Of Fans Of Fantasy Of Football
Many years ago, I asked my father why he was a fan of the
St. Louis Cardinals. He responded with
some long drawn out diatribe on why the Cardinals were a great franchise and
why true mid-westerners rooted for the "Cards" and not the "Cubbies"
or some other random team in the mid-west.
Then he went on to say that, he did not like to think of himself as a
"fan", but rather someone who enjoyed the games played by the
Cardinals. "Huh, why don't you want
to be a 'fan'? Because fan is short for fanatic and I don't want to be
considered crazy."
Fanatic - a
person with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal, as in religion or
politics. Synonyms: enthusiast, zealot, bigot, hothead, militant...you get the idea...
Therefore, this got me thinking about the word 'fantasy' and
its origins.
Fantasy -
imagination, especially when extravagant and unrestrained. OH
THERE IT IS!!!!
Unrestrained,
sounds a lot like enthusiast, which
just happens to tie into fanatic,
which brings me around to FANTASY FOOTBALL, aka Dungeons and Dragons for jocks
(yes, you've seen the meme).
A bunch of people (mostly guys with personal hygiene issues) sitting in a room
looking at numbers, hoping for random chance to fall their way, anxiously awaiting
a specific day of the week, or going overboard and participating multiple times
a week. Initially it starts out cheap,
free leagues, borrowing a friend's books; before long, you are buying used
copies and paying just a $5 entry fee.
Somewhere down the line, you have started your own league (gaming group), have
hundreds of dollars tied up in franchise players (dice, rulebooks, beloved PCs). You have a completely new group of friends (more like you, less
like...people) that you see and talk too regularly, your old friends are
still around, but they do not get you now. Entities that you have no reasonable expectation of
ever interacting with have become critical to your happiness, completion and success.
How does one cope? How does one
go on? How does one make sure not to
bench the RB3 who is going to have a monster game against a defense rated 25th
against the run? It will be ok,
right? I can bench Tony Gonzalez and
play Vernon Davis against the depleted Arizona secondary this week, right? Wait,
am I playing the Arizona defense this week in my PPR league? Do I go with swinging a 2-hander or sword and
board, with the plate armor?
After all, it is just fantasy...right?
