The other day I saw an advertisement on ESPN.com for a live chat with one of their baseball experts. The subject was Fantasy Baseball, or more specifically, who should your first pick be, Alex Rodriguez or Albert Pujols. I didn't login to join the debate. To be honest, I would have rather listened to another John Edwards concession speech.
It wasn't too long ago that I loved Fantasy Baseball. I couldn't get enough of it. The first time I played, I was invited to join a friend's league. I drafted fairly well and I made some great pickups, and about 52,468 roster moves later, I was the league champion. I raked the free agent market looking for who was hot. I crunched all kinds of numbers. I researched all sorts of minutia that would make your head explode. I knew whether Jimmy Rollins had a better average against right-handers or left-handers. I even knew the difference between his average at home and away, against right-handed and left-handed pitchers. And after that season, when it ended, I felt a definite hole inside of me. It had been such a big part of my life for so long, that I didn't know what to do with myself. I would mindlessly browse every baseball website in the free world to get my fix, wandering through the muck of the off-season that people put out when there's really nothing to say about the sport.
When the next season came around, I was so stoked. I created my own league, and invited all of my friends and my brothers to join. Most of the people that read this blog were part of that short-lived league. That league was a little more fun because I knew everyone in it, and most of the players knew each other as well. I broke my previous record with 58,231 roster moves, and set all-time marks for minimal work accomplished at my job. Again, it enveloped me. Every free minute I had was researching my team and the free-agent market. I came in second that year.
But, towards the end of that season we moved to Kansas City and attended some Royals games. It was then that I noticed another crucial drawback to Fantasy Baseball, besides the obvious aspects of addiction: It began to get in the way of actual baseball. I started to care much more about numbers than the game itself. I also became torn between whether to root for my home team, or for "my" players who happened to be playing for the visiting team. For example, Victor Martinez anchored my catching position for both of my Fantasy seasons, and he put up some really good offensive numbers for me. But, then he came to town to play the Royals. I wanted him to do well for my Fantasy team, but I didn't want him to burn my actual team. I hated it. And it happened more and more, the further down the road of "Royals-fan-for-life" I traveled.
That was the last time I played in a Fantasy League. The following season I might not have known which pitcher had the lowest WHIP in the league, which 2nd baseman had the best strikeout to walk ratio, or who were the hot prospects in the Mariners organization that were about to hit the scene, but I did enjoy the actual game infinitely more. I could go out to the stadium and cheer for the home team and not worry about if someone else in my fantasy league had David DeJesus on their roster. I could root against the Red Sox and the Indians because I no longer had any sort of a vested interest in how they performed. I was a Fan again. To some degree, Fantasy Baseball had taken that away, but I broke the cycle. And my wife and my employer are forever grateful.
By the way, I'd take Albert every time.
I liked the one about the off season! We have always believed that in our house! Marc is throwing one day a week with Ned and doing treadmill and plyeos three days a week. He doesn't complain about going anymore, I think he rather likes it! He can run 17 MPH for 6 seconds on the treadmill (which by the way is the girls speed club goal!) The boys is 20 MPH...maybe someday. Ned can't believe it from where he started as a little 10 year old. Spring Training starts in 5 weeks for him in Mesquite...Here we go again!
ReplyDeleteI miss our league play, but I can't argue with your reasoning. C. always got a little nervous when I started doing the 'research' that took all night.
ReplyDeleteGood post.
I still laugh whenever I think about how I was near the top of the leauge almost the whole season (that is untill the playoffs rolled around) when I did not even log on to check on my team untill the All-star game. And even then, I only logged on because you told me that I had beat you the week before, dispite having three of my starters not playing because they were injured. I was the worst Fantasy manager of all time!
ReplyDeletetotally agree with the take on Fantasy Sports and baseball. With professional football I don't really care because I don't follow a specific team and would rather follow players. Baseball is all about following one team and to "root, root, root against the home team" would be the real shame!!! :)
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