Fantasy sports: 'Worst trend of the last three decades'

Caring about a fantasy league more than about who wins the Super Bowl just seems weird to me. I did fantasy sports for a few years, but I just don't have the time for stuff like that and the Internet anymore.

 

Simulation sports > fantasy sports

I care more about my simulated college football Oregon State than any real college team. We went to the Rose Bowl this year, btw.

 

Strat-o-Matic is much more awesome than any fantasy baseball I've ever done. And spikechiquet, I had the llama first.

 

I love when people who hate fantasy sports say "I don't want to hear about your fantasy team."
Sometimes stuff like that comes up in casual conversation. I don't want to hear about your shitty vacation, what your views are on Obama or how you enjoy all the reality TV on E. But I deal with it because I'm not a douchebag; apparently people who hate fantasy sports are.
I like fantasy sports because it's fun for me. God forbid people like stuff that others don't. I hate skiing and don't see the point, but I'm not going to act all high and mighty around people who like it.
Is it nerdy? That's what people who don't understand it say. But what isn't nerdy? I think reading fiction books is nerdy. I think crossword puzzles are nerdy. I think an interest in cars is nerdy. Of course, I don't get any of that.
People, calm the fuck down. There is no right or wrong in this. The people who are sour on fantasy sports are, more often than not, sour human beings.

And as an aside,
I had an editor at another paper call it a generational thing. We were covering a game and I was tracking my football team. Andre Johnson went nuts, catching a ton of passes for a shitload of yardage and scoring two TDs. The Texans lost. I said he had a hell of a day. Editor's reply?
"That's what's wrong with your generation. How could he have a good day if his team lost?"
Easy. He did everything he could to help his team win. Sorry he doesn't play defense.

 

At a former shop we had an XFL fantasy league. It was fun because no one knew what they were doing and finding information on the players wasn't easy. If I remember correctly the No. 1 draft pick in the league was cut before the season started.

 

I played 3M Baseball, Sports Illustrated HOF Baseball, and Strat-O-Matic in the 1970s and early 80s, and I was really fired up when I read the articles in SI about the original Rotisserie Baseball, the first of all fantasy sports, in about 1980-81, I think it was. About that time, I was also reading the first mass-market editions of the Bill James Abstract. I figured once I got into a job where I had either any spare time or any spare money it would be a blast to play fantasy baseball.

AND, in my early newspaper jobs, where I had access (sometimes) to minor-league stats, I thought how awesome it would be to have a HOME COMPUTER where you could check this stuff any time you wanted to.

Of course at the time I also knew the starting lineup of almost every NBA team, probably 75% of the starting lineups in the NFL, etc etc. It all seemed so natural.

But I never got the job with the free time or money to do it. I was on the verge a few times, but the guys who wanted to play always wanted to spend way, way more time and money on it than I did, and I always found better ways to spend both.

There are people around here now who are just gonzo on it. That's fine, it isn't up to me to tell them how to spend their time or money. But I do have to remind them occasionally that very truly, nobody does give a shit about their fantasy team.

 

DAMN! I have avatars turned off on here, so I never saw it. Laughed my ass off when I saw it. Much better than dramatic groundhog!

 

Rostisserie baseball may have turned Americans on to fantasy sports, but Canuckistanis have been holding playoff hockey pools for years. I remember my old man hosting the draft for the pool he was in with the guys he worked with when I was a little kid in the early 70s.

I started playing fantasy football with my brothers and some friends back in the mid-80s and loved it. But once I started working every Sunday during football season I began to lose interest in the NFL and haven't been in a league in some time.

I am in an NHL league every year that one of the guys in the office runs but I put little thought into the draft. I have no interest in golf but have played in the SportsJournalists.com league for several years and enjoy it. I have been in the SportsJournalists.com NASCAR league too.

Baseball is my thing and I am usually in three or four leagues.

 

I started playing fantasy football in the early 90s when I was in college. I was the commish of our league and a family league too.

When the internet caught on to it, I did leagues with co-workers, etc.

But as time has passed, my interest has waned. I don't really know why. Some of it was the people who saw sports only through the prism of fantasy sports, which I think is stupid. Some of it was trying to do multiple leagues, with each league I did, it watered down the interest in each of them individually. Probably more of it was the fact that I had to devote time to other things.

I still do my family fantasy league, but that's it. One league at a time. I'd be interested in doing a keeper baseball league, but my circle of friends isn't into baseball enough to do it.

 

I have mentioned this before but I knew a guy who used Strat-O-Matic to replay the entire 1981 baseball season - every team, every game. Took him 11 years.

 

Did they have a strike in the middle of the season?

 

No, I think that's why he did it, to see how the full season would have played out. As I recall, the Expos won the World Series.