Walking away from fantasy sports

Sounds like me, except I haven't scaled back quite as much. I'm trying, though.

 

I don't think that day will ever come for me. I've been playing fantasy baseball since my sophomore year of high school -- 10 years now -- and I've been running a league for the last five years. I've also done basketball for the last five years and started playing football three years ago. For two of the last four seasons, I even played hockey.

But I did set some limits this year. Two years ago, I had four baseball teams, three basketball teams, a football team, a pick'em team and a hockey team. So once baseball season came around, I was managing eight different teams. That was a little too hectic for me. I'm down to two baseball, basketball and football teams, with two pick'em teams.

Like you, OHB, I find myself compromising my roots at times. Sometimes I'll root for Carlos Beltran to strike out so Wright can have a crack at a pair of RBIs, or I'll want Glavine to get torched, but have New York come back and win the game once he's gone. It's frustrating at times, but I've learned to deal.

 

My first rule of fantasy sports: If I find myself rooting against a real-world team I care about, it's time to quit.

There was a time I wanted nothing to do with fantasy sports. I was a passionate Steelers and Pirates fan and that was enough rooting interest for me.

Then the Pirates quit, or at least that is how I saw it when the team let Barry Bonds and Doug Drabek leave as free agents after the 1992 season. Blame baseball's economic system. Blame the Pirates' bad decisions. Doesn't matter. They weren't just losing some free agents (like John Smiley and Bobby Bonilla the previous year). They were being gutted. If you can't keep players like that, you just aren't going to compete. I still follow the Pirates, but the passion has been gone since then.

That is when I turned to fantasy baseball. Two years later, I won a league for the first time and I was hooked for good. In fantasy baseball, my teams always have at least a chance to win. Unlike the Pirates, they are never eliminated from realistic contention before the regular season even begins. My opponents can't just outspend me and I don't have to rely on Pittsburgh's disgrace of a front office to suddenly start doing things right.

I had as many as five leagues one year, which was ridiculous, but I have settled in at three, two keepers that I have been in for years and SportsJournalists.com Money starting last season. Fantasy baseball enhances my enjoyment of the game and expands my knowledge of it. I'm not just a stathead. I watch the games as often as I can. Fantasy ball just gives me a rooting interest where I would have none.

My addiction has spread to football, where I usually have two leagues, though that isn't nearly as intersting to me. I have no problem rooting for the Steelers to kick the crap out of any player on one of my fantasy teams. I could see myself walking away from fantasy football. I have gone seasons without it before.

But baseball? I'm addicted for life.

 

I walked away from it last year. I just don't have the time to average six or seven waiver wire pickups and 13 or 14 lineup changes a day for games played once a week.

I also love the fact that I can now watch a random game and watch it for its own sake rather than fret because I have the Jacksonville defense going against the Colts on Monday Night Football and I need them to score 20 points for me to win a game.

Now, I can only stay up and watch a late football game if my RL favorite team is battling for a playoff spot or they're playing their hated archrivals and not hope that Tony Romo throws six touchdown passes against the Redskins because I need him to have a big game. Even though I bleed burgundy and gold.

 

I got out a couple of years ago as well, transitioning to an unpaid, on-call consultant. I liked competing (I got a call on a golf course that Jeff Jaeger of the Raiders had made a field goal to win my league one year) but knew I had to get out when I was waking up at 5 to get the paper and check boxscores. It's still fun to hear others talk/moan/complain/brag about it, but I don't really miss playing.