I am going to do something I really didn’t want to do, that I didn’t plan on doing.

I am going to resurrect my fantasy baseball team this year. This weekend, as a matter of fact.

I am doing this despite the fact that I really don’t follow baseball very closely any more. I don’t really follow which players are on which team, who the hot new players are, which long-time stars really aren’t worth the trouble any more. I watch the playoffs and the World Series. Beyond that …

But I have been running a fantasy baseball league for many years, and I run the draft (an auction-type draft) at the start of each season. I had a team in the league for many years, too. I let the team go a few years ago. I really wasn’t following baseball that closely any more. I kept running the league, though.

My reasons for getting back into it are complex and probably don’t make a lot of sense to anyone. What happened is that one team dropped out of the league, and I had commissioner’s access to the stat website through that particular team. I can’t see a way for me to delete that team from the server without creating lots of problems.

Part of me, of course, wants to get back into it. The stat website has lots of services, and it would be fun to run a team using those services. But the fact is, I’m “off” baseball now. Exhibit A is the neglect and mishandling of the entire drug/steroid situation, culminating in Barry F—ing Bonds taking the all-time home run record from Hank Aaron, a decent, noble man and my favorite player since I was 7 years old.

That and the total helplessness/cluelessness the gods of baseball regarding the income disparities between rich and poor teams. Being a Milwaukee Brewers fan for many year, I feel it keenly. The Brewers got C.C. Sabathia in a trade from Cleveland last summer, and his pitching led the Brewers into the playoffs for the first time in 2o-some years. But Sabathia was at the end of his contract, and he signed with the New York Yankees for almost as much money as Bernie Madoff stole from all those people in his Ponzi scheme.

Like my dad was fond of saying, “Them’s that has, gets.” He never had. Neither have I.

The “owners’ meeting” was Friday night, where some of the guys in the league meet and renew acquaintances at a local bar and then head off to a strip joint. Been there, done that. I stayed home. Well, OK, I went to the bar for a soda pop or two, but then I went home.

I’m not against strip clubs, mind you. It’s just … they’re fun for maybe a half hour, but I don’t drink beer, the girls are just after your money, at my age I prefer older women anyway, and it gets to be a bore after a while. You know what happened last year? When I decided I had enough, I walked over to the bar next door, where I got a drink and watched a basketball game on TV. I was gone for about an hour, and everybody was wondering what had become of me. I spared them the drama this year.

The real drama starts in less than two weeks, when the Stanley Cup playoffs start. Oh, boy. They will have doubleheaders on TV almost every night, and I watch as much as I can take. Last spring, when games went into overtime and beyond midnight, Charlie sat with me on the couch and we both tried to stay awake till the game was over. Of course, Charlie was there to get her tummy rubbed and her ears scratched.

I follow the Detroit Red Wings, of course, and they have one of the best records in the league this season. But they have been giving up too many goals in the last couple months, and I’m wondering whether it will be a short, unpleasant postseason for them.

Of course, I remember having similar fears last spring … and they went on to win the Stanley Cup. As I am fond of saying, time will tell.

Meanwhile, I have no illusions about this baseball team I’m going to draft Saturday, though. It could be ugly.

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