I was scoring the Athletics-Mariners game last night when it hit me: My SOMBOE team was to that league, what the Mariners were to major league baseball.

It is not just that both my Chicago Hot Dogs and the Mariners feature Ichiro, but it is more that to start the week both our squads were both in last place, and 20 games under .500.

I am loathe to understand why the Mariners, after so many solid seasons, ghave tanked it, although I have seen enough of Richie Sexson to know you cannot build an offense around him.

But, basically, like my Hot Dogs, the real problem is they simply don't have a big bat who can settle a game. They do have Raul Ibanez and Adrian Beltre--kind of like I have Casey Kotchman and Nick Swisher--but both our teams lack a Josh Hamilton/Manny Ramirez/Mark Teixeira kind of stick who can regularly drive the guys who get on base home.

We both have underproducing backstops in Kenji Jojima (.221-3-20) and Jason Varitek (.196-16-44), as well as an underperforming pitching staff over seemingly overpriced starters.

I often think that fantasy baseball and baseball on the diamond offer amongst the best chances to watch art imitate life (or is that the other way around?).

That is because everything weird that can happen in a game on the field can happen in a sim game. Maybe the variables are different, but, you are just as likely to see something bizzarre come out of nowhere in either format.

Conversely, ou can see a picture perfect game of brilliance, like Justin Duchscherer's two-hit shutout of Tuesday evening that took precisedly 1:49 to complete.

In it both pitchers hurled complete games (Carlos Silva, being the Mariner hurler), in fact Seattle got complete games on consecutive evenings from their starters, and both lost.

And, they collectively allowed only six runs, but scored only three total on Sexson's first inning tater off Dana Eveland on Monday. For the next 17 innings, Seattle was held in check by Oakland.

But, Sunday they beat the Tigers in 15 innings, with catcher Jamie Burke pitching the final inning, and took two in a fow from the hot Detroit team, only to simply die.

Kind of like my Hot Dogs, who sweep three from a team--we did that twice last week, beating two first place clubs--and win seven of ten, and look like they will finally take off, when the are totally shellacked by a .500 team.

It had to be frustrating for John McLaren, recently fired manager in Seattle. And, it has to be frustrating for their new manager, Jim Riggleman. Because it sure is frustrating to me.