For the past 15 years (at least), I have participated in Fantasy Baseball. Most recently, I've been in a 16 team league with a bunch of guys in Boston. I was originally introduced to the league by one of my good friends from college, Steve Brinkley. I've actually become friends with a couple of the guys in the league and I would invariably run into them at Red Sox games at some point over the summer, talk trade, and lament the fact that our fantasy teams were never as good as we wanted them to be.
Well, at the beginning of each season, everyone gets together to have a draft to pick the players. It's one of the best nights of the year to talk baseball with other guys, make fun of people's picks, and make decisions about what players you will be cheering for over the next six months. For some reason, it seems like I always end up eating cheese puffs on the night of the draft. Someone usually brings them and I end up eating them because I refuse to buy them any other day of the year. I have several years of baseball draft cheat sheets with orange finger prints all over them because I eat cheesy puffs each year during draft night. It's very strange.
This year was a little bit different because I'm obviously not in Boston to do the draft in person. Well, everyone met at the Sports Depot in Allston for the draft. It started at 7 PM sharp EST and I worked from home that day (it was a Friday) so that I wouldn't be stuck at work during the whole draft. This was a good decision because the draft took almost 5 hours and didn't end until nearly midnight EST!! This year, we did the draft online using CBS sportsline but I definitely missed the banter of making fun of other people's selections, although I know that I was ridiculed for one of my selections - and rightfully so - because there is a chat function and after I made my 2nd pick, I got a big "GONG" from my friend Adam who I usually heckle the most during the draft. A gong is bad.
Anyway, it's still fun to do the draft and pick the players you think will do well and I think I drafted a pretty solid team. Fantasy baseball has actually been a regular source of income for me over the years, having finished in the money 7 out of the 9 years I've been involved in this league, including winning the whole thing 3 times (turning my $100 entry fee into $500 to $1000... not too bad!). I drafted very solid pitching as I am a strong believer that pitching wins championships, both in real baseball and in fantasy baseball. I have very solid pitching with Roy Holladay, Ben Sheets, Flash Gordon, Jonathan Papelbon... and the guy I took with my second round pick, 20th overall: Daisuke Matsuzaka, from the Red Sox. I will be the first to admit that it was way too early to take him, but from what I've seen he is going to be dominant. Anyway, the success of my team will likely be dependent on how well Dice-K pitches this year... I guess I'm in the same position as the Red Sox in that regard.
So I'll be watching the Sox very closely this year as usual. Hopefully I'll win my fantasy baseball league again, which will pay for the MLB Extra Innings package I ordered. I can basically watch every MLB game this year on Direct TV for $150 for the whole season, including all of the Red Sox games. So even though I'm on the west coast, I'll be watching most of the Sox games, which is really no different than any other season. Actually, I think the only thing that feels different is that I didn't end up with orange fingers because I forgot to bring cheese puffs to the draft...
Comments