Why Do We Play Fantasy Baseball?

[talk show host]

Growing up in the 50's all NY kids followed Willie,Mickey and THE Duke..we loved them with a passion and competed "VERBALLY " about their stats..Its in my blood to say "my player is better than yours."..Its also was day when kids "played with their baseball cards and cherised them for the player card not its monetary value.. For me,Fantasy Baseball is merely an extension of all this.

[Omaha Red Sox]

Definitely. You follow these players every day of the season so you get to go along with their successes or their failures. You get to make projections on your favorite players, brag about them when you're right, or defend them to the death when you're wrong. Players' names are easily recognizable by you on the bottom lines of news stations, newspapers, and web pages.

[Third Day]

So we don't spend time at porn sites?

[AussieDodger]

I play because being a GM of a major league team would be my dream job.
Therefore I look for pretty difficult leagues that are as real as possible.

And to crush the weak and destroy the innocent etc.

I think a lot of us "adopt" players from other MLB teams who are on our fantasy teams.
For example my "boys" in 2008 are Joey Votto , Ian Snell and Mike Napoli. If your boys succeed you feel like a proud father.
(A lot of people would have seen me dribbling about Votto in the Offseason Rumours thread. I so wish he would become an A ).

[baseballboy]

I was born in 1959. As a young kid growing up in the 60's was paramount - turning in your pop bottles for 3 cents a piece and racing your bike (that you were practically attached to) down to the 7-11 (the most popular convenience store of the times) and getting that pack of baseball cards with that wide stick of bubble gum in it.

Collecting cards, trading them, putting them in you bicycle spokes to make that click-click-clicking sound. Playing little league getting that hod dog, coke, and a snow cone after the game at the little shack food stand. Life was good! Boasting about your favorite player's stats was possible because you knew he was gonna be there year after year - my all time favorite player was Boston left fielder Carl Yastrzemski; last player to win the triple crown.

At 48 years old, I play fantasy baseball - and love it - because it gives you the thrill from yesteryear of collecting cards by collecting stats, knowing that it's all a business now and your favorite player is an extra million and an added year's contract away from leaving your team and breaking your heart. Your lost loyalty of your favorite players now lies within the stats and not the player because the stats will always be there for you while the players will continue to "move along".

So we come back to your question, "Why Do We Play Fantasy Baseball?" Fantasy baseball is the greatest way of enjoying baseball today: 1) You get action and enjoyment each and every day of the season (except for that dreaded 3-day all star break), 2) As you root for your players you get to watch games all day long, enjoying the best sport on the earth, 3) You get to watch and see who the real players are (a dwindling commodity) and who's not hustling and just collecting a paycheck. This is why we play fantasy baseball - to receive the thrill we had as kids in the evolving world of the business of baseball.

[talk show host]

GREAT COMMENTS ..Its all about being a "KID" again...

[Pogotheostrich]

To win.

[StlSluggers]

So we don't spend time at porn sites?

Win!

I play because I am addicted to numbers - and for the money. I've made more money than I've spent in my 6-year "career," and I'm particularly proud of that since I play H2H, points leagues. Those so-called "monkey humping luckfest" leagues.

[Yoda]

I mainly play to take money from my friends and also bragging rights.

[Pochucker]

Im older than all most all here 57. Started playing in late 80s. I play for all the reasons previously mentioned plus others. I love competition. Since I cant compete in sports anymore this replaces it. Ahh the days of compiling your results from the newspapers and trying to find "late games on the coast".