Sportswriter Don Banks takes an interesting look at Fantasy sports. His article focuses entirely on fantasy football but the analogies can be easily be applied to fantasy baseball. His basic premise is that fantasy football takes away from the actual sport. And he’s got his reasons.
As an APBA baseball manager for some 25 years and a fantasy baseball participant for 3 years, I have to say he brings up some good points. His best point?
1. It changes how you watch a game. We all have some experience with a person who has perfectly illustrated this point from time to time. Being a fantasy player means you can’t see the forest for the trees. Rather than watching a game in its context and meaning to the standings, fantasy folks often ignore the big picture, focusing only on how their players are performing around the league.
I have to plead guilty of this. When a pitcher from my Thunderchickens is facing the Cubs, do I want him to get shelled? My honest answer is no. I hope for clean 1-0 win by the Cubs. At least his ERA will go down.
However, check out Reason #4:
4. The geek factor. Sorry, but we have a name for people whose primary source of entertainment stems from stuff that didn’t really happen. They’re called Trekkies.
I mean, come on. We’re not all geeks. That’s just a stereotype. Now excuse me while I create an Access database of all my players stats.
A while back, The Sporting News had an article about how playing fantasy baseball changes how you watch the game. It pointed out how though you love to see your team playing small-ball, you watch your team’s shortstop advancing the runner from second to third on a groundout to the right and end up thinking, great, he gets his one RBI opportunity of the week and cant even line the ball to the outfield.