I will spend hours upon hours Friday night looking over documents. I will pore over reams of documents searching for the perfect solution to my problems. \tTaxes? Nope. It\u2019s time for my fantasy baseball draft.<\/p>\n
This is serious business. Sure, there is money at stake, but I\u2019m not as worried about that as I am about undoing the past two years.
\nTwo years ago, I finished dead last. Last year, I managed to move up one spot to finish in 11th. The Baltimore Orioles envy the futility of my past two seasons.<\/p>\n
I joined this league in 1993 or 1994 and have never come close to winning. One year I did threaten for the title in one of the closest races ever, but fell from first to seventh in less than a month.<\/p>\n
A lesser person might walk away from that history. A better person would find a better way to spend the money I allocate for this hobby each year.<\/p>\n
Luckily, I\u2019m neither that big nor that good.<\/p>\n
Playing fantasy baseball is about more than bragging rights or prizes. If I got out of the league, I would turn my back on the food and beer served at our draft and the meetings we hold throughout the year.<\/p>\n
People give me free food and beverages at those meetings. We sit around and watch sports. We swap stories and make fun of each other.<\/p>\n
How can a guy turn that down?<\/p>\n
I also hold onto the illusion that each year might be the one I turn things around. Every draft gives me the hope that I might actually buy the beer for the next year\u2019s draft, an honor bestowed on the champion.<\/p>\n
I had that feeling last year. I sat down and looked at the spreadsheets I had prepared. I scanned my lists of preferred players. I filled up my plate with wings and pizza.<\/p>\n
Nothing could stop me now. Until the time came for my first pick. I had the ninth choice in the first round and as the guys ahead of me wrote their selections on the board, I faced a horrible realization.<\/p>\n
Barry Bonds was the top player available when my turn came. Getting one of the best players in baseball with the ninth pick was too good to be true.<\/p>\n
I once played in a free league online with my nephew and some of his college friends. One of them kept trying to trade me a player I hated. He couldn\u2019t understand why I wouldn\u2019t budge. I told him I could only root for a player I hated if I stood to win a lot of money.<\/p>\n
I hate Barry Bonds. Always have, even before we all found out (and you know it\u2019s true) that he has used steroids or something similar to improve his performance. I shook my head in disgust as I wrote his name on the board.<\/p>\n
Every time I looked at my name near the bottom of the standings, I recalled that moment. Perhaps my performance wasn\u2019t a sign of my incompetence, but a lesson in disguise. Maybe I would have done better if I had picked a player that wasn\u2019t on drugs.<\/p>\n
If I keep telling myself that, maybe I\u2019ll have some confidence when I make my picks this year. I have the second pick in the first round this year and am pretty sure Barry Bonds will be available.<\/p>\n
I won\u2019t make the same mistake twice. This year, I\u2019ll have someone else to blame when I bring up the rear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I will spend hours upon hours Friday night looking over documents. I will pore over reams of documents searching for the perfect solution to my problems. Taxes? Nope. It\u2019s time for my fantasy baseball draft. This is serious business. Sure,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-fantasy-sports","wpcat-3-id","wpcat-34-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}