FANTASY BASEBALL

Yesterday was the draft for one of the teams in my Fantasy Baseball Leagues. (My wife Dianne now knows that I have more than one team. Don't worry, dear. I'll manage them on the computer before you get going in the day.) I don't participate in live drafts. That's far too much work. I let the computer draft for me and then I enjoy the challenge of trades, identifying free agents, and setting a roster each week to see if I can produce a winner. I had one team last year, the Landisville Sluggers, who finished third in their division and became one of the two wild card teams (my team was also third out of the league's 12 teams). Hanley Ramirez, Andre Ethier, Evan Longoria were the stars. And my beloved Detroit Tigers pitching staff.

Now for a little honest confession:

Sometimes I think I spend too much time on the computer. I know my wife thinks so, especially when it’s her computer I seem to be hogging. I blog and FACEBOOK. I email, I web surf for great sites about religion and life.

But in the summer this all ramps up as the Major League Baseball season begins because it also signals the beginning of the Fantasy Baseball season. Last summer I ventured in to it a small way, entering the Landisville Sluggers into one of MLB.Coms thousands of leagues. Trading, seeking free agents, setting weekly lineups were a new rush. Then there was watching my game in progress (and watching the real games in progress via computer that added points to “my game”) could consume an entire evening.

I am out of market for my own beloved Detroit Tigers, so I watch their games on computer, too. So caught up was I by my Sluggers that sometimes I only gave a few moments to my Tigers. Am I just a little bit out of touch with reality or what?

Well this summer I have added Leyland’s Powerhouse to my MLB holdings. And I have opened a new front in the CBS Fantasy Game with the Dunn Tiger Cats in the King Jesus League. So far, I have promised myself (and by extension, my wife) to check results in the early hours when I first arise and remind myself that watching the game live (if it can be called that when you’re talking about a computer simulation of a fantasy game) may put too great a stranglehold on my life.

Nonetheless, Opening Day is less than a week away.