Despite the wintery weather we have experienced so far this past March, opening day is upon us.

This means a revived hope for baseball fans that have longed to see their teams take the field in ballparks across the nation. It means hot dogs, the occasional adult beverage and spending quality time with your buddies.

The beginning of baseball also means the interminable season that is fantasy baseball.

Being one of the original fantasy games, fantasy baseball was born from statistics freaks who took their obsession mainstream by creating a game out of it and allowing team “managers” across the nation to bet on their teams.

While fantasy baseball may be the most intense fantasy game, it still does not offer the enjoyment or the following of fantasy football for several reasons.

First, no one wants to do the work required to have a successful fantasy baseball season, especially during the summer. Sure, when school is still in session and you just had your fantasy draft, you are going to be completely gung-ho about your league. You will watch “Baseball Tonight” every night to try to pick up whatever irrelevant fifth starter that goes 2-0 in the first few weeks of the season.

The school lets out, you start your summer job (or real job) and watching the games every afternoon takes a back seat to catching a tan. Next thing you know, your starters are riddled with injuries and your team has fallen to last place in the league. The demise of your squad will not be realized until August when you finally check your team.

The lack of commitment most give fantasy baseball leagues is not the only thing which makes them less fun than sitting through a three hour lecture in July. The fact there are people out there, probably friends of yours, who know every single pitching and hitting stat of every player for the last 10 years. These guys make playing fantasy baseball infinitely less fun because they not only try to watch every single game, but they try to rip you off because they know everything.

Of course, these supposed friends of yours will get the gratification of winning the league and probably remove about 10 bucks from your wallet in the process, but you know, in your heart, you probably did better things over the summer than memorize the WHIP (walks plus hits per innings pitched) of every starting rotation in the major leagues.

These fantasy baseball fanatics also hold another advantage over most of us. They know every single person on every single roster in the league and have a good knowledge of many of the farm systems as well. The sheer amount of players on each roster and the amount rosters change makes keeping up a fantasy baseball team a major pain in the rear end.

With fantasy football, there are only a set number of players each manager has to worry about. There are no minor league football teams, no guys getting brought up or brought down and starting rotations are more solid. In baseball, however, until the “Dog Days of Summer” begin, rosters are in constant flux. Pitchers spots in the rotation are constantly being changed, as are lineups. Unless you constantly keep up with these changes, it is easy to let your team go into disarray.

While baseball season is one of the best times of year, it is easily complicated by the confusion and frustration the fantasy season can cause. It takes away from the fun of the game and the enjoyment of sitting at a ballpark while you are worrying if your starting pitcher is doing well half way across the country.

Baseball is meant to be enjoyed outside, not in front of the computer screen. Once it gets cold out, you can hunker down inside to watch some NFL games while dominating your fantasy football league.

Ben is a senior majoring in journalism and history. Get frustrated by fantasy baseball, too? E-mail him at [email protected].