Fantasia
Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2011 10:49 am
I'm tainted.
George Will will have nothing to do with me. Bob Costas would give me the finger.
Here's the deal. As an experiment, I tried watching a complete baseball game without thoughts of fantasy. I had my membership card in the pure baseball club taken away.
Sad really.
I couldn't do it.
Baseball is slow. A game played without a clock..
I can go to the convenience store, grab a sack of chips and a Big Gulp before Jorge Posada talks to AJ Burnett about how to pitch David Ortiz.
Fantasy, makes it a faster game.
There's a commercial on tv that states the average human mind has 3,000 thoughts a day. I guess that makes us above average, cuz fantasy baseballers have that many during the course of a game.
I wasn't counting, but you know it's so.
Daniel Okrent has taken a two and a half hour ball game and turned it into a 12 month crossword puzzle.
It is so much easier to be a fan. With one question they can be happy or sad. That question, of course, is, 'What's the score?'
After a fantasy player asks that question, it could be followed with-
Who's pitching?
How'd they score?
Homers?
Stolen bases?
Anybody hurt?
Normal lineup?
K's?
But, we do know better than to ask about WHIP, thus avoiding the, "Huh?' from the typical fan.
Yep, tainted.
The game in my head and on the stats sheets has surpassed the joy of watching the game for the love of watching the game.
Damn that Okrent!
A friend of mine knows me to well.
He was introducing me to a friend of his by saying, "Dan is all about baseball. In fact let me tell you something remarkable about Dan and follow up with something that makes the original remarkable, unremarkable."
"A few years ago, Dan won $20,000 playing high stakes fantasy baseball.
Remarkable, right?
Now, to make that unremarkable...
He thinks about fantasy baseball 24/7.
24 hours, 365 days a year. That computes to a little over $2.00 an hour. Unremarkable."
He's right. But hey, I'm just glad he didn't figure out how much an hour I lost during the bad years.
A math teacher once taught me that every facet of baseball is based on geometry. The arc and trajectory of each thrown or batted ball determines where that ball is hit and how that ball is caught.
Fantasy baseball takes that geometry and transforms it into 'numerish'.
The chosen language of fantasy nuts like us.
George Will and Bob Costas can look down their noses at us, but our old math teachers would be giving us a wink.
George Will will have nothing to do with me. Bob Costas would give me the finger.
Here's the deal. As an experiment, I tried watching a complete baseball game without thoughts of fantasy. I had my membership card in the pure baseball club taken away.
Sad really.
I couldn't do it.
Baseball is slow. A game played without a clock..
I can go to the convenience store, grab a sack of chips and a Big Gulp before Jorge Posada talks to AJ Burnett about how to pitch David Ortiz.
Fantasy, makes it a faster game.
There's a commercial on tv that states the average human mind has 3,000 thoughts a day. I guess that makes us above average, cuz fantasy baseballers have that many during the course of a game.
I wasn't counting, but you know it's so.
Daniel Okrent has taken a two and a half hour ball game and turned it into a 12 month crossword puzzle.
It is so much easier to be a fan. With one question they can be happy or sad. That question, of course, is, 'What's the score?'
After a fantasy player asks that question, it could be followed with-
Who's pitching?
How'd they score?
Homers?
Stolen bases?
Anybody hurt?
Normal lineup?
K's?
But, we do know better than to ask about WHIP, thus avoiding the, "Huh?' from the typical fan.
Yep, tainted.
The game in my head and on the stats sheets has surpassed the joy of watching the game for the love of watching the game.
Damn that Okrent!
A friend of mine knows me to well.
He was introducing me to a friend of his by saying, "Dan is all about baseball. In fact let me tell you something remarkable about Dan and follow up with something that makes the original remarkable, unremarkable."
"A few years ago, Dan won $20,000 playing high stakes fantasy baseball.
Remarkable, right?
Now, to make that unremarkable...
He thinks about fantasy baseball 24/7.
24 hours, 365 days a year. That computes to a little over $2.00 an hour. Unremarkable."
He's right. But hey, I'm just glad he didn't figure out how much an hour I lost during the bad years.
A math teacher once taught me that every facet of baseball is based on geometry. The arc and trajectory of each thrown or batted ball determines where that ball is hit and how that ball is caught.
Fantasy baseball takes that geometry and transforms it into 'numerish'.
The chosen language of fantasy nuts like us.
George Will and Bob Costas can look down their noses at us, but our old math teachers would be giving us a wink.
