It’s 2 o’clock in the morning…

…and I jump out of bed in a cold sweat. My heart is pounding through my chest and the goosebumps on my arms are raising like warm Toll House cookies in the oven. I pause for a second and gather my thoughts as I take a swig of water from the bottle on the nightstand. I sit down at my computer, open Firefox, type the name of my destination site as my fingers tremble and enter my log-on credentials. I began to browse the site with anxiety and uncertainty. However after a few moments of suspense and numerous clicks of the mouse, I breathed a sigh of relief. I got up from the computer, shaking my fist like Tiger Woods at the Masters. I walked over to the mirror and said to myself “yeaaaah boyeee” with a big smile on my face. I had successfully fed my late night addiction and could now go back to sleep peacefully. Logging onto Yahoo Sports and picking up that free agent WR for my fantasy football team was essential to my success for the upcoming season. If you thought I was talking about something else, shame on you. Yes, I am an addict. I’m an addict of fantasy sports.

This is my 6th straight year being involved in fantasy football. I started playing in 2001 with some co-workers and things have quickly escalated to unbelievable levels. Although I primarily play on Yahoo, I’ve been part of countless leagues on a number of different sites. In addition to football, I’ve played basketball, baseball, hockey, NCAA March Madness pools and weekly NFL Pick’Em pools. I’ve played on CBS Sportsline, Sandbox, EA Sports and others. To my credit, I’ve been very successful over the years. In fact, I’m so successful at it that I now put out a good amount of money for various leagues. This upcoming football season, I’m registered for 5 leagues and 3 of them are for money. My biggest investment is $100 for this league I’m in at the office. I can win up to $1000 if I can successfully create a powerhouse team. The live draft for that league is this Friday. Trust me, I’ve got tons and tons of paperwork on player stats, projections and injury reports. So when we all meet at the restaurant Friday evening and get this thing going, it’s gonna be serious. Hell, last Friday night I sat with my fiancée at her live draft and played the role of GM. Yes, she’s a huge football fan and plays too. Her draft wasn’t even in a league for money and I was amped up for close to 3 hours helping her with that one.

I’m not sure how I ended up hooked on this stuff. I mean, I’ve always been a big time sports fan. My pops worked for the Bullets when I was kid, so I’ve always been around sports. I grew up going to lots of games, football and basketball alike. I was always the kid who knew every single detail about a game the night before and would talk endlessly about it the next day at school with my buddies. But the addiction to fantasy sports has taken me to a new high. I now can utilize my knowledge of sports for the greater good… my bank account. Call me whatever you want, but just know that I’ve made a killin’ the past few years playing these games. In a way, I suppose you could call it gambling. Yet, I don’t feel like I’m risking much. I know my stuff. I know what I’m doing. I win and I win regularly. Yahoo recently added a feature which allowed users to see their fantasy sports profile and here’s mine.


As you can see… I’m no novice at this. I take care of biz on the regular. I have a total of 11 championship trophies and in leagues where I’ve paid to participate you know what that means…

I’m done writing, but I was reading this column entitled 100 Ways To Tell If You’re A Fantasy Football Addict and I had to admit that a lot of them apply to me.

– You supplement your holiday budget with your winnings.
– You haven’t made plans for the Labor Day weekend for a number of years because it would interfere with your draft.
– You manage your workload around your online time.
– You cheer for a player to do well because he is on your fantasy team, but not TOO well because he’s playing against your favorite team.
– You wake up early to attend church service so that you can get back in time for game.
– You watch the end of a 42-10 game hoping your WR has 1 more catch for 3 yards
– You listen to ESPN radio when it is so scratchy and out of range that you only understand about 1 of every 3 words, just hoping to hear those sweet little words; (INSERT NAME HEAR) just rambled in for his 2nd TD of the game.
– Heading into Monday Night, you honestly think you’ve “still got a chance” because you’re kicker just needs seven field goals to put you over the top.
– The only bookmarks you have saved on your home and work computers are FF websites.
– You feel that you’re showing restraint when you only click “Refresh” only every 5 seconds on the Live Internet GameCast.
– When Favre rolls out from the 1 yard line and throws a TD pass to Bubba Franks, rather than handing off to Ahman Green, you become so enraged that you start screaming obscenities.
– You cheer when the wide receiver gets dragged down at the 2 yard line because your running back has an easy 6 coming up
– You want your favorite NFL team to win, just as long as the opposing WR and kicker get you 25 points.
– You know that Staley and McAllister have different spellings for
the same first name.
– You refuse to divulge the name of the website that you get most of your information from.
– Your household budget includes FF expenses.
– You get less than three hours of sleep the night before your draft due to excitement and last minute changes with your cheat sheets.
– You use your cell phone to check player stats during games

I couldn’t help but laugh when I read that column. Oh well, back to the drawing board. I’m sure they’ll be a few transactions within the next 36 hours that I need to pay close attention to for my live draft. It’s essential that I draft the right team to bring home that cake.

5 thoughts on “It’s 2 o’clock in the morning…”

  1. lol!!

    My ex was and is a fantasy sports fanatic! I asked him if I could join his league with him and his boys, and he said NOOOO!! LOL.

    So I never learned how the darn things works! I like watching sports, especially basketball.

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