When Fantasy Sports Ruin Your Enjoyment of Sports

I'm a big sports fan, so when I was invited to join a fantasy sports league I happily accepted. For those of you who are less familiar with this increasingly popular pastime, fantasy sports are neither a showdown between characters such as Gandalf, Merlin, and Aslan, nor is it a competition with sexual overtones, as the name may suggest.

In essence, participants in a league are randomly allocated (though you can set preferences) real-life players in a draft, and can trade them with other participants and replace them as they see fit. The object of the game is to manage a team which will, when stats are aggregated, "beat" the other teams in the fantasy league. In a nutshell, you're rooting for the individual players on your fantasy team to do well statistically.

A problem arises when you have players on your fantasy team who either are playing for a team you dislike, or are playing against the team you root for in "real life". For example, six years ago I had Roy Halladay of the Blue Jays as the ace on my fantasy team. He was slated to pitch in an early season game against my beloved Yankees.

I happened to attend this game in person, and I was inhibited from completely rooting for a Yankees rout because I was caught up worrying about Halladay's ERA (how many runs a pitcher gives up every nine innings) and WHIP (how many walks and hits a pitcher gives up per inning). That being said, there wasn't a question that "real life" allegiances prevailed, and I was clearly going to root for the Yankees to win, but found myself hoping for a 1-0 Yankee victory with Halladay striking out 15 Yankees in the process. I rationalized that at least I'd get a Yankee win or a Halladay win, so I was ensured of breaking even.

Unfortunately, Halladay pitched a gem, but lost the win (which is an important fantasy sports stat) when Jays closer Kelvim Escobar blew a three-run lead in the bottom of the ninth. Despite being free to completely root for the Yankees to go ahead and win the game, the Blue Jays won in extra innings. So much for me breaking even.

I had a similar situation in the past Monday night football game between the Eagles and Cowboys. I was rooting for the Eagles to win, but with Marion Barber, Jason Witten, and Nick Folk on my fantasy football team, I was a little conflicted. The end result was that the Cowboys sadly won, but my Barber, Witten, and Folk piled on some nice stats that got me a win in my fantasy league.

In general, I think it's better to watch sports without agonizing whether a particular player on a team you couldn't care less about broke 100 yards rushing.

I'm sure someday I'll realize that the enjoyment of pretending that I'm the general manager of a sports team isn't worth the time or angst that comes with managing a fantasy team.