Archive for the ‘sports’ Category

Baseball chicanery

Nice story by Andrew Baggarly of the Mercury News. Excerpt:

Joe Martinez was low man on the service-time totem pole to begin the season. That meant it was his job to take snack orders out to the bullpen for road games. … (after Martinez’s injury) Merkin Valdez became low man. But he couldn’t use a bag with Joe’s name on it. So someone found a very nice, glittery, light purple Tinkerbell backpack for him. He used it twice. Then Osiris Matos got called up. Merkin, you’re off the hook.

 

Failure

I failed. I filled in a March Madness bracket this year and have been rooting for teams based on that rather than purely for entertainment value.

I blame Dom.

 

Down on fantasy

I used to be a fantasy sports nut. I peaked maybe 6 or 7 years ago with 2 football leagues and 3 baseball leagues.

I quit cold turkey after I moved to Japan, since it was a competitive disadvantage to be (give or take) 10 time zones away from the actual games.

Refreshingly, I found my enjoyment of watching games did not diminish. I could watch a baseball game without rooting specifically for a strikeout or a stolen base. I could watch a football game without yelling at the QB to throw it to my guy, not my opponent’s guy.

(Since NFL games tended to be while I was either asleep or at school, I didn’t watch much pro football at all, even after I installed a slingbox at my parents’ place.)

Now that I’m back in the USA, I continue to abstain from fantasy sports. It warped my perception of the game long enough. Call me weird, but I don’t need skin in the game to enjoy watching it.