Fantasy Sports

At the bidding of my father, and because it's actually a good idea, this week is about the advancement and fan-obsession of fantasy sports.

I can't say I'm a total nutjob for fantasy sports because I only do football and baseball. But in the last 10-15 years, fantasy sports have become almost as important as sexual gratification to the American male population. We enjoy nothing more than to rub in the extra 10 yards that Ladanian Tomlinson gained because it made the difference between a 1-point loss and a 1-point win. And bragging about that upset might be more gratifying when you wake up the next morning....

But I digress.

Before it found an incredible following, fantasy sports were for nerds with too much time and not enough cash. I remember being in my early teams and having my Ohio-an cousins talking about fantasy football which they had to record statistics on paper and calculate their scores manually. As I watched them, I thought, "Who the heck cares how many yards Emmitt Smith gains, especially when the Cowboys lost the game anyway?

But today the whole system is online and incredibly easy. My friends and I have yearly fantasy football leagues, my family has a yearly baseball league. This year I even did college football (finishing 2nd, I might add) and a player league for the NCAA tournament (5 players plus 1 player from a 13-or-below team). The possibilities are limitless.

Now in most leagues, especially with friends or family, the smack-talk is witty, hilarious and caustic to the recipient (btw props to my father who went 0-10 in the first week of the fantasy baseball season). But the problem for me is that people put too much into it. Sure we all wager a couple bucks that probably won't mean life or death for our financial situations, but making inappropriate sexual remarks (do not take the above too seriously) or dolling out lewd names is just pathetic.

In our fantasy baseball league, a huge deal was made about the number of innings that a team must contribute each week. But will it really make a difference?? Probably not.

Our hopes and dreams each week rest way too much upon our fantasy sports outcomes. Sundays are wasted checking and rechecking scouting reports, before, during and after every single football game. People risk friendships over meaningless league rules.

It's more mayhem than the Wannen-household during one of my sisters' many sleepovers. Ask my dad, they kill his spirit.

Why care so much about a "sport" that doesn't even affect the outcome of the teams you root for?

If I win in fantasy sports will the Redskins get rid of Daniel Snyder and become a real team? NO!

If I win this fantasy baseball league, will the Orioles finally finish above .500 for the first time in a decade? Of course not (as I write this a small, single tear rolls down my cheek, and this evening I will dream about Peter Angelos selling the team to Cal Ripken when I'm 30 years old).

Stop being idiots about a game that is more hit-or-miss than my buddy Dan's chances at taking home a girl from the bar. It's not life or death, unless you're my buddy Dan.