The Immaculate Conception

[DOUGHBOYS]

I played in a fantasy football league and finished in first place.
No big deal.
In fact I played in zillions of leagues and finished first a few times.
But, in this particular league, I finished with a 15-1 record. You may think that's real good.
I know it wasn't.
Oh, I still took the money and had bragging rights that the spoils of a 15-1 record brings.
But, I knew it was luck.
You see, to go with that 15-1 record, I finished fifth in our league of 12 participants in total points.
The schedule had more to do with my team winning that league than anything else.


As competitors, we feel the need to beat another team.
Head to head is the most satisfying way of doing that.
Afterall, in real sports, teams go head to head each time and the total points don't matter.
The problem being that we do not play real sports.
Real teams only want to win. Even (shriek!), taking a knee at the end of a game.
We are in a point accumulating hobby, whether it is fantasy football or fantasy baseball.
That knee could mean less points to us. Their win, our loss.


Some folks play fantasy football for the satisfaction of beating another team each week. They get a certain sense of pride in going Mano A Mano and coming out victorious.
If scoring the second least amount of points in their league while beating the leagues worst team for that week, it doesn't matter, they got the W.
These same folks may think that fantasy baseball is boring. 180 days of only accumulating stats does not appeal to their inner need of beating somebody on a daily or weekly basis.
It's a grind.
A game of superior strategy, points placements, and patience.
Attributes not needed in going head to head.

Real sports play 16, 82, and 162 game schedules and then start a playoff system.
The playoff system is all about money. Period.
Sure, at the end of the playoffs a victor is crowned king of that sport.
It's silly, really.
These teams play 16, 82, and 162 games only to have their seasons remembered for what they do in a do or die game or short series that has nothing to do with the length of the original season.
Wildcard teams win championships because they happen to get hot at the right time of year. Even though they were near .500 over a 162 game span.
That's fair.

Fantasy football players can call our game a grind, or dull, or anything they want.
Real sports will go on with playoffs, inviting more and more teams into the playoffs to make more money.
It's all cool.
Nowhere will you find a more fair way of winning a season, be it real or other fantasy sports, than roto fantasy baseball.
We are the only hobby or sport without a playoff system or head to head 'winner' that had less points than the majority of their league for a week.
We have the last of the best of all schedules.
Our season starts and ends on the first day of a season and the last day of a season.
It's the way it should be.
And we are the only remaining sport or hobby that has that.
The immaculate conception.