Hipster Hunting

Opening Day is the worst day of the year, and here's why:

Seeing the Cardinals reminded me that they won the World Series in 2006, which reminded me that Adam Wainwright closed out that World Series, which led me to think:

"Oh, cool. I bet when Adam Wainwright wins his Cy Young award, he'll be the only guy to have done those two things."

And then I remembered that Wainwright is out for the season and having Tommy John surgery.

And then I remembered how hard it is for pitchers to recover from Tommy John surgery.

And then I got amazingly, impossibly sad.

I'm not even a Cardinals fan...just a baseball fan, and the idea of Adam Wainwright never being the same seems incredibly unfair.

That's the problem with Opening Day: It's the first game out of 162 where all your hopes, dreams and expectations can come crashing to Earth like a misplayed pop-up.

That, and the realization that a svelte Kung-Fu Panda isn't really an improvement.

He doesn't look like Skinny Pablo Sandoval, he just looks like Fat Christian Guzman.

But for now, we have bigger fish to fry.

Gather 'round, Hadouken Griffey Jr, and hear of your first quest. We have a dire situation on our hands, and it requires our immediate attention.

Our Week 1 opponent, my roommate Geoff, is a hipster. This much is true.

He drinks cheap beer, likes lame music and dresses like a gay hobo.

He's also always saying annoying, pretentious things like "Get out of my room" and "Stop taking pictures of me."

These personality deficiencies are fine on their own. After all, he still loves baseball, so it can't be all bad, right?

But then it started.

In a dedicated attempt to win our league, Geoff threw himself into preseason preparation like never before.

Hours of research, mock draft after mock draft, pouring over statistics until the stupid eyes in his idiot head began to bleed.

I thought it was all harmless fun. I was wrong.

A change in his demeanor was obvious. He started to look at the game in a different light. After studying him closely, I'd reached a terrifying conclusion:

Geoff had become a Fantasy Baseball Hipster.

"My favorite stat is xFIP. It's really big in New York."

It started with the numbers.

Used to be if you mentioned any particular player, he'd respond with something along the lines of, "Gavin Floyd? That guy sucks."

But then his answers became more like, "Sure, Johnny Cueto is fine...if you like a starter whose K/9 rate has fallen the last three years."

I began to worry about the path my friend was headed down.

A path filled to the brim with formulas, stacked to the ceiling with ones and zeros, cluttering his mind with VORPs and BaBIPs until he could no longer see the beauty of the game.

A manager like Geoff never would have sent Kirk Gibson and his bad knees to the plate against Dennis Eckersley in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.

And the manager in Major League didn't say, "I've crunched the numbers and Wild Thing has a 72.3% chance of inducing a ground ball."

No, he listened to the little man in his head and from beneath his thick, lustrous moustache announced:

"I got a hunch he's due."

That's what we're up against, boys: It's stats versus heart. It's that feeling in your gut versus the numbers on the page.

It's the difference between using data to prove Kyle Farnsworth is terrible...or just knowing that he is.

Luckily, I know how to handle this.

The original plan was to locate Bill James, the man behind sabermetrics and the author of the stat nerd's bible, The Bill James Handbook.

We were to find him and take him out, but it's not that simple. He's holed up somewhere in Kansas, no doubt bracing himself for the coming season.

He's probably in his lair right now, stockpiling ERA+ and UZR Ratings and manipulating obscure stats to prove David DeJesus is an MVP candidate.

David DeJesus?!

Oh, Bill James, you vile fiend.

Failing to contact this nefarious villain, we are enacting secondary protocol, tenatively titled "Plan B."

It's a fact that every master has an apprentice.

Emperor Palpatine had Darth Vader, Mr. Miyagi had Daniel-San, and I have Rinaldo, my Lithuanian neighbor who fetches me scones on the weekend.

(Rinaldo even did my taxes this year. I swear, that 8-year-old is a real go-getter)

And after weeks of searching, I have uncovered the identity of Bill James' pupil.

The time has come to do what's right. To stand up for what we believe in, and to save our friend's baseball soul.

Gentlemen, we have to find and kill Shin-Soo Choo.

"Sorry, what?"

Every preseason, the Bill Jameses of the world try to convince you that Choo's 20 homeruns and 20 stolen bases are the key to your season.

They'll say things like "For as late as he's going in mock drafts..." and "He could be a real sleeper...," hoping their awesome buzz words lure you like a hipster moth to the fantasy flame.

In fact, this overabundance of nerd love has skyrocketed Shin-Soo in most rankings and now everyone is aware of what he's capable of.

So now you're not even drafting smart...you're just drafting some dude who bats third on an awful team and hits one homerun every three weeks.

Good luck with that.

But still, Choo is their champion, the man they tout above all others.

So he must be destroyed.

We shall fight on the fields and in the streets. We shall fight on the mounds and in the bullpens.

We shall fight in foul ground and fair, in dugouts and box seats. We shall defend our ideals, whatever the cost may be.

We shall never surrender.

A day may come when the love of baseball fans fails, when we forsake our game and break all bonds of friendship.

But it is not this day.

I know not how long we must endure, but I can see a not-too-distant future where all is right...

The clock slowly ticks away in Round 15 of a fantasy draft as I struggle to make my next pick. Closer and closer to zero we creep.

I turn to Geoff and, panicking, ask, "Billy Butler or Ryan Theriot?"

For a moment, he doesn't speak.

But there is a happiness in his eyes, a spark of hope, a shining light not seen in ages.

As a single tear begins to roll down his cheek, Geoff looks to me and says:

"Billy Butler? That guy sucks."