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Olympics Blog

USA Baseball: No Nix fantasy

By Bill Plaschke
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BEIJING -- Did you see who homered for the U.S. baseball team in its 5-4 loss to Cuba on Friday? The same guy who was later hit in the face and taken to the hospital?

His name is Jayson Nix, and I noticed, because, well, earlier this year, I owned him.

I might be one of the first owners in the history of fantasy baseball to spend most of the season with a roster containing a player who later played in the Olympics. In other words, I have a horrible fantasy team.

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My partner and I drafted Nix to be one of our second basemen, as he played that position for the Colorado Rockies. He only lasted 22 games -- batting .125 –- before being sent to triple-A Colorado Springs.

We kept thinking he would get recalled, so we kept him on our roster for several months before mercifully dropping him.

I was stunned, though, to see him playing for the U.S. team, which means the Rockies probably don’t consider him to be a factor for the rest of the season.

Ah, baseball, the United States’ only Olympic sport where, if you’re here, it’s because you can’t make it somewhere else.

No wonder the IOC is dropping the sport after this season.

I still like Jayson Nix as a hard-nosed player, but, no, our league doesn’t give fantasy points for Olympic home runs.

-- Bill Plaschke

Olympics Blog
Bill Plaschke

Bill Plaschke, an L.A. Times sports columnist since 1996, is a member of the National Sports Media Hall of Fame and California Sports Hall of Fame. He has been named national Sports Columnist of the Year nine times by the Associated Press, and twice by the Society of Professional Journalists and National Headliner Awards. He is the author of six books, including a collection of his columns entitled “Plaschke: Good Sports, Spoilsports, Foul Balls and Oddballs.” Plaschke is also a panelist on the popular ESPN daily talk show, “Around the Horn.” He is in the national Big Brothers/Big Sisters Alumni Hall of Fame and has been named Man of the Year by the Los Angeles Big Brothers/Big Sisters as well as receiving a Pursuit of Justice Award from the California Women’s Law Center. Plaschke has appeared in a movie (“Ali”), a dramatic HBO series (“Luck”) and, in a crowning cultural moment he still does not quite understand, his name can be found in a rap song “Females Welcome” by Asher Roth.

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