As I have jumped into fantasy sports this year for the first time, I found myself watching the game differently. I wonder what would happen if we applied this same kind of lens to those things that we church folks so easily demonized every day.
If you see that an MLB player in fantasy baseball is showing numbers that are significantly better than they have done in their career, or seem too good for their age, you should brace yourself for the possibility that the numbers could be chemically enhanced.
On the third anniversary of the Virginia Tech shooting, I thought I'd re-post the BaseballHQ.com column I wrote shortly after the incident. Sadly, in the three years since, nothing has changed.
There is a segment in the new documentary film, Fantasyland, when several esteemed baseball media veterans rail against fantasy baseball. I have to shake my head.
Nothing in the last five years has contributed more to the dumbing down of the American sports fan than the reductive, banal, and utterly shallow opiate of fantasy sports.
The general public doesn't mourn the deaths of less-famous people who might have continued to also do great things if they hadn't left us before their time.
But cool as an outer pose, as an attitude you can cop, is dead. When the truly cool people show up in your life, you won't recognize them -- they'll be too cool for that.
A Federal Court of Appeals ruled that MLA cannot charge Fantasy Baseball Leagues licensing fees for using statistics and likeness of its players. That they sued fans in the first place is beyond the pale.