Fantasy Sports Ramblings

Ok, probably the best thing about the growth of the Internet in the past few years is not the convenient access to news, email, mp3s, or even AOL Instant Messenger. It's fantasy baseball and football. Besides Starcraft, it was probably the single biggest distraction from studying at school. During baseball season, every day I would rush back to my apt after class (or skip class entirely if there was a crucial pitching matchup) so I could watch a game on TV. At nights, when studying at Grainger, I would have to periodically visit the computer lab so I could check how my players were doing. Many times, what was supposed to be a short visit would turn into an hour of watching GameCast.

When football season started, all day Sunday and Monday nights were almost forbidden times to do any school-related work. So basically, during the school year, there is about a 3 or 4 month window in which I was not constantly thinking about my fantasy team. I think it just so happened that I would do the best in my Spring semester classes, especially exam 2, but I may have to look into that in more detail. If Starcraft lowered my cumulative GPA by half a point, fantasy sports probably took care of pretty much the rest for me. Sad but true.

It's a fact that to some extent, fantasy sports has taken away a little bit of the purity of sports fanhood, though this probably applies to some people a lot more than others. I've never really been able to appreciate the talents of Kurt Warner and Marshall Faulk when they would regularly rape my team and put me out of contention every year. I just can't bring myself to like the Rams because it has become my instinct to hate them. Same goes for the Diamondbacks, when Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling destroy the rest of the league by putting up ungodly numbers. On the other hand, I find that I am an even bigger fan of guys like A-Rod, Mariano Rivera, Robb Nen, Alfonso Soriano, Mike Mussina, and yes, even a jackass like Barry Bonds, because they have carried my team so much in past and present years. (I purposely did not mention my specific favorites in football because there is a draft coming up and I know people will try to annoy me by taking my boys early).

A side story on jerseys while I'm on the general topic of sports fanhood: Yesterday I saw a guy wearing a Carolina Panthers Joe Nedney football jersey. It's hard for me to imagine a good reason for spending 40 bucks or so to buy the jersey of a kicker, who isn't even especially good. I can only guess that Joe Nedney is his cousin or maybe he is a really big Panthers fan. Come to think of it, there is not a single player on the Panthers who is good enough to warrant buying a jersey. So I suppose if that guy was indeed a huge Panthers fan, a Nedney jersey is as good as any.

Then again, I bet a lot people are puzzled when they see me wearing my Yankees Mussina jersey T. Even if I was a big Yankees fan, Mussina would probably be among the least common jerseys to get, considering that the team has a wealth of flashier and more popular stars like Jeter, Giambi, Clemens, Soriano, Rivera, Williams, and so on. But of course, there are reasons why I have Mussina. First of all, back in the day I was somewhat of an Orioles fan, when they had guys like Cal Ripken, Scott Erickson, Brady Anderson, Robbie Alomar, Rafael Palmeiro, and my boy Harold Baines. If you liked the Orioles in those years, you had to like the Moose. Then, the first year I joined a fantasy baseball league, I ended up with him on my team, and he turned out to be probably my only good player and most consistent pitcher. So I got him the next year, and the next, to the point where every team I ever owned had to include Mike Mussina. Thus, when my sister told me she was going to New York with her friend, and asked if I wanted anything, I told her to get me a Mussina jersey. Later, I found that wearing it on days he was scheduled to pitch was good luck, and even though I am not a superstitious man, fantasy baseball is fantasy baseball.... quite important to me.

Anyways, I have noticed certain jerseys are so popular these days that it is ridiculous and annoying. Everyone and their mom has an Iverson, Darius Miles, Sosa, Randy Moss, etc. Urlacher #54 is an exception because he is on the Bears and he is awesome. Same goes for Jordan #23 (Bulls only). But nobody I know of has a Mussina #35, so I can rest assured that I won't look silly walking down the street if I pass somebody with the exact same thing on.

Ok, back to what I was talking about originally. The real conflict that fantasy sports poses with real sports is when one of your fantasy players goes up against the team you root for in real life. For example, if Mussina was scheduled to pitch against the Sox. I personally hold myself to the rule that I should always root for the Sox, Bears, etc. over any fantasy players. Even if there is money in it for me in fantasy, I still gotta have unconditional love as a fan, right? So to minimize these conflicts, I often times bench my fantasy players when they go against my teams, and as much as possible I will draft guys from the Sox and Bears, even if they suck. Of course, one exception is like right now, when the Sox basically have no chance of making the playoffs, plus the whole baseball strike talk is turning me off from the game, so I can root for my players over the Sox as much as I feel like.

One thing I have found is that a lot of the time my overall mood is dictated by how my team is doing. That is true of sports in general, though. It just seems like when my team sucks, everything else in life sucks. Food doesn't taste as good, exams tend to be harder, and everything is a chore to do. But when my teams are flying high, so am I. You will be that much more likely to see me walking around with a smile on my face.

In my own experience, fantasy sports has only made being a fan more interesting. Yes, it wastes a lot more time when I end up watching a game like Panthers vs. Seahawks only to root against Shaun Alexander or something, but hey, that's 3 more hours I get an excuse to watch football instead of doing something useful. It's kind of funny if you think about it, I always feel like me watching my players will make them more likely to perform better. Or, I'll say something like "You've got Manning and I got Marvin Harrison, so I'm gonna have to root for more yardage since any touchdowns would cancel out." In reality, it doesn't matter who or what you root for, or how closely you watch them, but I still like to think I am somehow channeling my rooting energy through the TV to make my guys do better.

I'm gonna take this opportunity to list some characteristics that I have deemed important in a girl. (Maybe count this as an addendum or amendment to Dennis' list). Of course, not every guy has the same values as me or Dennis but you should all know what you want in your girl, from the big things to the extremely little things.

1. Understands the importance of fantasy sports - It might be near impossible to find a girl who likes fantasy sports as much as me but I'm happy as long as she doesn't get mad that I pay attention to Alex Rodriguez more than her. Haha just kidding.

2. Appreciates good music - Almost every girl I know of likes today's pop stars like N Sync, Nelly, Ja Rule, Pink, as well as every single mindless dance hit they play in clubs or on the radio. The real question is whether or not a girl can enjoy and value the old school and quality music too.

3. Not a Cubs fan - It's hard to be a legit Sox fan for anyone these days, but I could never be with someone who cheers for those freaking Cubs. I don't expect a girl to like baseball, but if she does, that's a plus. Going with me to a game is always nice too.

4. Likes cars - I don't want an import model or a hoodrat chick, and she doesn't have to change her own oil, just someone who doesn't abuse her car by driving like an idiot and hopefully knows the difference between a BMW 318 and a 330.

5. Not skanky - This is crucial. I don't wanna date a skanky girl.

6. Likes Adam Sandler and the Austin Powers series - If a girl fits this criteria, it means she is not easily offended or disgusted. Basically, she needs a good sense of humor, and to be able to understand my weird sense of humor too.

7. Likes seafood - As someone who loves crab, fish (including the raw variety of course), shrimp, squid, clams, etc., it's hard for me to imagine someone who would not love these things.

8. Plays Starcraft - Ah, yes.

9. Smells nice - Girls are supposed to smell girly, that's one of the best things about them.

Yes, in case you are wondering, Olivia does happen to fit mostly all of these little things, which is a good sign because I had come up with most of them in a mental list a long time before we got together. But it still drives daggers into my heart when she hates on Britney all the time. By the way, I am not sharing this list for her sake, because she doesn't even read my blog. I am writing it down more as some sort of informal record of my thoughts on the subject. Also, maybe it will provide something for people to think about or talk about if they read my blog. And don't mistake this to think like I only care about these things, because there are things that are more important to me of course, I'm not that shallow. It's just a blog, after all, so I'm just writing whatever and don't take it too seriously.

While I'm at it, here are some things I don't care about:

1. Good dancer - I don't dance, so it doesn't really matter if she's the best dancer in the world, makes no difference to me. Then again, I have never met a girl who didn't like to dance. Now if she has a good voice, I definitely dig that a lot.

2. If she has other guy friends - I am not that much of a jealous type. I don't expect to be the center of a girl's life. If she is prone to want someone else when she already has me, then I'm better off without her anyways. It might be even better than her having all girl friends because girls gossip too much. Plus I am pretty secure and I am confident that I'm better than all of her guy friends. tahahaa

3. Cooks and cleans - Honestly, I don't care. Not that I'm against it, if she wants to do it, but I can take care of my own shiznit. Especially if she is gonna complain all the time about doing that stuff, I'd very much rather her not do anything for me. But my future wife has to be good about taking care of kids, that's a different story.

4. Athletic - It don't matter, as long as she's healthy and isn't gonna die of a heart attack at age 35.

5. Money - My love don't cost a thing haha. I don't think a lot of guys look for a rich girl, more the other way around, but I thought I'd list it anyways.

Again, I thought of all these a long time ago so it wasn't meant to apply specifically to Olivia. For example, I know she loves to dance, and she would not complain about cooking or cleaning, that type of thing. It's just good to know what's important to you and what is not, like I already said before. I think everyone should have something like my two lists, or at least a general idea.

So I'm sorry that my mind has strayed so far from my original topic of fantasy sports, but hopefully anybody that has read this far has found my thoughts to be worth your time.