My name is Michael Brendan Dougherty and I have a problem. You
see, spring training is over. The old songs and poems about
baseball are dutifully repeated over AM sports radio stations. The
grass is cut and smells fresh.
At this time of year I join thousands of others and welcome in
the new season by sitting in front of my computer during lunch
breaks, and staying up late surrounded by complicated math
formulae. When I hear the word "rotisserie," I don't think of a
chicken turning over a spit. Late night commercials that promise a
retreat into "fantasy" are not an occasion of sin for me. They make
me think of a pitcher's WHIP -- that is, walks and hits per inning
pitched. I'm a fantasy baseball addict.
My interest began as a curiosity. When I had an internship in a
publishing industry, the person in the neighboring cube could often
be heard shouting into the phone one word, which sounded like four
words: "DOM-IN-ATE-ING." He was acting like a jerk. He was blowing
off the work he should have been doing. He was lording his
intelligence over his friends for something that other people had
done. I wanted to do the same.
For the uninitiated, fantasy baseball is no longer the domain of
math-nerds with expensive Texas instrument calculators and lots of
time on their hands. The game can be played by anyone for free. You
pick a team of players (from all major league teams) to "play"
against other teams that your friends (or co-workers or strangers)
manage.
When one of your players hits a home run in a real game, he has
hit one in your fantasy league and your team gets credit for it.
The team with the best stats wins. ESPN.com and other sites are
still allowing people to form or join leagues.
At first, I rejected invitations to play. I told myself, I would
be a pure fan. Fantasy baseball threatened to corrupt this. For the
good of my fake-franchise I would have to choose Phillies and
Yankees. If I chose a closing pitcher in the National League East I
would find myself slightly consoled when my team, the Mets, failed
to make a comeback in the ninth inning against them. I knew I would
start to sound like a crazy person.
Watching games that never would have interested me in the past I
would shout at bartenders, "No! Leave the Blue-Jays game on! Don't
you understand? I OWN Alex Rios!"
THE GROWTH OF fantasy baseball has exploded. ESPN has an entire
staff of writers dedicated to writing about it. There are
television shows about it. Each year BusinessWeek or TIME publishes
studies that say millions of hours of work productivity are
lost
to NCAA brackets and fantasy baseball drafts.
If my own experience is representative, it is more like billions
of hours. During Cincinnati Reds day games, I find myself trying to
calculate whether Adam Dunn is in a slump. I print out 120 page
"Draft Guides" on company paper using company ink. These inform me
on every injury each highly rated second baseman has sustained in
his career.
After I check out my e-mail at night, I flip on Baseball Tonight
and keep tabs on west coast games that don't end until 1:30 in the
morning. Then I spend the night dreaming that my relief pitchers
will score a "hold"; that they'll come into the game in the 7th
inning and maintain their team's lead. It's an obscure stat -- but
we're counting them in my league this year.
The League of Ordinary Gentlemen held our draft just 7 hours
before the Red Sox and Athletics opened the baseball season in
Tokyo. It was a multi-hour affair complete with trash-talking. I
hadn't slept in three nights.
I winced as others selected players like Nats third basemen,
Ryan Zimmerman, just seconds before I could. I laughed triumphantly
as I nabbed Baltimore Orioles closer George Sherrill in the third
to last round.
My team is called the Dublin Downers, after my love of Bushmills
Irish whiskey. And there are only four words I can think of to
describe them: DOM-IN-ATE-ING!
I have a problem.
topics:
Television, Business, Sports
