Fantasy Baseball

Rick Reilly, columnist for Sports Illustrated, recently wrote a column in which he criticized a longstanding summer game ­ fantasy baseball. 

  For those of you who don't know what fantasy baseball is, it is a game that occurs totally on paper.  The only caveat is the game results in the actual play of real major league baseball players.  Simply stated, there is a league of anywhere from 6 to 15 people who each own a team (my team is named The Rat Pack).  The team picks anywhere from 20-24 players and then proceeds to set a daily or weekly lineup in order to earn points.  Points are earned for offensive categories like hits, home runs, runs scored, runs batted in, stolen bases, and for pitching categories like wins, saves, strikeouts, complete games, and shutouts.  You can lose points also if your hitter strikes out or gets caught stealing a base, and for pitchers with losses, walks, and wild pitches.  Of course, the scoring can be as intricate as you would like or as loose as you would like. 

  Once the points are earned for each team, a total is given.  If you have the most points, you are in first place.  If you have the least points, you will be in last place.  And, so on.  The fun of the game is trying to either hold onto first place, as I am currently trying to do, or making the right moves in order to climb up in the standings.

   Reilly questioned the types of people who play this game.  He says there loyalty is winning their league and not to a favorite team.  He labels fantasy leaguers as people who would rather spend time watching SportsCenter and Baseball Tonight than spend time with their wives and children.  This could not be further from the truth. 

   The league I am in contains teachers, lawyers, small business owners, vice presidents of financial institutions, and full time students.  We are all educated individuals who root passionately for our favorite teams.  We all would much rather see our teams win than our players on our fantasy teams do well against them.  We love our families, and we always put them before any fantasy baseball business.  Fantasy baseball is our hobby, not our life.  Maybe Mr. Reilly should have asked some real players before writing his misguided comments.

   On a side note, a longtime fantasy leaguer, Ralph "Bucky" Hoffman, passed away last week.  I was privileged to sit in on a few drafts with him over the last four years.  When he was too ill to participate this year, every team owner was cognizant of his absence and offered some comments that "Bucky" would normally say.  It was our way of telling him we missed him.  Fantasy baseball may be just a game to some, but it was truly a friendship builder with "Bucky".  Hey, "Bucky", everyone, including Fernando Titis, will miss you greatly.