on fantasy sports and the transient nature of pride
3 October 2007
I would be doing myself and the world a major disservice if I didn’t take a moment to congratulate myself on my incredible performance in fantasy baseball this year.
[Did you guys hear that? That's the sound of a few thousand people clicking away from this site at the first mention of sports - worse, fantasy sports. Come back tomorrow, friends, when we'll talk about engagement rings, or you can just read the stuff under my little table below. Something for everyone. That's how I roll.]
[Ok, maybe sixteen people - that's the sound of sixteen people clicking away from this site. I just said "thousands" to impress you.]
I know that there is nothing quite as boring as hearing about someone’s fantasy team, but please, indulge me for just a moment. I have very little else going on and I haven’t had a solid night’s sleep in about three weeks, so I’m becoming a little unhinged (I think my tolerance for xanax is now too high and morphine is pretty hard to get a hold of). Also, I can’t stop masturbating to redtube.com (NOT SAFE FOR WORK) and my body and health are rapidly declining because of all the wanton sexual punishment I am inflicting on myself. This happens every goddamn fall.
Iron Sheik is the name of the league that I have been involved with for seven years. Not only am I a founding member, but I am also the commissioner of the league. Yes, this is what I tell women that I meet at bars. And no, it doesn’t ever work. Like, ever.
Despite having the same 11 guys in the league for the past seven years, it was only this year that we started to do a keeper league. A keeper league means that each “manager” (read: dork who bases a significant amount of his happiness on his fantasy team) keeps three players on his team from year to year. That means instead of starting next year with a completely new roster of players, we’ll go into the draft with three guys already on our respective teams. This changes player value slightly, favoring younger players over players who put up similar numbers but are older (the logic being that you can keep these younger players for years, while the older ones are closer to declining and ultimately retiring). But keeper leagues also lead to a sense of identity, as we’re now establishing cornerstones for our franchises, drafting and acquiring players that may be on our teams for five, ten, even fifteen years. Keeper leagues allow for a greater sense of “team” and a closeness to players in a way that standard fantasy baseball leagues, whose rosters are completely overhauled from year to year, do not. For example, during the draft in March at the start of the baseball season, I had the 7th overall pick (out of 11 teams). I chose Chase Utley, not just because he’s nasty and a 2B, but because he’s a Phillie and I can now root for him for years to come. Also, he may be a little skinny, but he kinda gets me more than a bit riled up.
Our league is a roto league, using the following categories: for offense, runs, rbis, stolen bases, total bases, and on-base percentage; for pitching, wins, saves, strikeouts, ERA, and WHIP. As our league has 11 teams, the team with the most runs, for example, gets 11 points in that category; the team with the fewest runs gets 1 point. The team with the highest score at the end of the season – the total of points from each of the ten categories – wins.
Success in fantasy sports, particularly fantasy baseball, is not uncommon for me, but the dominance that I displayed this year was particularly awesome. I finished with 103 points (out of a total of 110). The second-place finisher had 74 points (third place had 73, fourth 67, two tied at fifth with 65.5). I led by at least 25 points from June 15 through the rest of the season and finished with a perfect “11″ in eight of the ten categories (imperfect in only wins and saves). Here is what my team looked like (the number next to the name is what round I drafted that player in; “W” means waiver wire pick up):
I listed only the starters, but I have to thank Chone Figgins (who I traded right before the deadline to Site Guy Brendan for his fourth round/seventh round overall pick next year), Troy Glaus, Willy Taveras, Jack Cust, James Loney, Ian Snell, and Alan Embree for their invaluable contributions. They truly understood that there was no “i” in team.
Why am I telling you this? The short answer: because it makes me hard. The long answer: because few things have made me more proud than my fantasy baseball team this season, and I want more people to know about this. Is this sad? Sure. Does it make me sound pathetic? Yes. But does that make me any less thrilled with myself or make me feel ashamed to masturbate in front of the mirror holding a printout of my roster? Nope.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found there are less and less things that allow me to measure myself against others and thus feel a sense of pride. (Maybe it’s wrong that I derive pride from besting others, but I’m not a psychologist.) While I was never very athletic, I certainly don’t play sports anymore (the last time I threw a football, I gave myself dysentery). And while I’m proud, for example, of the Phillies for making the playoffs, I didn’t do anything to make that happen.
Primarily, I got my jollies off by doing well in school. Getting good grades while doing very little for them was a great source of pride for me. But I haven’t been in school in six years, so those days of sucking back Stacker 2′s so I can bang out a 15 page history paper in seven hours for my standard B+ are long gone.
I’m an ok employee, I suppose, and take a little bit of pride in my work, but I don’t do anything I can particularly be proud of – I’m not saving lives or building houses or providing people with stolen cable. Worse, I’ve hit my ceiling at work. I’m currently a “Senior Analyst” at whatever the hell it is that I do, having been promoted to this position a tad earlier than I should have been, which was nice. But the next step up is manager. My manager is a guy in his mid-thirties who isn’t going anywhere, nor do I consider myself the management type. Therefore, it’s conceivable that I will continue to be a “Senior Analyst” for the next 20 years (as I can never leave my firm, since a simple Google search will disqualify me from all future employment).
Other than that, there’s not much going on. I don’t have any children (that I know of) that I can be proud of, and even if I do have a few little scamps running around Boston or London or or Philly or here in NYC, they’re probably roaming the streets like wild dogs and stealing cigarettes to sell to their kindergarten classmates. I don’t have any real hobbies, nor am I a member of any clubs or organizations, since that kinda stuff would probably get in the way of watching my tivoed episodes of Law & Order SVU. I do have this site, which I like, and not just for the occasional booby pictures.
But what I definitely have is an uncanny ability to kick ass at fantasy sports. I just can do it very well. I realize it’s more about cold hard statistics, that a significant portion of excelling at fantasy sports involves both predicting the future performance of players and understanding the needs of other guys in the league, needs which can be manipulated through trades and oral sex to one’s advantage. That I can succeed in this makes me happy.
Not only that, I put more work into fantasy sports than almost anything else in my life. Sad, but also true. On average, I spend at least an hour a day checking my team’s stats, plotting moves, talking shit to other guys in the league via messageboard or email, etc. My fantasy baseball team(s) is not something that I signed up for on a whim – it is a product, something that has been carefully devised through hours of research, deal-making, and deliberate and intensive thought.
(Also, winning this league awarded me enough money for a modest vacation, so there’s that.)
I know that people often knock fantasy sports for being a paradise for stat nerds and the unathletic, and while there is a great deal of truth to that statement, there’s certainly more to the culture of fantasy sports than that. Fantasy sports combine two things that men who are growing into their twenties and thirties crave – sports-based competition and something to do. From my limited experience, getting old consists of two things: being bored and remembering when you weren’t bored. Fantasy sports provide an outlet for competition, an avenue for nostalgia, and, most of all, something to do, something that’s fun and easy and allows for camaraderie.
I don’t think I’m telling you anything you haven’t heard before, but these things are worth remembering when passing judgment on fantasy sports and those who play them. Haters, while we don’t ask for your support, we ask for your understanding. We are a simple people.
(And for the record, I’d like to state that yes, I am single. No girlfriend. I know, it’s shocking. I am fairly certain that the longest relationship of my life will be with Ryan Braun. And I think I’m ok with that.)
[Did you guys hear that? That's the sound of a few thousand people clicking away from this site at the first mention of sports - worse, fantasy sports. Come back tomorrow, friends, when we'll talk about engagement rings, or you can just read the stuff under my little table below. Something for everyone. That's how I roll.]
[Ok, maybe sixteen people - that's the sound of sixteen people clicking away from this site. I just said "thousands" to impress you.]
I know that there is nothing quite as boring as hearing about someone’s fantasy team, but please, indulge me for just a moment. I have very little else going on and I haven’t had a solid night’s sleep in about three weeks, so I’m becoming a little unhinged (I think my tolerance for xanax is now too high and morphine is pretty hard to get a hold of). Also, I can’t stop masturbating to redtube.com (NOT SAFE FOR WORK) and my body and health are rapidly declining because of all the wanton sexual punishment I am inflicting on myself. This happens every goddamn fall.
Iron Sheik is the name of the league that I have been involved with for seven years. Not only am I a founding member, but I am also the commissioner of the league. Yes, this is what I tell women that I meet at bars. And no, it doesn’t ever work. Like, ever.
Despite having the same 11 guys in the league for the past seven years, it was only this year that we started to do a keeper league. A keeper league means that each “manager” (read: dork who bases a significant amount of his happiness on his fantasy team) keeps three players on his team from year to year. That means instead of starting next year with a completely new roster of players, we’ll go into the draft with three guys already on our respective teams. This changes player value slightly, favoring younger players over players who put up similar numbers but are older (the logic being that you can keep these younger players for years, while the older ones are closer to declining and ultimately retiring). But keeper leagues also lead to a sense of identity, as we’re now establishing cornerstones for our franchises, drafting and acquiring players that may be on our teams for five, ten, even fifteen years. Keeper leagues allow for a greater sense of “team” and a closeness to players in a way that standard fantasy baseball leagues, whose rosters are completely overhauled from year to year, do not. For example, during the draft in March at the start of the baseball season, I had the 7th overall pick (out of 11 teams). I chose Chase Utley, not just because he’s nasty and a 2B, but because he’s a Phillie and I can now root for him for years to come. Also, he may be a little skinny, but he kinda gets me more than a bit riled up.
Our league is a roto league, using the following categories: for offense, runs, rbis, stolen bases, total bases, and on-base percentage; for pitching, wins, saves, strikeouts, ERA, and WHIP. As our league has 11 teams, the team with the most runs, for example, gets 11 points in that category; the team with the fewest runs gets 1 point. The team with the highest score at the end of the season – the total of points from each of the ten categories – wins.
Success in fantasy sports, particularly fantasy baseball, is not uncommon for me, but the dominance that I displayed this year was particularly awesome. I finished with 103 points (out of a total of 110). The second-place finisher had 74 points (third place had 73, fourth 67, two tied at fifth with 65.5). I led by at least 25 points from June 15 through the rest of the season and finished with a perfect “11″ in eight of the ten categories (imperfect in only wins and saves). Here is what my team looked like (the number next to the name is what round I drafted that player in; “W” means waiver wire pick up):
| Position |
Player |
R |
RBI |
SB |
TB |
OBP |
| C |
J. Posada (16) |
91 |
90 |
2 |
275 |
.426 |
| 1B |
L. Berkman (2) |
95 |
102 |
7 |
286 |
.386 |
| 2B |
C. Utley (1) |
104 |
103 |
9 |
300 |
.410 |
| 3B |
R. Braun (W) |
91 |
97 |
15 |
286 |
.370 |
| SS |
C. Guillen (7) |
86 |
102 |
13 |
283 |
.357 |
| OF |
E. Byrnes (20) |
103 |
83 |
50 |
288 |
.353 |
| OF |
A. Rios (10) |
114 |
85 |
17 |
320 |
.354 |
| OF |
B.J. Upton (W) |
86 |
82 |
22 |
241 |
.386 |
| Util |
J. Bay (3) |
78 |
84 |
4 |
225 |
.327 |
| Util |
C. Young (W) |
85 |
68 |
27 |
266 |
.295 |
| Position |
Player |
W |
SV |
K |
ERA |
WHIP |
| SP |
B. Webb (4) |
18 |
0 |
194 |
3.01 |
1.19 |
| SP |
C.C. Sabathia (8) |
19 |
0 |
209 |
3.21 |
1.14 |
| RP |
T. Saito (11) |
2 |
39 |
78 |
1.40 |
0.72 |
| RP |
J. Borowski (13) |
4 |
45 |
58 |
5.07 |
1.43 |
| P |
E. Bedard (9) |
13 |
0 |
221 |
3.16 |
1.09 |
| P |
T. Lilly (21) |
15 |
0 |
174 |
3.83 |
1.14 |
| P |
A.J. Burnett (15) |
10 |
0 |
176 |
3.75 |
1.19 |
| P |
M. Capps (W) |
4 |
18 |
64 |
2.28 |
1.01 |
I listed only the starters, but I have to thank Chone Figgins (who I traded right before the deadline to Site Guy Brendan for his fourth round/seventh round overall pick next year), Troy Glaus, Willy Taveras, Jack Cust, James Loney, Ian Snell, and Alan Embree for their invaluable contributions. They truly understood that there was no “i” in team.
Why am I telling you this? The short answer: because it makes me hard. The long answer: because few things have made me more proud than my fantasy baseball team this season, and I want more people to know about this. Is this sad? Sure. Does it make me sound pathetic? Yes. But does that make me any less thrilled with myself or make me feel ashamed to masturbate in front of the mirror holding a printout of my roster? Nope.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found there are less and less things that allow me to measure myself against others and thus feel a sense of pride. (Maybe it’s wrong that I derive pride from besting others, but I’m not a psychologist.) While I was never very athletic, I certainly don’t play sports anymore (the last time I threw a football, I gave myself dysentery). And while I’m proud, for example, of the Phillies for making the playoffs, I didn’t do anything to make that happen.
Primarily, I got my jollies off by doing well in school. Getting good grades while doing very little for them was a great source of pride for me. But I haven’t been in school in six years, so those days of sucking back Stacker 2′s so I can bang out a 15 page history paper in seven hours for my standard B+ are long gone.
I’m an ok employee, I suppose, and take a little bit of pride in my work, but I don’t do anything I can particularly be proud of – I’m not saving lives or building houses or providing people with stolen cable. Worse, I’ve hit my ceiling at work. I’m currently a “Senior Analyst” at whatever the hell it is that I do, having been promoted to this position a tad earlier than I should have been, which was nice. But the next step up is manager. My manager is a guy in his mid-thirties who isn’t going anywhere, nor do I consider myself the management type. Therefore, it’s conceivable that I will continue to be a “Senior Analyst” for the next 20 years (as I can never leave my firm, since a simple Google search will disqualify me from all future employment).
Other than that, there’s not much going on. I don’t have any children (that I know of) that I can be proud of, and even if I do have a few little scamps running around Boston or London or or Philly or here in NYC, they’re probably roaming the streets like wild dogs and stealing cigarettes to sell to their kindergarten classmates. I don’t have any real hobbies, nor am I a member of any clubs or organizations, since that kinda stuff would probably get in the way of watching my tivoed episodes of Law & Order SVU. I do have this site, which I like, and not just for the occasional booby pictures.
But what I definitely have is an uncanny ability to kick ass at fantasy sports. I just can do it very well. I realize it’s more about cold hard statistics, that a significant portion of excelling at fantasy sports involves both predicting the future performance of players and understanding the needs of other guys in the league, needs which can be manipulated through trades and oral sex to one’s advantage. That I can succeed in this makes me happy.
Not only that, I put more work into fantasy sports than almost anything else in my life. Sad, but also true. On average, I spend at least an hour a day checking my team’s stats, plotting moves, talking shit to other guys in the league via messageboard or email, etc. My fantasy baseball team(s) is not something that I signed up for on a whim – it is a product, something that has been carefully devised through hours of research, deal-making, and deliberate and intensive thought.
(Also, winning this league awarded me enough money for a modest vacation, so there’s that.)
I know that people often knock fantasy sports for being a paradise for stat nerds and the unathletic, and while there is a great deal of truth to that statement, there’s certainly more to the culture of fantasy sports than that. Fantasy sports combine two things that men who are growing into their twenties and thirties crave – sports-based competition and something to do. From my limited experience, getting old consists of two things: being bored and remembering when you weren’t bored. Fantasy sports provide an outlet for competition, an avenue for nostalgia, and, most of all, something to do, something that’s fun and easy and allows for camaraderie.
I don’t think I’m telling you anything you haven’t heard before, but these things are worth remembering when passing judgment on fantasy sports and those who play them. Haters, while we don’t ask for your support, we ask for your understanding. We are a simple people.
(And for the record, I’d like to state that yes, I am single. No girlfriend. I know, it’s shocking. I am fairly certain that the longest relationship of my life will be with Ryan Braun. And I think I’m ok with that.)
