Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

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Fulfilling my fantasies

There is a fine line in the scope of fandom; a streak in the sand that separates the sports enthusiast from the bizarre fanatic.

Sunday at 8:30 in the morning, I will be crossing that barrier and taking a journey to the dark side.

I’m joining a fantasy baseball league.

For 22 years, I’ve been able to maintain my sanity, respect and existentialist view of sports, not diving into the concentric circle of fanaticism of a fantasy league. It was an image issue, a moral code I was not going to break. Come hell or high water, there was no way I was going to live my life vicariously through every sac fly off the bat of Matt Mantei. If the ERA of Brett Tomko meant something more than an insignificant blot of ink in the morning paper, I would douse myself in gasoline. I vowed that if I ever gave the slightest glance at the slugging percentage of Garret Anderson, I would have to get rid of all sharp objects in my home.

So why in the name of Ruben Rivera am I acting against all form of good judgment and becoming a rotisserie geek? Because I have not the foggiest clue what uniforms Matt Mantei, Brett Tomko and Garret Anderson wear. If you asked me who led the AL in saves last year, I’d probably say Dennis Eckersly or Lee Smith. Heck, I can’t even tell you who’s won the Rookie of the Year since Eric Karros.

I can’t really pinpoint where I lost the meticulous zest for baseball, but it’s been gone since before I barely passed my driver’s test. Obviously, there’s more clutter in my life since I had a metallic smile, but baseball has been tossed to the backseat to the other options of my sports psyche.

The answer is, while very much a personal choice, rooted in the changing face of baseball. By no means am I going to rehash the unoriginal sociologist’s view of how baseball didn’t market its athletes like the NBA, or how the salaries and lack of parity of competition has hurt the game. Major League Baseball is as healthy as it has been in the last 30 years, as attendance records are being set all over the league and the countless young stars of a myriad of nationalities will take the torch well into the next decade.

The reason I abandoned baseball was the same reason fantasy leagues always scared the living bejesuses out of me: all those dreaded statistics.

Only in baseball does a manager make in-game decisions using statistics that require more than one calculation. Only on the diamonds are there more numbers compiled for one player than actual players on the team. And only in the outfield bleachers does a fan know exact statistics of how a player performs against right-handed submarine pitchers who have a better-than-average slider.

In our now information-at-your-fingertips age, it would probably be assumed that all these vital statistics would only add to the fans’ enjoyment of the game, when in reality it’s been the opposite. With so much of the game embedded in numbers and small idiosyncrasies, the ability for a fan to achieve a good feel for a player and a team takes deeper thought than any other sport. With 162 games, the aptitude to recognize tendencies and streaks of the players requires daily consumption.

Much like any adolescent boy my age, I relished the days of opening the morning paper and probing each statistic, then using them to help me analyze the game. It was not only fun, but necessary, as the limitless outlets and effortless access to data was only found through dialing 900 numbers that produced a pleasure only enjoyed by nine-year-old boys and fantasy geeks.

These days, baseball is on the verge of becoming a “cult” sport much like professional hockey, where fans are either passive followers who will flip on the World Series or pure, unadulterated savants of every team and their entire farm system.

While I personally have no intention of locking myself in my basement and running regression analysis on the Astros’ fielding percentages, joining a fantasy league is about the only way I can enjoy baseball as much as I do the other sports. Basketball is easy to analyze, and football is rather basic in its intricacies, and watching golf is like putting your brain on autopilot.

But with my fantasy baseball team as my companion for the 2002 season, my brain will surely be getting a workout, even if it does deem me a rotisserie nerd.

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