Thursday, June 23, 2011

Fantasy and Reality

Fantasy: Maybe my brain got poached Monday on San Pablo Bay.

Reality: This Heat Wave is so cruel coming as it has after such a prolonged cold wet Spring.

Fantasy: Maybe I'll finish out of the cellar in Tour de France Fantasy Bicycle Racing this July.

Reality: I'm a piker at Fantasy Bicycle Racing. I finished four times at the bottom of my league during the two races I've contested this season...the Critérium du Dauphiné and the Tour de Suisse.

I'm never going to play Fantasy Baseball or Fantasy NFL...too much work. (It could be argued that if I did a little more "work" on my fantasy bicycle teams, I'd get out of the cellar)

Baseball loves computers...Football too. Thanks to the computer revolution, there's even more baseball stats than before computers. (However, baseball and computer databases being what they are, all the new stats can easily be compiled all the way back to the 1860's beginning of professional ball).

I love San Francisco Giants baseball too much to burden myself with a fantasy team.

I'm what you'd call a Baseball Purist. I have a visceral connection to the game's Old-Timey nature, and to the history of Baseball. I think Inter-League Play devalues the World Series.

I don't like the DH either, though I believe it's inevitable that the Designated Hitter Virus will infect the National League. (The MLB Player's Union will never let those lucrative positions for aging stars go away, in fact forcing the DH down the National League's throat is a major goal of the Player's Union) The DH spot is a highly paid position for a one-way player, and those adored aging stars carry a lot of weight with the fans come collective bargaining time.

I believe it's short-sided to trash so much strategy and nuance from the game just to extend the careers of a few over-paid fading stars facing the twilight of their careers...most of whom will never be remembered like the True Greats are.

In the Fall, it's gridiron time. My friend KirkVallus cured me of Fantasy Football. Every NFL Season, KV drafts a team, and from week one they all go down to injury like the parade of victims in a murder mystery...I can't afford to have that on my conscience!

The Tour de France begins Saturday July 2nd. I can put together my teams now, but all the real teams aren't quite set yet. I'll do a little more reading...err, studying of the likely team rosters and the pre-race hype before settling on Team CorduroyPlanet's TdF Squad.

If I treat the Fantasy Racing as lightly as I have these past two seasons, it'll be just a little extra fun during the grand Tour.

I wonder...will there be America's Cup Fantasy Racing?

1 comment:

  1. Is that an "Iconic" fantasy? Or is it more like, "I wish I had that beeg galoot on my team!"? Sports are highly overated and highly over paid and highly over priced for the ticket.

    The Giants game was great but oh so different from the Candlestick experience. More like going to a fricking rave! The continual noise from the shrieking meme announcer and the blitz from the giganti-tron televison was somewhat over stimulating. The line for the bathroom and concessions was outrageous!

    I want to see the game not the hoorah crap. I want to be able to pee without missing three innings. I want a good dog like they use to could. I want beer here so I don't have ta leave my seat. I wanna hear heckling. One time was interesting.

    As for wasting time on creating a team, why bother? My time is worth more than speculating about overpaid idiots who play ball.

    ReplyDelete