Fantasy? Really?

When you look up fantasy in the dictionary you find that it has 10 meanings under the heading of noun. Here is a sample of some of them:
1. imagination, esp. when extravagant and unrestrained.
2. the forming of mental images, esp. wondrous or strange fancies; imaginative conceptualizing.
3.a hallucination.
4. an ingenious or fanciful thought, design, or invention.

I am guessing that the guys who came up with fantasy sports would want you to look at the definitions and think #4 is the perfect definition. In truth they all make sense, however if I were to define fantasy baseball it would be like this:

1. A waste of time.

Last year as my team sank to the bottom of league I became envious of my friend Paul who swore off fantasy sports. He actually wanted to write a letter of resignation for this blog to the Fantasy sports gods. Well I am stealing his idea and writing about why I quit fantasy sports and about why I am better off for it. Here are my top five reasons I quit fantasy sports.

5. I suck at them...
There is no use in making you wait for this one. If I was some sort of Fantasy dynamo I would not this, I would be writing some article about how great I am . Truthfully, I was terrible. I tried football, baseball, basketball, I even gave golf a try, GOLF! I was desperate for some sort of success, I never found it. It was hurting my relationships with friends and family alike, and my love life was non-existent. I reached my low point last baseball season when I had 6 guys on the DL and didn't care. It lead to some emails from my buddy Kevin to see if I had died because my team was so far behind.

4. Conversation
We all know the guy (or girl) who loves to talk about his or her team. Not their hometown team, but their fantasy team. You are left to sit there and sift through their players in your head, what team they play on, how many homers they have hit, what their WHIP is. Everyone is Billy Bean. Me? I was more like Steve Phillips... You are left listening to them rattle off stats and point totals. I dont have those conversations anymore. And it is fantastic.

3. Employment
My precipitous slide to the bottom in my final baseball league last year was due to a lot of reasons. On of them was my job. See, I work at a school, a school that has kids that have too much free time and too much access to computers during that free time. Those kids also have fantasy sports teams. In order to make sure kids are doing their work while working online rather than checking up on the latest waiver wire the school blocked Yahoo sports. Therefore during the day I could not check my team. This was a huge hinderance to my ability to dominate my league, which would have undoubtedly happened had I had the chance to pour over stats while my students took numerous tests. I am a much better teacher than I would have been had my school kept Yahoo! Sports.



2. Enjoyment
This past fall was the most enjoyable football season I can remember in a while (and yes I am a Pats fan). I could watch the games without worrying about if Ronald Curry had a touchdown catch or if Tampa Bay's defense forced a bunch of turnovers. Fastasy sports to some degree have watered down sports fans. We have begun to cheer for players not teams. Is that really what we think these players need. We start worrying more about OUR team rather than our hometown team. I know some people can balance both, I couldn't and it made watching sports a little less enjoyable.

1.Time
Man, fantasy sports is a time sink. Live draft? 2 hours, usually at a time when everyone is available. meaning it is a time when most people would rather be doing something else. And you get the one guy who is doing something else, so he takes forever to pick a player. Then you throw on top the fact that you need to scavenge the waiver wires for the perfect find, so you can brag to your friends (see reason #4). My time does not need to be spent figuring out who is going to start in place of Carlos Zambrano after his most recent bout with a water cooler. I have better things to do...I think.

So there you have it, my reasons for quitting fantasy sports.

It has been far too long since my last post. I will be back a few times a week, after all, I have a ton of extra time on my hands...