Like many fans these days, I’ve been a slave to the fantasy sports craze.
It’s so easy. You get together with nine to 11 of your friends, get your laptops in a room with a decent Wi-Fi connection, compile a team and spend the season battling head to head with each other.
Become a general manager? Put yourself in the game? Get bragging rights over friends? What a deal.
One thing nobody warns you about: fantasy overload. I found myself in that situation a year ago.
In the fantasy sports world, I played them all: NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, you name it. I even got roped into a fantasy NASCAR league, even though I have no interest in auto racing.
Fantasy sports require your constant attention. In football, team owners usually check out their teams’ injuries and available players on the waiver wire multiple times a week. When picking your lineup, you hope that you beat your opponents to those best-available players. It’s always in the back of your mind.
Baseball takes much more work. Because baseball teams play every day, fantasy owners must check their rosters every three days to adjust their lineups. Every baseball league I’ve been in, roster moves are the norm.
As a fantasy player, you’re also in high demand. At least I was.
About four or five friends had leagues, and each league was one or two teams short of an even number. No league wants to have an odd number of teams.
I was constantly asked to be that last team to fill out the league, and I’m the kind of guy who says, “Sure, I’ll do it.” Once, I was in five football teams overlapped with two baseball teams.
After a while, I just got tired of it. It seemed like every day I had some concern about my fantasy teams. How would Brandon Jacobs run against the Cowboys defense? What am I going to do with Matthew Stafford out? Are the distractions by Chad Johnson — I mean, Chad Ochocinco — going to affect the Bengals?
I finally had enough. Last year, much to the confusion of my fellow owners, I made the decision to enjoy the 2011 football season fantasy-free.
I was going to focus on my team and its success. I didn’t have to worry about how to deal with Peyton Manning’s seasonlong injury — my friend and colleague Mark Rudi wasn’t so lucky.
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You know what? It was refreshing. I was rewarded with San Francisco’s best season in years. Without outside distractions from teams I had no interest in, I was able to follow the season with a renewed sense of freedom.
To many sports fans, this proposal is blasphemy. They’re so sports crazy that they need as much as they can possibly consume. But if you’re like me, don’t feel compelled to stick with fantasy sports.
Live one season free from that stress.
I have a feeling you’ll thank me later.
