On a day filled with bad sports news, featuring reports about Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs), suspensions and appeals, I just wanted to escape. So, I started thinking not of REAL sports but FANTASY sports.
In the fantasy world, there IS no bad news. Just fun. You get to be the owner, manager and player all at once. And when all goes well, you put your own philosophy and plans in place and it culminates with a fantasy league championship.
That’s good stuff.
Back in our fantasy sports days, my friend Derek French coined a phrase to sum up the essence of the hobby. “It’s Just Ink.”
Derek’s comment related to fantasy sports players who fall in love with a specific player who may or may not help their team win. Go for the players who give you the best statistics, he’d say. After all, it’s numbers on a papers; totals in a column.
It’s Just Ink.
I get a nostalgic feeling about this time of year. Fantasy baseball leagues are heading toward the playoff season while fantasy football leagues, everywhere, are planning for ‘draft night’ (which is one of the real highlights on the calendar).
My fantasy football league allowed you to ‘protect’ a few players (you got to keep them on your team for the upcoming year) and you had the release the rest of your team back into the draft pool. So, each year, there was a fairly decent number of players to select. The key thing was to pick the right guys.
Our league started out in the days when internet was still a somewhat pricey communications tool. You might use it for email but it seemed a bit of an extravagance to use services such as America Online to do fantasy football statistical research!
The most cost-effective option was the fantasy football magazine of your choice. For me, I always went with the Sporting News. The day the Sporting News fantasy football magazine hit the newsstands was a red letter day.
When I’d purchase my copy, I couldn’t wait to get home and begin crunching numbers to help my team, the Gippers, as we prepared for yet another fantasy football season.
Just the other day, when I was walking past the magazine rack at my local supermarket, I just happened to look down and there, on the bottom shelf, amidst the other sports periodicals, was this year’s Sporting News Fantasy Football edition.
My heart almost skipped a beat.
I have long since left the world of competitive fantasy sports (I dabble with a couple online leagues but nothing nearly as serious or time consuming as the baseball and football league I was in, say, 10 years ago). Still, you can’t blame a guy for a moment of reflection; a quick trip down fantasy lane. I thought, quickly, of draft nights of the past. I mused on some of the excellent picks (and a few of the duds) that I made.
And then there was always the annual post draft outing…an event where each of us talked about our thought process behind the picks we made (and questioned…and celebrated the picks made by the fellahs who skipped the outing and went on home).
Those were glorious times!
As for this shopping adventure, no, I didn’t purchase the book. I left it there for someone who might really need it. Knowing the calendar as I do, I’d say there are thousands of men and women around the metro area who are preparing for fantasy football drafts later this month. They might really need that copy to finalize their draft preparations; to help them decide between Alfred Morris or Calvin Johnson with their mid to late first round pick.
Anyway, a magazine published weeks ago is already out of date. Training camps have begun, players have been cut, others have suffered injuries.
Besides what is a magazine, at this point, other than entertainment? It’s just pictures. And it’s just charts.
And, well, It’s Just Ink.
JG
*** COUNTDOWN to 500 ***
Coach Jeff’s 500th Blog will go live on Thursday August 8. Be sure to tune in that evening for a Top 10 Countdown of some of my favorite posts from the first 500 and a celebration of the 2nd anniversary of Coach Jeff. See you then!
Originally posted 8/5/2013
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