For some of us, fantasy sports is life. For others, it's 25 to Life. I normally spend all year playing in fantasy leagues and I'm starting to have withdrawals. We need it back. I play fantasy hockey, baseball, and football. Football is king though, always will be. If you want to gauge what fantasy football means to people, I'll tell you the story of the guy in my league who was setting his fantasy lineups from jail.
The league is a 16 team auction league, four keepers. Depending on what price bracket your keepers fall under determines the increase in their salary. It's $350 a team which is pretty high roller for my neck of the woods. A couple of years ago, we had a wrestling belt made that we paid a grand for to present to the champion(s) at the end of the season. The pay outs are pretty nice too.
I was invited to split a team with a friend of mine. I didn't know majority of the people in the league before my first season. A lot of people split a team so there is about 25 guys in the league. My friends make up six of the teams. The other teams are made up of teachers, construction workers, a Costco manager, a guy who owns the gas station in town, the local dive bar bouncer, my barber, a couple of other people with mystery professions, and a lawyer.
The Lawyer is a nice a guy. I thought so anyway. He's funny as fuck, he's an attentive owner, and he cooked these gourmet meals for the whole league on draft day. He was normally shorted money for what he put out for the food and spent hours cooking, but he never complained. About two months after our draft this year, The Lawyer was arrested for stealing funds from clients. He's a real estate attorney and was accused of telling clients he'd put their house in escrow and then just took their money for himself. I don't know real estate law all too well, but I do know if he's found guilty on all counts he'll do 5-10 in state prison. I'm not sure if he's had his day in court so it's not my place to judge him, but it did feel like he was in Puerto Rico every other week.
I'm on the Board for the league now and we discussed a temporary owner for The Lawyer while he figured out his legal issues. Unbeknownst to me, The Lawyer wasn't having any of it. He called another Board member every day to discuss trade proposals, keep up with scores/standings, and set his lineup. The show must go on. The worst part was, I lost to him while he was in jail. Completely and utterly demoralizing.
That's what fantasy sports is, a distraction from the reality around you. We need distraction. We need fantasy football. Please God, Trump, NFL, the Illuminati, whoever needs to hear this, please let us have football this year.
Bonus story: Everyone has that one friend in the group who is just better at life than everybody else. Our friend like that just so happens to also be in this league. He was the first one in our group to buy his own place and he thought he was better than us. He employed The Lawyer to buy his house. He even bragged about how The Lawyer took him and his family out to an expensive steak dinner to close on the home. We never let him live it down that he might have been an accessory to.
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