Man sends wife passive-aggressive trade offers in fantasy league following domestic dispute

HARRISBURG, PA — David DelMonico, 44, thought that inviting his wife to join his fantasy league might be a bad idea when he extended the invite pre-season.

“We’ve got a real competitive, 10-team, AL-only, 6×6 league going,” David said. “I didn’t want to spoil the vibe by bringing in Angie. But by the day of the draft, we still only had nine teams, so we agreed as a league that it was really our only option. Worst decision ever.”

Although David DelMonico thinks his wife’s presence in the league is a drag, he’d be hard-pressed to get much agreement from his leaguemates. Angie is in a very respectable second place, having made several shrewd moves and generally gaining the adulation of the crew.

“Oh, Angie will be back, for sure,” said league president Nathan DelMonico, David’s brother. “She’s been a great addition to the league and she’s going to coast into the money. Don’t tell David I said this, but if there has to be a choice… Well, there is no choice, you know what I mean?”

The trouble between Angie and David apparently started recently, and at its root has very little to do with fantasy baseball.

About four weeks ago, the couple got into an argument about finances, the end result of which is that David is going to be playing a lot less golf going forward. David, who was furious about the developments, didn’t even attempt to further the discussion, choosing instead to storm away angrily to the bedroom and log on to his fantasy team.

At that moment, he decided to express some of his disdain for his wife by making her a ridiculous trade offer – Cody Ross and J.J. Hardy for Albert Pujols, Josh Hamilton, and Johan Santana.

“I didn’t add a comment or anything, I just put it out there,” David said. “She knows enough about baseball to get the message.”

Angie was not amused when she checked her team the next day, but didn’t take the bait.

“I know he wanted me to fire back with an equally insulting trade offer, so we could have a big email war about it or something,” Angie said. “But I am above that. So I just rejected the offer and pretended like it didn’t happen.”

Unfortunately, Angie reports, that didn’t seem to work.

“In the past four weeks I think I’ve received 13 trade offers from David, and they are all obnoxious,” she told SSNN. “Some of them come in the middle of the night; some come in the middle of the day at work.

“The other day we were both on our laptops in the same room and he sent me one. I think it was Jeff Kent and Hiroki Kuroda for Mariano Rivera, Hanley Ramirez, and Grady Sizemore. So annoying.”

David, however, is playing coy.

“What? Those are fair offers!” he told SSNN. “Can I help it if I have a different valuation system than she does? I mean, the bottom line is that a team in my position has different needs than a team in her position, so you have to look at it from my perspective.”

“Yes, a ninth-place team certain does have different needs than a team that is in second,” Angie said, when told of her husband’s response. “David is correct about that. What he is not correct about is his childish behavior. I’m about sick of it and I’m thinking about taking extreme action.”

The trading deadline in their league is Sep. 7 – after that no trade offers can be accepted. Angie is hopeful that she can wait out David’s immaturity until then.

“It’s so childish,” she said. “So stupid. But I feel like if I can just hold off until then, then it’ll all blow over and we can go back to normal.”

David has other thoughts, though.

“Here’s the best part of my plan,” he said. “Even after the trade deadline, you can still propose trades – they just can’t be processed. So I can keep this going until the end of the year. Angie is really going to regret the way she’s acted toward me.”