Fantasy sports bring real excitement to fans

Most baseball fans mark the day that pitchers and catchers report to spring training as the beginning of the baseball calendar.  Along the way, there are plenty of spring training games filled with position battles and youngsters trying to prove they belong in the big leagues.  This year even gave us the World Baseball Classic to whet our collective appetites.

But there’s another key element to the baseball preseason.  The season cannot start until fans participate in their fantasy baseball drafts.

For those of you that do not know, fantasy sports are a type of game in which people draft and manage a team of players in a specific sport, and their success is based on how the players actually perform in real life.  It is a game of statistics where all that matters is what shows up in the box score.

Fantasy sports are also extremely popular.  According to Fantasy Sports Trade Association, 29.9 million people age 12 and above in the U.S. and Canada played fantasy sports in 2007.  There is also a lot of money involved in many leagues with winners often receiving cash prizes or trophies.  My fantasy football league gives a championship ring to the winner every year.  Everyone puts up $15 and it goes to the money for the ring that we order from Jostens (yes, Jostens makes rings specifically for fantasy sports).

Some old-school sports fans dispute that fantasy sports are bad for sports.  First, they say that the fact that stats are all that matters gives people a cloudy view of what real worth is when it comes to the top players in sports.  In most sports, a lot of things do not show up in the box score.  You cannot measure leadership in stats.  Also, it does not matter if the player happens to perform better in clutch situations. A first inning home run is just as important to fantasy owners as a walk-off home run.  Another example of this is quarterbacks.  A 350-yard, three-touchdown performance is a good fantasy game from a quarterback.  However, if the quarterback completed only 50 percent of his passes and was forced to throw the ball the entire fourth quarter because he threw a few interceptions in the first half, then the stats that matter in fantasy football do not matter.

Some people also think that it is not right to root for individual players and not care about the outcome of a game. A home run in a 13-2 blowout should be inconsequential, but fantasy owners know better. Every stat counts.

I think there is a lot of validity in these arguments.  However, a real sports fan is able to separate fantasy and reality.  As an Eagles fan, I despise the Dallas Cowboys.  I make a conscious effort not to have Cowboys players on my team because I do not want to root for them.  I also never cheer for players on my fantasy team when they are playing against the Eagles.  Reality comes before fantasy.

Fantasy sports are a great way to get people interested in sports. My brother was a casual fan of sports until I asked him to join my fantasy football league the day of our draft because someone backed out at the last minute.  We drove to the store quickly, bought a fantasy football magazine, drafted his team and the rest is history.  He now joins every fantasy league for every sport that he can.  He barely knew any players’ names in football before that day.  Now he can tell you every starting quarterback in the NFL, who plays catcher for the San Francisco Giants and most of the top players in the NBA. It also brought us closer together as brothers.  Our fantasy teams are usually the first thing we talk about when we see each other.

Fantasy sports also add more to sports.  In my fantasy baseball league, Phillies players end up flying off the board earlier than they should. But it adds to the fun of watching a game if you also have that player on your fantasy team.  They also give reason to watch games that are ordinarily unexciting.  I will watch a game between the Kansas City Royals and Seattle Mariners if I have an outfielder on the Royals and Seattle’s starting pitcher. And anyone who plays fantasy football will tell you that there is nothing like having a player in the Monday night game when trailing your opponent for that week (the Monday night game is the last game for the week when scoring ends and a new week begins).

Sports are about entertainment, and fantasy sports add excitement to every game.  People who play fantasy sports usually know more about the sport because they spend time researching their team and end up knowing about more players and who has been successful.

So after weeks of preparation and trying to decipher the busts from the sleepers, I had drafted my fantasy baseball team and eagerly await the start of the regular season.  I am already anxious to see if the Phillies can repeat as World Series champions. But after winning my fantasy baseball league the past two years, I am almost as nervous for my fantasy team.