It's been well documented on this website as well as on Twitter that I am an unabashed Washington Nationals fan. During their current pivotal two week stretch against NL East foes, the Nats recently hosted the New York Mets for a 3 game series - and my loyalties came under severe personal scrutiny.
Not because I was tempted to root for the Mets. Don’t be
silly. If there’s been one constant throughout my life of baseball fandom (grew
up near Philadelphia rooting for the Braves thanks to TBS, became an
Astros fan for a decade, and have lived in DC rooting for the Nats for the past
several years) it’s been “Screw the Mets.”
However, I do have David Wright on my fantasy team.
Mr. Wright had himself a pretty fantastic series against the Nats, putting
together 3 HR, 6 RBI, and a .538 batting average during the 3 game tilt. But every
time he hit the ball, I didn’t know how to react. I had a similar conundrum on
the 4th of July when my fantasy ace was going up against my favorite
team. Bumgarner got shelled and the Nats won the game on the way to a series
sweep. I was simultaneously depressed and elated.
Have you ever watched a football game at a sports bar
full of people passionately rooting for the team you’re rooting against? Or
watched a college hoops game with a close friend who happens to root for your
arch-rival? You can’t properly celebrate big moments without jeopardizing your
health, your relationship, or both. That’s how I felt inside of my own head.
It’s something that’s been bothering me for a while: When
forced to choose between rooting for your fantasy team and rooting for your
favorite team, what do you do?

Seriously though, what do you do? Some fans are committed
enough to say there’s no way they’d ever draft a kicker from a division rival
so they’re never put in that situation, but if you play fantasy for long
enough, you’re going to eventually be in a quandary like that (unless you’re a
Browns fan and the odds of getting a Monday night game are about as good as the
odds that they’d be that close to winning it).
So how do you start rationalizing your way to a decision?
Mathematically, you should root for your fantasy team, because a Week 1 win in
fantasy carries more weight than a week 1 win in the NFL; but what about when
Week 16 rolls around, your fantasy team missed the playoffs altogether, your favorite
team is a game out of the playoff race, and all you can think about is that
time your rooting interests contradicted your lifelong allegiance?
Thanks to a 2 year commitment to an over-priced
under-performing cell phone service, I’ve come to the realization that when
forced to wait a while for an app to load, I default to the fantasy app instead
of the scoreboard app, and I have a feeling that I’m not alone in that
decision. Does that mean I care more about my fantasy teams than my favorite
teams?
Would that be so bad? After all, for all your time and
emotional investment, there’s usually at least the potential for financial gain
in fantasy leagues. With your favorite team, there’s about a 97% chance that
you’re throwing away hundreds of dollars per season just to be disappointed in
the ultimate outcome. And if they win the World Series or the Super Bowl, what
do you actually get? Just the opportunity to spend more on merchandise, and an
inevitable spike in ticket prices the following season.
As a lifelong fan of the Kansas City Chiefs – a franchise
that hasn’t won a playoff game in literally two decades – I don’t know what I
would do without fantasy football. For being the middle of July, I couldn’t be
more excited about this upcoming season, even though I fully expect Matt Cassel
to cripple us to a 6-10 record. I’m certainly looking forward to seeing what we
can do with a healthy Jamaal Charles and Eric Berry after losing them both
roughly 11 seconds into last season, but nowhere near as much as I’m looking
forward to my fantasy football drafts and the new fantasy league that I’ll be
running through SIIJ this season.
So am I a football fan or a fantasy football fan? With
the NFL in particular, the fantasy has completely engulfed the sport, and I don’t
even know if you can discern between the two options anymore. Certainly, there
are people out there somewhere who can eat, sleep, and breathe football without
being involved in any fantasy football leagues (does Adam Schefter play fantasy
football?), but just look at the landscape of the sport and you’ll see it’s
clearly driven with fantasy in mind.

Offensive linemen are to football what middle relievers
are to baseball. As completely overblown of a statistic that a save is, if you
pay any attention to the sport, you can probably name 10 people who have
recorded a save this year. Can you even name 1 of the 10 guys leading the
league in holds? It’s not even a sortable statistic in ESPN’s MLB stats pages,
no matter how obviously crucial it is to get through the 7th and 8th
innings of a 1 run game unscathed.
For all the flaws on both sides of the fence, sports and
fantasy sports have always been conjoined for me. I’ve literally been playing
fantasy football and fantasy baseball every year since I was 10 years old. And
given the previously mentioned teams that I’ve rooted for in my life, very rarely
has a situation arisen where I had to decide between rooting for my fantasy
team or a playoff push. But now I’m there with the Washington Nationals. And if
the push continues for another month, not only will I have to decide between
rooting for my fantasy baseball team and my favorite baseball team, but I’ll
have to start mixing the Chiefs and fantasy football into the fold. It’s been 7
years since I was rooting for anything in baseball in September, and I’m
already wondering where I’m either going to find the time to properly root for
everything I want or where I’m going to find a new job in this economy.
I don't really know what to do with this whole realization. I suppose I envision it as an introduction to a forum where we can lament the times when we've been conflicted over what to root for, to share how you avoid getting into those moral dilemmas, or propose solutions for fixing the problem altogether. I'm always open to new ideas when it comes to fantasy sports.
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