Don't forget baseball!

Ah, baseball in autumn. Time for wild card races, magic numbers and more random Dane Cook commercials.

As we make the slow transition from the regular season to October’s playoffs and the culmination of the fantasy baseball season, there’s an even greater menace jockeying for our attention. It’s the dreaded F word: Football.

Football blots out everything else on the sports landscape, and it’s often a death sentence for all those fantasy baseball teams on the bubble of championship contention. Face it: If your baseball team has been sitting in third place for the past two or three months unable to gain any ground, why not just forget about it, wipe the slate clean and concentrate on fantasy football?

Hold it right there. Back in April when you signed up to play fantasy baseball, you agreed to an unwritten contract stating you’d make an effort to be competitive all season long. Whether you realized it at the time or not, you’re bound by this contract to do all you can to put the best baseball lineup possible out there every day, no matter how exciting this whole football thing my seem.

You owe it to the rest of your league’s competitors, and to fantasy competitors everywhere, to give it your best shot the next few weeks. Once the calendar flips to October and you’re truly out of contention, you can go back to pigskin pursuits such as deciphering John Madden’s ramblings, selling your Charlie Frye Cleveland Browns jersey on e-bay, and, of course, managing your fantasy football team. But for now, keep reaching for the stars.

Here are some guys who might be able to help in that area:

• Daric Barton is the Oakland Athletics’ first baseman of the future, and that future has already begun. Barton, called up for the first time earlier this week, is your prototypical A’s prospect: a big-time hitter who’s not afraid to take a walk.

Barton, acquired along with Dan Haren in the Mark Mulder deal - think the St. Louis Cardinals would like a do-over on that one? – is going to play just about every day from here on out, replacing Dan Johnson in an audition for next year’s starting gig at first.

• Hank Blalock, is that you? The onetime fantasy cornerstone is back after a 106-day recovery from shoulder surgery. And since returning from the DL on Sept. 2, Blalock has blasted three homers and knocked in 10 runs for the Texas Rangers, showing some of the pop from his 30-homer days back in 2003-05. Seems like the shoulder’s feeling just fine.

• If you’ve been wondering if Moises Alou still plays, the answer is yes, and at a high level no less. The 40-something is getting steady playing time and hitting a robust .441 in September with the New York Mets. If he can avoid a trip to the trainer’s room the rest of the season, Alou could be a big contributor in that offense.

• Pat Burrell may never have his own monument erected next to the Rocky statue in Philadelphia, but the veteran has slowly won over some hardened Phillies fans with an excellent second half. He’s raised his average more than 60 points since bottoming out at .201 on July 1, gone deep 17 times since the All-Star break and kept the Phils alive in the wild-card chase. A big key to the 30-year-old outfielder’s success has been his career-high 101 walks. Get him in your lineup and let the good times roll.

• Florida Marlins first baseman Mike Jacobs already has 13 RBIs in September – eclipsing his total from every other month this season. He’s desperately fighting to convince the team to keep him as an everyday first baseman next year, though outfielder Miguel Cabrera could already have an inside track on the job with every pound he packs on. Still, we can’t blame Jacobs for trying – and we can’t ignore his stats, either.