Okay I admit that I am a geek. I'm not just a tri geek, I am science and math kind of geek. (I've got some of that Star Wars geek in me too, but I'll leave that for some other day.) So this past weekend I bypassed a fun little race that was attended by Curly Su, TriSaraTops, DaisyDuc, and Papa Louie among others. Sure looks like it was a good time and am genuinely disappointed in missing out. But there was another event that comes once a year and I could not miss it. It's called the fantasy baseball draft. I love sports but I also love stats and numbers. While I have never picked up a bat and swung at fastballs or caught fly balls in the outfield, I am thoroughly geeked when it comes to the statistics of this sports. I love the fact that a game can be summed up by numbers in a box score. So I have participated in this annual rite of couch potatoes ever since I was in high school.
So if you have no interest in fantasy baseball, feel free to fast forward to my next post that is pertinent to my triathlon training. Choose your own adventure... (anybody ever remember reading those "choose your own adventure books"?)
So anyways back to the fantasy game. I used to always win the league, and by always I mean I never lost a league I played in for almost 10 straight years (which included fantasy football and a fantasy basketball leagues). Well, a few years ago I realized I had to cut down on this obsession. Not only was it sucking up time and energy I just wasn't having fun anymore. One of the reasons was an old catch-22. What happens when you have a player on your fantasy team that is playing against your favorite real sports team? Who do you root for? Well, I finally made the decision that I had to root for the real team. Since then I drafted players that I really want to follow and not just the best players. This strategy has led to mediocre fantasy results but has increased my enjoyment of the real sport. I would make that deal every day of the week and twice on Fridays.
So last season, I finished in second place. Check out this lineup:
Victor Martinez, David Ortiz, Michael Young, Marcus Giles, Eric Chavez, Grady Sizemore, Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Lee, Travis Hafner, Chone Figgins, Adam Dunn, Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Mark Buehrle, CC Sabathia, Jason Isringhausen, Mariano Rivera, Todd Jones, Derrick Turnbow.
Well there is a price to success and that was trading away my high draft picks for this year. Compare that list to this year's:
Victor Martinez, David Ortiz, Michael Young, Jim Thome, Aubrey Huff, Magglio Ordonez, Garrett Atkins, Richie Weeks, Nick Swisher, Dan Johnson, Rocco Baldelli, Jake Westbrook, Ryan Madson, Dan Haren, Chris Ray, Rafael Soriano.
Even some non baseball fans can recognize a few players from that first group, but sheesh I've got a lot of unknowns on this year's squad. As was said in Major League:
Rep1: I've never heard of half of these guys and the ones I do know are way past their prime.
GM: Most of these guys never had a prime.
...
Rep2: This guy here is dead.
Owner: Cross him off then.
But you know what, I can root for most of these guys on my fantasy team. One of them is actually a former high school classmate of one of my current classmates. "Well I guess there's only one thing left to do...Win the whole firetrucking thing." And if I don't well I'm still going to enjoy a ton of baseball games this summer. Can't wait for April 2nd and April 7th!!!
2 comments:
Not only do I love the picture and quotes, but I used to love choose your own adventure books. :) I am sooooooooooo excited for April 2!!!! Are you going downtown for the home opener? My buddies are tailgating downtown near the Jake and I'm going straight there after school with my jersey on!
my husband is into the fantasy baseball. do you play that game where you get all these cards with stats etc? i don't know what its called but it sounds like you and my husband could talk baseball stats for hours.
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