Living in a Fantasy World

With the MLB regular season starting in less than 2 weeks, and spring starting in less than 2 days, it's time to prepare for another of the highlights of March. (No, I am not speaking of National Agriculture Day on Wednesday the 21st. Though I can't blame you for thinking that. What with the picture of Pat Burrell and all. Please note that he will be using a cheat sheet (in left hand, printed on recyclable paper) on the bases this year, so expect more runs scored from the hobbled slugger. Or maybe that's his wedding vows. Either way, a lot of scoring is ahead for Patrick Brian.)

I am, of course, speaking of the drafting of the players for fantasy baseball purposes. I was on a fantasy baseball hiatus for the last 2 seasons, but the lure of easy money has brought me back. $20 buy-in, $100 for 1st place. So, basically, to me at least, a cost of NEGATIVE 80 bills. This is a much better investment than the Sox instant tickets.

Now my self-determined hiatus was for a couple of reasons. One reason was the New York factor. Now, obviously, I would never have a Met or a Yankee or my roster. That is just redonculous. I probably would have used Seth McClung as my closer, if my other option was Mariano. But, though I hate to admit it, there were times in which I took solace in the success of a Yankee or Met, as it had a beneficial effect on my fantasy team. For example, while I wouldn't exactly celebrate a Carlos Delgado game-winning HR, I would have felt a little less pissed about it if was against one of my opponent's pitchers. That, my reader(s), is a different kind of redonculous.

Additionally, I exhibited another concern as a result of fantasy baseball participation. I am not sure of the technical term. Wait, actually, I am sure of the term. Psychotic. A wee bit. I typically had more transactions that the rest of the league. And by "rest of the league", I mean add up all of the transactions made by all of the other teams in the league. Then triple it. Now many of those transactions did take place in September, when I was add/dropping five pitchers daily, while the rest of the league tweaked their fantasy football rosters. But it was still a lot. I was like Theo on overdrive, just without the minions.

The stats also got to me. All of those wonderful numbers! So many, and they changed every day! Now I have been a bit of a Stat Geek since way back when Darren Daulton was (relatively) sane, and Jonathan was a young Padawan. But I got wicked carried away as a Fantasy Baseball GM. I knew the starting pitchers for every game. I knew which catcher-eligible player had the most RBI over the past 30 days. I was an interactive version of MLB.com, only no pop-up ads. Unfortunately, this knowledge had limited applications, outside of fantasy baseball and the barroom. Even though YouTube had not yet entered the public consciousness, I still probably had better uses for my disposable leisure time.

This season will be different. For reals. I will not draft Starter Boy in the 1st round, because I realize that SDs (slaughtered ducks) are not a fantasy stat. (Yet.) I will draft a purple-lipped princess, if it is best for my team. If you read on News of the Weird about a guy wearing a gorilla suit and a Phillies hat wandering about MA yelling about trade collusion and the evils of the waiver wire, it will be someone else. (But you probably shouldn't expect any coherent thoughts on this blog for awhile...)



P.S. I'm totally taking Papelbon in the 1st round. He's a Jedi, for crissakes!