Friday, March 14, 2008

A Jaunt Into the World of Fantasy Sports Fans

We are having our fantasy baseball draft soon. Since we do a keeper league, I have to decide on which baseball players I want to gamble on for the next year by tomorrow night. This stresses me out, because I am not a sports fan. I do not follow the stats or the preseason play, and I do not even know who is hurt unless there is a red cross by their name on my computer screen. BUT...I really want to win. I REALLY like to see my brothers try and deal with the fact that I am beating them. So, somehow I have to figure out which of these 29 players is going to do me some good this season.

My solution to this is usually to read a bit on various sports sites and then print off a list of the top 300 and draft from it. But I have gone from winning my first year of fantasy baseball to finishing at a dismal 6th place out of 10 last year. So, I put a desperate solution into place this year. Today I took the brave step of actually registering on two different sports sites, listing my team and asking all those male sports fanatics out there who in the heck they thought I should keep. I used a fake name, because I am not stupid enough to use my own, and I didn't post my picture either...just an avatar on one and nothing on the other. The response has been cracking me up, though. All these guys know is that I am a 38 year old (okay, I put in a fake birthday too, but you can't be too safe in these days of identity theft, right? Who knew they would actually post my age next to my fake name?) girl from Oregon. Yet, I have received four emails so far from various aged men (one 18...do we think he lied about his age too?) asking me to join their friend networks. One guy wrote me a nice note welcoming me to the site too. I guess a babe in boyland in an anomoly. Or in other words, a girl on a rabid sports fan site is exciting! Mind you, I did explain that I did fantasy baseball with my HUSBAND and brothers in my post. Regardless, it is an ego booster, I guess. My husband says they just want a friend to talk sports with. Right. Well, if he is correct...which I doubt, but what do I know, not being a male rabid sports fan...they will be sadly disappointed with this girl. I don't like sports. I do not have a favorite team, because I do not like any team. In fact, when my brothers made me pick my favorite teams when we were growing up (for some dumb kind of card game we played with their trading cards), I just picked the teams that were named after horses in each sport. You know, phillies, colts, broncos...but I digress.

The posts have actually been helpful. There seems to be a common consensus as to whom I should keep, with one or two exceptions they are arguing over. And one very nice man gave me some valuable explanations on drafting/keeping strategies. So, I would have to say it has been a worthwhile move. (I was just scared to death to do it. It is humbling to try and communicate with people who speak jargon that is totally foreign to me.) It just made me laugh when the offers started coming. (No worries, I am not going to leave my husband or anything. I am thankful that he has toned down his sports fan personality in the 13 years of our marriage.) Now the true test will be how well I do in our league based on all the advice I am getting.

1 comment:

Margaret said...

Glad to hear you are still walking the line!