Inspiration

The inspiration for this blog is easy to find, particularly now that it's baseball season.

This is my eighth or so season as a fantasy baseball nerd, and experience hasn't made it any easier. You throw some guys out there, hope they produce good statistics for you, and then bellyache when they don't. And hope your opponent has worse luck with his guessing game.

Any particular league has its share of nuts and juggernauts, and nuts who are juggernauts. Everybody has their own rule of thumb in particular situations. Some managers value guys who leg out triples, some adore their big sluggers, some prize their star pitchers above all else, some people love guys who play multiple positions -- the Mark DeRosas of the world. Some people famously add and drop like maniacs to get the hot hand until they run out of moves, if the league has a move limit.

Despite all the heartache and gnashing of teeth, fantasy baseball continues to be a welcome escape for a mundane, irritating and sometimes rather depressing existence, and all the dashed hopes and dreams of our lives can take a back seat to all the dashed hopes and dreams of fantasy. And somehow, it all seems less gloomy because it doesn't really matter, but we can pretend it does, and we can make those underperforming bums on our teams the scapegoats for all the hurt and angst of our real lives. It's therapeutic.