Comparative Suffering

This little note came across EFL Answer Man’s desk last evening:

Dear Mr. EFL Answer Man:

I know, nobody suffers like the Wolverines suffer. But $40 million to the DL in one day has to be a record.

— (Be)league(red) Leader

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Mr. Answer Man’s response is, in his typical fashion, dripping with compassion:

Dear B-Leaguer:

So you lost two players to the DL.  Quit your whining.  You still have $50,000,000 in payroll on the field.

 You mention the Wolverines — do you remember back in the golden age of the EFL when the Wolverines were seemingly always in contention?  We sure do.  Did anyone ever hear a word of complaining when they would suffer minor reversals?  Nothing but sunshine and daisies even when, in more recent years, they were about to be devoured by Dragons, as the Cheese are now. Nowadays not even a sigh of woe now that the W’s are deceased, body parts already strewn among several emergency rooms around the country before they, too, lost two players to the DL over the weekend — their best pitcher, and their only surviving second baseman.   Well, true, they are hopelessly dead, which interferes with sighing, but still…

Ok, ok, yes, you have suffered a minor reversal at a crucial moment — perhaps your last conscious moment before you are barbecued, masticated, and deposited in the Dragon digestive tract.  But even then, be respectful — you are only experiencing something the W’s suffered the last two years in a row.  And they came out fine… well, fine for a hopelessly dead team with body parts strewn… Oh, you’ve heard that already?

— Mr. EFL Answer Man

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