Sam Tries Fantasy Baseball, Stupidity Ensues

And... it just now hit me. Football season is over.

I was playing Terraria, and had this overwhelming urge to check my phone, because I needed to know if any of my players were going to be on Thursday Night Football.

Then I realized- NFL's not here. It won't be here for a long time. Not until we know who the NCAA champion is, not until we know who the NHL champion is, not until the Warriors beat the Spurs in a great series, and then demolish whoever the Eastern Champions are.

It all just came rushing at me. My debit card will expire before I watch the Broncos play again. I'll already have an opinion about Captain America: Civil War. I'll be wondering about the recently released trailer for Doctor Strange. We'll be watching Hillary and Drumpf compare dick sizes in national debates.

FUCK.

What makes this worse is that I know that it will never be as good as last season. Not only did my team win the big game, but Peyton Manning probablydidn't sexually assault a person! Von Miller attempted to sodomize Tom Brady! Cam Newton cried! A lot! And if that wasn't awesome enough, I played in four fantasy football leagues, won two, and placed in another.

And as I realized this, It hit me: I need a fix. I need something to dilute the anguish. American football is like my heroin- except people who sell heroin tend to be less two-faced. I'm sick. I need methadone.

Enter baseball.

I've talked plenty of shit about baseball before, but if I search my heart, I don't actually have anything against the game, except for the same dipshit arguments that every other baseball hater's ever had.

Yes, the games are too long, just like the season is too long. Yes, there's a whole bunch of bullshit when it comes to performance enhancing drugs. Yes, A-Rod hasn't been tied to a train track yet.

But really, it's an amazing game. It's like watching soccer- not a lot happens in the interim. You'll get the typical shit- your pop fly here, your beaned batter there. Somebody might drive a double every now and again. This isn't awesome in a vacuum, certainly. It's like a balloon that fills, and fills, and just looks like it's only going to get bigger and stretch thinner.

But then, there's that play. When Babe called the shot, when Reggie hit three homers, when Randy Johnson destroyed a bird, and Steve Bartman's entire life past 2003.

I remember when I was a kid, my folks took me to see a Texas Rangers game. I got to watch Frank Thomas play, although he was getting on in his career. I think the White Sox were up. That's when Pudge Rodriguez went yack on a fastball, a three-run homer.

The balloon popped. He did it again that game, and the Rangers won. People went apeshit.

I have a Texas Rangers shirt my dad bought me, Cinco de Mayo, 2006. It says “Los Rangers” on the front. The armpits are brown, verging on Green. I love that shirt, and I'll be devastated when somebody finally burns it for the safety of everyone who lives within a mile of it.

When I was in the hospital, I kept score by hand while watching the Rangers play in the world series against the Cardinals. I remember screaming at a TV by myself when Texas got within a pitch of winning the whole thing, and blew it.

So, hopefully, this sport can maybe Spackle over the hole in my soul that develops between the beginning of February and the end of September.

But here's the problem: I know nothing about baseball. I could name maybe five current players. If I'm going to properly appreciate another soulless cash grab of a sport, I need to know the game, if for no other reason, to find out who I hate and who I can blame for it. And if I'm going to do that, I need to do it the same way I've learned basically anything else- the routine of staring at my phone to see if I'll owe my friends money. Good thing there's already a game just like that- fantasy baseball.

For the person who is unfamiliar with fantasy sports, the basic gist is this: through one system or another, you “draft” a set of players, and they get assigned scores that correspond with how they do in their games. You compete against a bunch of people who have teams, and the winner usually gets bragging rights, and the grand prize, which more often than not is spending months trying to get the money that's rightfully yours back from the person who spent it on rent within a month of everyone finally paying up.

Since I'm in no way trying to document my shittiness and lose money in the process, I'm just going to participate in a free ESPN league.

What's the worst that can happen?

This is a rotisserie league (I've spent 10 minutes reading about scoring systems and I'm still not sure what that is) twelve teams, and I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. (Prepare yourselves: these are actual thoughts I had during the draft, meaning that there will be, from here on, gratuitous usage of the word “fuck.”)

1. Who the fuck are all of these people?

2. These statistics make no fucking sense. WHIP? SLG? IBB? HBP? Are these statistics or stock symbols?

3. Walked batters and hits per inning pitched seem like they should be integers- how the fuck is it somewhere between 0.9 and 1.1?

4. ESPN shows a picture of every player you can draft, but they're tiny and completely useless. Why in the entire fuck are these people wearing hats? Would they do this shit with football player helmets? Is it racist to say I'm having a hard time telling these Latin baseball players apart because of the minuscule pictures and I can't see their hairlines?

5. I'm feeling good about my first two picks: Carlos Correa and Edwin Encarnacion. I'm wondering if I can make a team that only has double initials? CC and EE- good start. What could I call this team? The default is Team Wellborn, but I refuse to bring my family's name into the middle of this. How about the Awesome Alliteration Alliance? (Look who's playing Triple-A ball! I bet if nothing else, I'll come up with the best team slogan in the draft and oh shit it's my turn to draft again.)

6. If I'm just worried about alliteration, would Corey Kluber count? I feel like Carlos Gomez is a stretch.

7. Should I have drafted a pitcher by now?

8. Had to draft Carlos Gomez, because some awful little shit I'm playing against drafted Manny Machado. OK, fine. Only players whose names either contain some vague alliteration and/or Adams Family members. There has to be a baseball player named Wednesday or Pugsley, right?

9. I could be searching for tips on drafting fantasy baseball teams. Instead, I'm trying to see if anyone in baseball is named Lurch.

10. Really? Nobody in baseball has a name that starts with “It” or “Fester?”

11. Goddammit, there's a Freddy Freeman right at the top of the list, but I already have a first base player. Besides, he looks like a Nickleback fan.

12. I drafted Prince Fielder because I like his smile. Totally not gay, right? Besides, I'm good on pitchers, but I need a catcher. Preferably somebody who's good with the stick and doesn't have any problems getting to third base.

13. Everyone in baseball has a name that's either vaguely Italian or could be co-opted by a Drag Queen. Especially if that one guy's name is pronounced “You-is Familia.”

14. I needed a second baseman, and I actually know who Ian Kinsler is. Boom. Plus, it looks like his head's gotten three times larger since the last time I saw him. If he's on my team, he better be doing the “effective but undetectable” kind of PED's. Or, at least, the “totally obvious but untestable” kind.

15. I got a team name: “Performance-Enhancing Drags.”

16. I was busy trying to find John Fogerty's “Centerfield” when I realized what I actually wanted to listen to was “Centerfold” by the J Geils Band. While that happened, I auto-drafted Jacoby Ellisbury, an outfielder, when I'm pretty sure I need a third base player.

17. I had to double check this, because I wasn't sure, based on the information we get on the ESPN draft application. It turns out this statistic is completely true: Trevor Rosenthal looks like a fucking pedophile.

18. In his player photo, Jeff Samardzija looks livid, like he's on the verge of going super-saiyan and destroying Earth. He's staring straight into my goddamn soul. I wonder if it's because he knows I have no idea what I'm doing, or that I don't know how to pronounce his name.

19. Daniel Murphy apparently plays for Washington, but ESPN has his picture in a Mets uniform. It's like they've just said “Dude, you're on your own, because we can't keep track of this shit either.”

20. Smyly? Is that seriously your last name? I bet your favorite movie is “The Pursuit of Happyness.”

21. Is it racist that I haven't drafted a Japanese player yet? Wait, isn't Shin-Soo Choo Korean?

22. Nevermind. The guy who drafted him hasn't drafted anybody but white people. Yeah, way to be inclusive, dickhead.

23. I drafted Jung Ho Kang because I thought I needed a third baseman/short stop, and then realized I wasn't looking at my team, but the guy who drafted Shin-Soo Choo a second ago. I bet Jeff Samardzija isn't very happy.

Nope.

24. Michael Pineda is wearing his hat sideways, and... struck out 171 people last year? Get the fuck on my team, Michael. Welcome to the Performance Enhancing Drags. Welcome, and I'm sorry.

25. Have you seen Justin Turner smile? I just got scared into drafting him, whom I didn't need, because I thought he might eat my soul from my computer screen. Seriously. He should be a character model for a Five Nights at Freddy's sequel.

26. So after a quick Google search, it would seem that I'm about four pitchers behind how many I should have at this point. I bet at this point, Samardzija isn't even mad anymore- just disappointed. Just yell at me, Jeff. Don't hold it over my head.

Why can't you be more like your sister?

27. ESPN is really, REALLY trying to get me to draft Carlos Santana. I want to draft a player named Zakk Wylde out of spite. Don't try and tell me how to ruin my fantasy team OR my rock band, ESPN.

28. Wait, there's a pitcher named motherfucking RODON? AND YOU'RE JUST TELLING ME THIS NOW? WHAT THE SHIT, ESPN?

29. I once went to a triple-A game in Albuquerque where a girl got hit in the head by a bee-line foul ball. I knew the ball boy, so he threw me that ball when it rolled back into the field. I feel like this will be a perfect analogy of my fantasy baseball experience- I'll get smacked out of nowhere by some asshole and whatever minuscule consolation I may have gotten will get tossed to some jackass because he was more familiar with the game than I was.

30. I passed on Luis Severino because I needed another outfielder. Probably a good thing. I'm sure my girlfriend would murder me after the 10^th time I said “Heidely ho, Severino!”

31. I love names like “Wellington Castillo.” I imagine he likes eating tacos, followed by a whole mess of English muffins. I didn't put him on the bench intentionally, mind you. I hope there's a baseball player named “Sir Chadingshire Castanados” I can throw on the team- who else is Wellington going to eat flan with during tea time?

32. Man, not to harp on this, but baseball players have some crazy-ass names. Should I draft Cory Spangenberg, Brad Boxberger, or Kevin Quackenbush? I wonder if professional team scouts give you extra points if you have a name that Gary Busey would give a pet turtle.

Wow, am I glad that's over.

Here's the full roster, in all of its mediocrity:

God help me.

Sam lives in Austin, TX, and isn't a racist, he swears.  Harass him on Twitter, or tell him how to fix his disgrace of a team at swellbo@gmail.com.