites that I can’t mention in case my league-mates are reading this.

I am fully prepared for draft day’s chiding. They will be relentless, and I have no recourse but to take it like a man. I had a bad season, I drafted poorly, got unlucky and that’s that.

But it’s all changing this year. I was the Detroit Lions last year. This year, I plan on being the Saints.

It’s funny, I played in another league last season as well, with my brother-in-law. I didn’t care at all about that league, and I finished in second place. What does that mean? I wish I knew.

Heck, I’m planning on jumping into a random league tonight to practice drafting and just have another team to check out next year. I haven’t heard from my brother-in-law if he’s having another league, so I figured I might as well have some random fun and practice drafting at the same time.

Mark my words, this will be my year.

I watched the first half and then fast-forwarded through the scrub action in the second half. Still, I think that there were some things worth noting out of the Patriots game tonight.

1. Wes Welker may be one of the X-Men — how else can you describe what this guy is doing? He must have Wolverine’s healing factor. The dude blew out his knee nine months ago and he was in there playing tonight. I loved that they got him into things quickly. He caught two nice balls from Brady, then got blown up on a screen, but he was in there for contact. Good stuff.

The D Line Is a Work In Progress — Turner was able to get to the corner pretty much at will. Ryan hit a lot of passes to the sidelines and in the seam. The DBs did a nice job, but there wasn’t a ton of pressure and they bent a lot. Still, they only have up 3 points with the starters in there, so the work may be in progress, but they’re definitely making progress.

Nice Knowing You Larry — The following comes from Mike Reiss at ESPN Boston.

Fred Taylor — 20
Kevin Faulk — 6
Sammy Morris — 6 (includes 1 as FB)
BenJarvus Green-Ellis — 1

That’s running back snaps tonight. Notice a name that’s not there? Yup, no Laurence Maroney. I’ve got a feeling he might not be in the plans for this team. I also thought Fred Taylor looked pretty darned good. Very interesting. Definitely something to pay attention to.

Undefeated — Yeah, like that matters. Still, winning in the preseason is still better than losing.

First hand look — Me and Rye are going to Gillette next Thursday for preseason game No. 3. I hate the preseason, and paying to park in the lots, but it’s a chance to take him to his first Patriots game and he won’t care that it’s the preseason. To him, it’s the Patriots. My game plan is that we stay as long as Brady stays in the game. I’m guessing that means we hit 495 South in the mid-third quarter.

Just woke up from my post-Road Race coma. I had totally planned on adding the Cape Cod Stampede, the rodeo that’s in town, to the agenda for the day, and actually headed over there for an hour, but all that sun and the early wake-up call did me in. I fell asleep sometime around 3 and was out of it until about 6. Between the kids’ yelps throughout the afternoon I noticed that the Red Sox had found a way to drop another one.

It’s funny with the Road Race, I dread it every year, and yet on FRR Day I always find myself enjoying the festivities. Maybe it’s the death-defying aspects of riding on the back of that truck, which we all know can’t be all that safe.

The race today was actually quite entertaining. Last year we got a blowout, which was fun because the winner was actually blowing kisses to the crowd for the final mile and a half. This year there was no time for kiss-blowing because the top two contenders were step-for-step with another the whole way.

The victor, whose name I have not yet learned to spell (I’m writing the story in the morning), was awesome. I love cocky athletes after a win, because they always make me laugh, and this guy was cocky in a Pedroia-like way.

I asked him if he was worried down the stretch and he said, “No, I know I win.”

Too funny. If he was a jerk about it you’d bristle, but he’s one of those dudes with an infectious smile and good nature and you couldn’t help but chuckle and smile yourself.

I also talked to Lucia Carroll, one of the FRR Directors, after the race about my biggest problem covering the race, the fact that the elite runners have their names on their bibs rather than numbers. You see, the elite guys are mostly from African countries, and their names tend to be difficult to pronounce and also long. When taking notes on the back of a death mobile that is swiftly moving along the streets of Falmouth it was easier when you could just write numbers down.

She said that she agreed with me, but the reasoning behind switching to names on the front made sense. It seems that road racing across the United States has become dominated from coast to coast by African runners. Those filling the roads to cheer on the athletes, though, are Americans and as a people we like to cheer for individuals with names, and personalities. By putting the names on the bibs, rather than numbers, race directors from the US running circuit feel that they are able to better personalize these runners, moving them from being just another number that looks similar to the number running beside them and giving them a more individual status.

It’s a little thing, but it makes sense. The hardest part about making road racing something that Joe Regular Guy can get behind is that the sport itself is not something that he sees much of. ESPN does not give your road racing highlights. Sports Illustrated rarely covers it either, and you can forget about the major networks.

The coverage, and the interest, just isn’t there for most people, so these athletes sweep into town, do their thing, and then leave in about the same amount of time it takes them to get from Woods Hole to Falmouth.

How do you generate honest-to-goodness interest from average people in the elite racers when they aren’t recognizable and the names are constantly changing? I’m not sure what the answer is to that.

The only way that makes sense to me would be to have an off-season program where some of the elites come to town to do a meet-and-greet with the townspeople. The problem with that, though, is that it is very expensive to get these guys in from Ethiopia and Kenya to take grip-and-grin photos and glad hand.

If people got to know the characters they might be a little more interested in the outcome.

Honestly, though, it probably doesn’t matter. The Falmouth Road Race is more about the experience and the annual traditions that go along with it. Families line the streets every year because that’s what they do on Road Race day. They cheer for the runners, especially the regular guys that they may or may not know, and then go and enjoy a day at the beach, a barbecue and a few adult beverages.

I guess the Road Race is more about another “holiday” on the calendar more than anything. It’s something that you set the year by. The summer around here begins with Memorial Day, hits its high mark on July 4, is coming to a close at the Road Race and ends on Labor Day.

Sorry to remind you, the summer just entered the fourth quarter.

Maybe it’s because I’m in a bit of a downer of a mood this afternoon, but I can’t help but think investing in the Red Sox right now is a waste of time and energy.

Yes I would like to see the team make the playoffs, Lord knows they’ve worked hard to get to where they are and Tito Francona has done an admirable job keeping the team together through the difficulties of the season. Still, I find myself wondering if it is all worth it?

The injuries have piled up to a laughable level. Every guy that was supposed to be a starter this season, except for Adrian Beltre, has spent time on the disabled list this season. So have several pitchers, including Josh Beckett, Clay Bucholz, Tim Wakefield and Daisuke Matsuzaka.

As soon as someone comes back, someone else goes down. When I heard that Kevin Youkilis may be gone for the rest of the year and need surgery on his thumb that was the final straw. Did Theo walk under a ladder while kicking a black cat at some point this year? I just don’t get it. How can one team have so many guys get hurt?

And it’s not like it’s scrubs that are going down, it’s all-stars. Youkilis, all star. Pedroia, all star. Ellsbury, all star in the making. Cameron, former all star. JD Drew, former all star. Varitek, former all star. Victor Martinez, all star. Beckett, former all star and borderline now when he’s healthy. Bucholz, all star and ace in the making.

It’s ridiculous.

Maybe the Sox can make a run at it, and the Mike Lowell (oh yeah, another former all star that has been injured off and on all year) story from last night was awesome. Still, they’re climbing an uphill battle.

Ask yourself this simple question. How often have you turned on a game this year and asked yourself, where did this guy come from? It’s almost a nightly occurrence. Since when did the PawSox play at Fenway Park?

So I somehow made it to the end of last night’s extra innings affair with Seattle. Let me amend that, I happened to turn the game on in the 10th and saw it was tied 6-6 and stuck with it, only to find out all of the twists and turns that had happened along the way.

Good to see Lackey had a great start. Bad to see the bullpen fall apart. Great to see Patterson, another “where did he come from?” guy come through.

Tonight, thankfully, begins the return of all the injured Red Sox to the lineup. Well, I guess actually that was Wednesday when Bucholz returned, but I was never really all that worried about him. Josh Beckett on the other hand is a whole other story. He’s been spectacularly mediocre this year and if they’re going to make a run at the wild card — don’t even think about the division — he’s going to have to be good.

Mike Lowell is rehabbing down in Pawtucket, but that hardly matters. He’s a pinch-hitter, spare part at this point. I love the guy, but he’s not going to make a real difference.

Three guys will: Dustin Pedroia, Victor Martinez and Jacoby Ellsbury.

Pedroia and Martinez hopefully will be back with the team within a week or so. When they return the Sox’ lineup becomes legitimate again.

Ellsbury, who knows? It’s frustrating because it’s impossible to know if his injury has been really legit, or just his way of sticking it to the team for rushing him back the first time around. It’s hard to judge another man’s pain, really it’s impossible.

The thing is, he’s just been a really bad teammate with this whole ordeal. Being a good teammate isn’t rocket science, but some guys don’t get it. Pedro Martinez was a bit of a diva when he was playing, but he was a great teammate. He cut up in the dugout, he never said a bad word about anyone in the same uniform and he stuck up for his players when pitching. He got that aspect of the game.

Ellsbury isn’t a pitcher, so he can’t do the sticking up part, but he can be there for the other Red Sox, as in be in the dugout more often. Talk shop, make jokes, have fun, watch baseball. It might sound like a little thing, but baseball teams are a family, and the members need to know that you’re not the prodigal son before he comes back with his tail between his legs.

Ellsbury has been on a world tour during the last few months, one that has rarely included a stop in Beantown. He’s been in Arizona, he’s been in Florida and I’m sure at some point he’s returned home to the Pacific northwest to see mom and dad.

The Red Sox, though, need to see him in left field, soon.

Would it have been so hard to do this the right way? Come on LeBron, all it would have taken was a little simplification and you don’t come across as a ginormous tool. Instead, you come across as a narcissistic egomaniac.

Has anyone fallen so far from grace so quickly? Heck, Tiger Woods’ debacle at least unfolded slowly. This was a trainwreck built in days.

The announcement came that he’d be doing a show on ESPN announcing his decision, titled appropriately, “The Decision.”

Okay, I could deal with that if it had been handled with a little class. Instead Jim Gray tosses softballs that even the worse players on my Little League team could knock out of the park for nearly a half hour before finally getting to the reason we’re all watching.

LeBron screwed up the reveal, too. He could have at least smiled. He could have at least seemed into it. Somewhere around the 12th unnecessary Gray query it probably hit him. “What am I doing?” It was too late, though. He had committed to this fiasco and had to go through with it.

We all saw it, so I won’t go through more of that.

Here’s how this whole thing should have been handled, and it would have saved him embarrassment, and maybe even some fans.

LeBron announces he’s having a press conference, even at a Boys and Girls’ Club. Instead of doing the stupid Q and A with Gray, he stands in front of a microphone and says he’s spent a lot of time going over his decision.

Here’s what I would have said, and it would have made a big difference.

“After weeks of soul searching I’ve decided to move on and play for the Miami Heat. I am excited about the decision and the opportunity to come together with two of my best friends in the game with a chance to compete for championships on a regular basis. I feel like this is the best decision for me, and my family, and will make me happy….

“To the fans of Cleveland, I’m sorry and I will miss you. I understand if you are disappointed in my decision. I grew up with you and matured in your great city. Leaving you is the hardest part and I hope that one day you will understand, and forgive me.”

To media: “Any questions?”

Simple, to the point, and thoughtful. He would have come off pretty good. Sure Cleveland would still be emotionally slaughtered, but at least they wouldn’t have had to endure sitting through that painful display.

Instead he’s now public enemy No. 1 across the nation. The Heat have become the NBA’s equivalent of the Yankees. It’s going to be interesting to see how LeBron deals with being cast as the villain.

It’s been about a week. I know I should have updated, but I didn’t know what to say.

Yes, we lost. We lost bad. We got hammered. It wasn’t pretty.

15-2.

We just didn’t have it that day and the other team did. They brought their ‘A’ game and we looked like the team we looked like on Opening Day, and not the one that had shocked the league in the semifinals.

It was a little tough to stomach. We were better than that, but last Saturday we were just bad. I miss those kids already.

The good news is that we’re doing the 8-year old all-star team and Rye is having a blast. It’s a little tougher for me because the coach I’m working with doesn’t share the load quite as much as we did with my team. I like to be a little more involved in the process, but it’s about the kids and the team, so whatever I need to do is what I need to do. Still, it should be a good time. If anything interesting comes out of it then I’ll make sure to let you know.