By Sarah Kalkwarf
Staff Writer
March 31 marked the first day of the 2008 baseball season. This day, known to baseball fans as opening day, left me wondering how fantasy baseball participants react to games.
It seems to me that fantasy leagues have changed the way people watch the game, focusing attention on individual performance rather than on one favorite team.
Fantasy baseball is an online game in which participants manage imaginary baseball teams based on the performance of Major League Baseball players. The participants then compete against one another using the players’ statistics to score points.
Picking players for the team is no easy task. It requires a large amount of research and knowledge of the game. Fantasy league sites like Yahoo! and ESPN track statistics and offer advice to participants. Sites like these also house features like message boards so participants can communicate with one another.
Because Major League Baseball presents multiple games in a week, fantasy baseball players tend to have their hands full keeping up with the statistics of their own team. The fantasy baseball participant has to make sure that the players they chose are playing that week and that they are earning the appropriate statistics for the fantasy team.
The typical fantasy baseball participant runs multiple teams because of the many invites they receive to join leagues. The different invites might be from different groups of friends or co-workers who the average participant does not wish to turn down obligating them to multiple fantasy teams and monopolizing much of their time.
Many online sites that provide fantasy league opportunities do so at no cost to the participants. There are some leagues who charge a flat rate to join; these are referred to as prize eligible leagues. Both prize eligible leagues and free leagues can be found at Yahoo! and ESPN.
Because of the focus on singular players and their statistics, fantasy baseball has transformed the typical baseball fan. Instead of routing for their favorite teams, fans who participate in fantasy baseball find themselves watching many teams and singular players. Fantasy baseball has removed the baseball fan and created amateur team managers.
These team managers spend much of their time throughout the season focusing on the singular players that make up their fantasy baseball team. They find themselves watching the game only to find out how their players are fairing and having little concern over which team wins.
In recent years, with the rising popularity of fantasy baseball, many baseball stars have emerged. On ESPN’s fantasy baseball site a participant can view the top players by clicking on the player rater link. This link provides participants with all of the statistics up to date and ranks the different players based on performance.
I think that it is great that with a few clicks of the mouse I can get a list of the top players in the league and the players with the best performance should be recognized. I would like to know what happened to the magic of watching a game and routing for the preferred team, not the preferred player.
In the 2008 Major League Baseball season I choose to remain the fan and route for my one and only team. Go Cardinals!
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1 comment:
It took me awhile to appreciate fantasy sports. I always associated the game with the many geeks and nerds that overpopulate our society. I started participating in fantasy sports in 2004. I quickly realized how difficult the game is to manage. My team approaches things a little differently than the others do in managing the team. After a rocky start to the season I decided to hire others to do the job for me. In 2005 my team won the fantasy baseball championship and the rest is history. Today I have a staff of seven people who watch over the day to day operations of my team.
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