The GGA Project -- Day #105 "(Not Quite a) Dream Team"

Ok, as I've mentioned before, 365 Days of New is--on occasion--taking me to places I never imagined I'd go.  Today is one of those occasions.


I have been making fun of fantasy sports (in my mind at least) since I first heard of them, a decade ago or so.  I just did not get it.  What is the point of making a totally implausible team up and then spending the entire season doing the math to figure out how this made up team is theoretically performing?  Highly evolved computer programs have rendered unnecessary the math part, so it doesn't take as much time to play fantasy sports as it used to, but I admit I still don't really get it.


I'm hoping that what follows


Today's New Activity: Drafting a Fantasy Baseball Team


will show me what all the rage is about.  Or at least keep me on top of baseball this season in a way I haven't been in years.  Now that will be fun, no matter what.  John, my friend Nessa's boyfriend, set the league up, calling it the "Friendship Ending League," which I think is the best name ever.


The draft itself was much easier to do than I thought it would be (thank you, Yahoo Fantasy Sports!) and only took about 1 1/2 hours, start to finish.  I would recommend going this route to anybody who wants to play fantasy sports for the first time.  They allow you to set your priority draft list ahead of time, and you don't even have to be there for the draft.  The system will automatically draft the best players available for you if you're not able to sit there watching and making decisions/changes to your plan (since the chances of actually drafting the entire team, or even half the team you want are slim and get slimmer as every round passes.  At some point you just resolve to trying to get a guy in every position who's still worth his weight in sunflower seeds).


I got my first choice of pitchers, but not much in the way of first choices beyond that, though I did manage to snag Andre Ethier, not that I think I had to fight too hard in this area to get a Dodgers player on my team.  And while it's not exactly a dream team I've set up, I'm hoping to educate myself on fantasy team management enough to keep any mercy rule from being employed on my behalf.