How bad do you want to lose in your fantasy league?
I can get you from the overall first pick to the depths of last place faster than a Mark Sanchez butt fumble.
It was in everyone's best interest that two decades ago I swore off playing in rotisserie-style anything of any kind -- football, baseball, golf, Little League T-ball. I continue to enjoy this cleansing of the soul and maintain a purified outlook at just how messed up a fantasy league can be to the psyche and checkbook.
So, with that, I checkedout a new book by Matthew Berry.
In "Fantasy Life: The Outrageous, Uplifting and Heartbreaking World of Fantasy Sports from the Guy Who's Lived It" (Riverhead Books, $27.95, 338 pages), I hesitate to say fantasy looks real again.
Before I take that walk of shame again, I needed to track down Berry, who once lived in Sherman Oaks when he did TV sitcom writing but has since moved to Connecticut (perhaps the requirements of a witness protection program):
Q: Fantasy leagues took up too much of my time and energy and I was losing to guys who picked players with as much research as they would in making a $2 bet on a thoroughbred at Santa Anita. Why should I consider ever getting back into it? Can you convince me one way or another?
A: Unless you're anti-fun, and I don't get that sense, why would you not want to do it? You get to have a rooting interest in games you'd normally not care about. And if you're not a sports fan, you have a reason to watch. Now that you're older, you probably would have a little better perspective of all that.
Q: The perspective I have is feeling that sports fantasy leagues are too mercenary. It forces you to invest a rooting interest in a player which could be at the expense of rooting against a team you've already been emotionally tied to for many years. Is there a way to rectify that psychological hurdle?
A: It goes to your fandom. I don't think there's anything wrong with rooting for individual players over your 'real life' team. It really sounds more like you have some guilt issues, to be perfectly honest. So who cares? I get questions a lot, from those especially who are anti-fantasy, who say, 'That makes you root for players instead of teams.' I'm like, 'Who are you to legislate how I enjoy sports?' There are different ways to enjoy everything in life. Whether I'm rooting for the group of players I've selected on a fantasy team or you're rooting for another group of players that a general manager has selected, we're still rooting for groups of players. As long as we're both enjoying sports, who cares how we're doing it?
Q: I guess I've felt I had conflicted rooting interests. And I was spending way too much time away from my family in pursuit of winning.
A: Got it. In that case, maybe pick your teams a little better. If you want to win, it's not necessarily the best strategy to pick your favorite players, but I don't have an issue with that because in the end fantasy is supposed to be fun. That's what this book is supposed to show. It's not a book about how to win your fantasy league and crush your opponents. It's a book that celebrates all the things I love about fantasy sports -- the trash-talking, the punishments for losing, the trophies, the creative ways people have tried to cheat. There's a story from Senator Rick Santorum about how he had to do a fantasy draft on the day he dropped out of the presidential race. What's lost in there is he plays in an American League-only fantasy baseball league. The reason he does it is because he was from Pennsylvania, where he has the Pirates and Phillies as National League teams, and he didn't want to have to root against either of those teams. That was the idea.
Q: That makes sense. In reading the book, I get the sense you've become used to being a 'fantasy shrink,' where people confess to someone like you who'd understand where they were coming from. Is that how you feel?
A: There is the saying that the most interesting conversation in the world is all about your fantasy team. And the most boring conversation in the world is anyone else's fantasy team. Right? It's the new golf story or vacation pictures. No one cares about your team other than you. Except me. That's my job. I like to hear it. I want to hear it. And I'm amazed what people admit to me. I've been playing almost 30 years and there were many stories where I was like, 'Wow, I've never heard that one.' I thought I'd get a lot of stories about guys who drafted while their wives were giving birth, those kinds of things. I was shocked by the majority of the stories I got -- like a league that forced the loser to get a tattoo of Justin Bieber. A guy who continued drafting through a bombing while he was in Afghanistan. A league that forced its loser to dress like a lion while the other owners hunted him down with paintball guns. There's the league where a guy and his wife are owners and the wife passes away, so the husband starts making these trades with the dead wife ...
Q: You've also tapped into stories about a priest, a rabbi or and a minister in a league ... and all hell breaks loose?
A: Sounds like the start of a bad joke, but it's actually three different leagues. Cheating pastors! I couldn't believe that happens, but it has. In a league filled with other pastors at his church.
Q: You can justify fantasy leagues as something that "gives people who normally would not have a reason to interact an excuse to talk ... from the CEO and mailroom guys to your long-lost cousins and everyone in between." What if I wanted to be in a fantasy league and not talk to anyone? Does that defeat the purpose?
A: Not at all. Go to ESPN.com and sign up for an anonymous league. But now I'm sensing some conflict, more guilt, some anti-social behavior. I think you've got more issues to work through here.
Q: Maybe I'm just in the wrong leagues. What other fantasy leagues that you do?
A: I have a fantasy summer movie league with all my buddies who are screen writers and directors. There's about 30 of us; we threw up a website called summermovieleague.com to keep track of it -- anyone can play if they want -- and you just pick 10 movies you think will make the most money for the summer for your own fantasy studio. I do pretty well, but I think this year "The Lone Ranger" is going to keep me from winning the title.
Q: That darn Adam Sandler.
A: I know, and I didn't even pick "Grown Ups 2."
Q: I could have told you to take that one.
A: Maybe this is a league for you then.
Q: As long as I don't have to get a tattoo if I lose.
A: Make sure that's in the bylaws.
More Q and A with Berry on the blog: www.insidesocal.com/tomhoffarth
Note: Berry will sign books and do a fantasy 'Q and A' at Barnes and Noble at the Grove near Farmer's Market on Fairfax on Monday at 7 p.m.
thomashoffarth@dailynews.com"?@TomHoffarth on Twitter
Source: http://www.sbsun.com/sports/ci_23702189/sunday-q-and-fantasy-sports-can-read-like
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