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Bleacher Features - Where's Your Heart
Barry Pollack of New York plays in a very competitive auction league. He says he checks his player's boxscores before his beloved Mets. This year he stole Mike Hampton for Jay Powell in a pre-season trade.
Before the advent of free agency and rotisserie baseball, divided loyalties seldom arose in the nation's pastime. Like modern-day players forced to choose among competing salary offers and their otherwise lifelong franchises, roto owners must sometimes choose between suffering poor statistices and seeing their favorite team suffer in the loss column. How can baseball fans overcome such conflicts?
First, if in such circumstances, you actually experience physical symptoms of depression, or even minor headaches or nausea, seek professional help. No baseball season rises or falls on a single game. No Fantasy baseball season rises or falls on one day's results. Mature Fantasy fanatics know the feeling of boxscores that look like enemies. Slumps pass. So take a deep breath and relax when you see your star Fantasy pitcher is throwing against your hometown team (unless, of course, you live in Colorado, which poses entirely different issues). Try instead to develop more mature and sophisticated ways to balance your heart's desires. You can root aggressively for a 1-0 game in which your star Fantasy pitcher has a great ERA and WHIP night, but sacrifices the win for the success of your favorite team since childhood. Cheer for your Fantasy power hitter to have the only two hits against your hometown team, and let them be home runs that fall short of helping his team win. By doing so you can wish for hometown and roto stat success. Balance, balance, balance. Perhaps every once in awhile you can have your cake and eat it too. Will it always work out? Of course not! But that's what being a fan is all about. Cheering with and against the odds is. Take me to the Fantasy Baseball Forum Take me back to the Bleacher Feature page. |