Fantasy league

I'm a little embarrassed to relate this, but here goes:

A while back, an acquaintance from school asked me if I wanted to join his NBA Fantasy league. I've never been in a fantasy league, but I decided, sure, why not, it's not that much money, and I'll meet a few people.

He sends me intermittent email updates before the fantasy draft, letting me know I'll get the third pick in the first round, seventh pick in the second round, third in the third round, and on through ten rounds. (For the ignorant: you choose real players for your team, and throughout the season you compete in head-to-head competitions, compiling wins and losses based on the real life performances of your team.) He lets me know the basic protocol--taunting is encouraged, bring some food and drink, come up with a good name.

Here's where it gets weird. I was a little stuck on a name, so he emailed me a few of the names from other guys in the group: the Burning Bushes, the Smiters, Thou Shalt Not, and Jesus Wept are the examples he sent.

Now, I try to be sensitive to others' belief systems (except for Scientologists, of course, and the Dutch), but I hadn't known he and his friends were a bunch of Jesus freaks. I was weirded out, and I avoided him at work for a few days. But when I mentioned this to a woman at work, she told me the spot I was filling was his brother-in-law's, and the brother-in-law had passed away. So then I felt like a dick, and next time I saw him, I told him my team name: the Blank Slates.

Selection Saturday comes, and I show up at his house with a six-pack of Mr. Pibb, some guacamole-flavored chips, and my pages of player statistics. I'm ready to take LeBron James or, if he's gone, Dwyane Wade. The first guy, Tubs (team name, Revelation), stands up, thrusts his arms in the air, and yells, "With the number one pick, Revelation takes Jesus!" Everybody else claps, and I'm a little puzzled.

When the noise dies down, I say, "So is Jesus supposed to be Kobe, or LeBron?" Now it's everybody else's time to be puzzled.

Turns out, the NBA Fantasy Draft I'm taking part in isn't for the National Basketball Association, but for the National Bible Association.

I'm too nervous to bolt--I don't want to piss off the guy from school--and I start thinking about who I'm going to pick. I'm guessing Moses goes second, and I'm running through disciples, trying to think about who'll be best at third--John the Baptist? Can you pick God? Is he eligible?

In a stunner at number two, the Freaky Disciples take Judas because, despite his troubles in the past, he has "tremendous upside potential." Never mind his scraps with the law and his problem with authority. So, fortunately, Moses falls to me at three. "Going down the river in a basket," Tubs yells. After Moses, it's Noah, John the Baptist, Mary (it's a co-ed league), Peter, Joseph, David, and Lazarus (he apparently comes up big at the end of games).

Of course, I end up with the worst team in the league. I don't know the Bible well, so I end up with Methuselah, a Sodomite, Pontius Pilate, and a bunch of guys who get begat and then beget (they handed me a Gideon's Bible after round four). Long story short, I end up in next-to-last place at 2-16 (thank God for the Freaky Disciples) and out fifty bucks. The moral of the story? I won't be playing around in any more fantasy leagues. I haven't got a prayer.