Friday, December 12, 2008
Matt
I enjoy playing video games.
I would rather exist in "Unix-land" than "Windows-world," and feel that touching the mouse to issue any command is sacrilege.
I really enjoy Battlestar Galactica and Dexter.
I currently own a radio control car that is worth more than some real cars.
But Perhaps the coup de grace of my "loser-ness" is my fascination with fantasy sports.
Here is where fantasy sports nerds fall in the pecking order in "nerd-dom." (from biggest nerds to more normal)
--Star Wars psychos
--World-renowned classical arcade gamers
--Hackers who live with their parents
--Jon Cryer
--Guys who smell their hands all day after eating fried chicken
--Fantasy sports managers
--World of Warcraft zealots
I am not just a regular fantasy football part-timer either. I am currently involved in multiple leagues dealing with all 3 major sports. Some have complicated rules and constitutions dictating salaries, contracts, and collusion. Yes...collusion in fantasy sports.
I have been involved in fantasy basketball since before Al Gore invented the internets. My Dad and I used to go through box scores of basketball games in an archaic version of today's games.
Many years ago, I wanted to get 12 managers together to be in a league involving all 3 sports. Each manager would be over a team in each sport. There would be a long list of rules dictating how many pitcher pickups/week, allowable keepers, and other minutia.
This league involved something different than all the past leagues I had been involved it---CASH. Yes, money was given out to managers based on how their team performed.
We initially started on CBS sportsline as they had the most customization to their fantasy leagues. The downside to CBS was the fact that part of the league entrance fees went to CBS. (roughly 130 bucks a sport)
CBS also had a very problematic live draft system that seemed to crash or fail in some way every time.
We moved away from CBS and over to Yahoo fantasy sports after a year or so.
Yahoo initially had most of what we wanted. Scoring could be pretty much be duplicated, league format was fairly similar, and best of all was that it was free!!
Yahoo offers a free league with all the basics, or a pay league which has almost every imaginable option for the commissioner. In addition they give you more in-depth analysis, and stat-tracker. If you like to watch results update live, stat-tracker is your friend. Every match up can be viewed live so you don't have to wait until the next day to find out that Torry Holt did not garner over 10 points for about the 8th straight week.
We have a keeper league which has shown to be a pain in the butt when dealing with our live draft.
Yahoo has solved that problem this year by adding the option to have keepers. You go select the keepers for each team, and those rounds of the draft are automatically skipped when you do your live draft. It's cleared up a ton of headaches for me personally.
From the seasoned Fantasy "veteran" to the fantasy newbie, Yahoo fantasy sports is sure to satisfy most of your needs in a league.
My last point is that no matter how swift the system, I still do very poorly in my leagues. You'd think that after 15 years of doing this, I'd improve. In all truth, it seems that I tend to do worse every year. I'm like the LA Clippers of my league. Every year I think my team looks great after the draft, and then Jamal Lewis fades away into obscurity...relegating me to a finish at the bottom of the stack.
Take a look at the image below. This is my finishing location for every league on Yahoo since 2004. For the mathematically challenged, I have an average final finishing position of 7.5. That's not even in the top half of every league. I'm a complete joke. It's like I'm GIVING my money away in every league.
One exception is a current league in which I'm involved with other humor bloggers. My team kicks ass and takes names. Check out our blog here. The team is 1st place is appropriately named "Fantasy Virgin." Yes...even fantasy 1st-timers kick my butt.
Yahoo sports garners a 4-star rating!
I currently own a radio control car that is worth more than some real cars.
But Perhaps the coup de grace of my "loser-ness" is my fascination with fantasy sports.
Here is where fantasy sports nerds fall in the pecking order in "nerd-dom." (from biggest nerds to more normal)--Star Wars psychos
--World-renowned classical arcade gamers
--Hackers who live with their parents
--Jon Cryer
--Guys who smell their hands all day after eating fried chicken
--Fantasy sports managers
--World of Warcraft zealots
I am not just a regular fantasy football part-timer either. I am currently involved in multiple leagues dealing with all 3 major sports. Some have complicated rules and constitutions dictating salaries, contracts, and collusion. Yes...collusion in fantasy sports.
I have been involved in fantasy basketball since before Al Gore invented the internets. My Dad and I used to go through box scores of basketball games in an archaic version of today's games.
Many years ago, I wanted to get 12 managers together to be in a league involving all 3 sports. Each manager would be over a team in each sport. There would be a long list of rules dictating how many pitcher pickups/week, allowable keepers, and other minutia.
This league involved something different than all the past leagues I had been involved it---CASH. Yes, money was given out to managers based on how their team performed.
We initially started on CBS sportsline as they had the most customization to their fantasy leagues. The downside to CBS was the fact that part of the league entrance fees went to CBS. (roughly 130 bucks a sport)
CBS also had a very problematic live draft system that seemed to crash or fail in some way every time.
We moved away from CBS and over to Yahoo fantasy sports after a year or so.
Yahoo initially had most of what we wanted. Scoring could be pretty much be duplicated, league format was fairly similar, and best of all was that it was free!!
Yahoo offers a free league with all the basics, or a pay league which has almost every imaginable option for the commissioner. In addition they give you more in-depth analysis, and stat-tracker. If you like to watch results update live, stat-tracker is your friend. Every match up can be viewed live so you don't have to wait until the next day to find out that Torry Holt did not garner over 10 points for about the 8th straight week.
We have a keeper league which has shown to be a pain in the butt when dealing with our live draft.
Yahoo has solved that problem this year by adding the option to have keepers. You go select the keepers for each team, and those rounds of the draft are automatically skipped when you do your live draft. It's cleared up a ton of headaches for me personally.
From the seasoned Fantasy "veteran" to the fantasy newbie, Yahoo fantasy sports is sure to satisfy most of your needs in a league.
My last point is that no matter how swift the system, I still do very poorly in my leagues. You'd think that after 15 years of doing this, I'd improve. In all truth, it seems that I tend to do worse every year. I'm like the LA Clippers of my league. Every year I think my team looks great after the draft, and then Jamal Lewis fades away into obscurity...relegating me to a finish at the bottom of the stack.
Take a look at the image below. This is my finishing location for every league on Yahoo since 2004. For the mathematically challenged, I have an average final finishing position of 7.5. That's not even in the top half of every league. I'm a complete joke. It's like I'm GIVING my money away in every league.
One exception is a current league in which I'm involved with other humor bloggers. My team kicks ass and takes names. Check out our blog here. The team is 1st place is appropriately named "Fantasy Virgin." Yes...even fantasy 1st-timers kick my butt.Yahoo sports garners a 4-star rating!
3 comments:
All I know is at least when you're a member of a book group, you can all drink wine together in the same room.
I have yet to find a book group that includes men. And that usually means reading things like "Twilight" and "Jane Eyre." No thanks.
After most likely getting my ass handed to me by you today, I'm not going to agree with your review of Yahoo Fantasy Sports, well, at least football anyway. I'll give it like a 2. Up until now, though, I would have given it a 4, because I thought ESPN's was a little better when I was involved in the past.
Post a Comment