When I first got hooked up to the internet, I would play any fantasy game that I could find and play other sports related handicapping games. With other things happening on my life and on two occasions them affecting the final outcome, I do not play as often. I also stopped playing fantasy baseball since leagues no longer use the Sabermetrics format which I like. Just about every league now uses batting average and home runs and include stolen bases and pitcher strikeouts where I strongly prefer using on base percentage and slugging average and not have stolen bases or strikeouts factor.
I also don't play in public on line leagues with 9 strangers since 2 or 3 of them usually stop caring about their team one month into the season.
As you can imagine, I have had success:
This chart does not include one handicapping game which I will explain later.
The five most significant fantasy sports players I have dealt with:
5. Barry Bonds. SF OF- 2002. Not the year he hit 73 home runs but the one after. His on base percentage and slugging keyed the team I had my first title with.
4. Tom Brady. NE QB - 2007. Knowing he finally got decent wide receivers, I planned on getting him in the third round that year as most people pegged him for the 4th or 5th round. He set the NFL record for touchdowns that year. If it was not for questionable player decisions and lazy ownership by other members in one league (punch and bitch slap), I would have won both leagues I was in that year. Note: Being at a memorable convention one weekend created a situation where I had to make a player decision early Sunday morning and I made the wrong one not knowing if a questionable player was going to play. Had I made the correct one, I would have won the league anyway.
3. Steve McNair Ten QB - 2003. Drafted the number one player by someone else in one league I was in, I got him in the 6th round in another league. His co MVP year allowed me to win my first football title.
2. Mushin Muhammad Car WR 2004. Needing another back up wide receiver, I drafted him in the 11th round. Though he was the fifth one I drafted, he turned out to be the best one in the league that year and one of the main reasons I won in 2004.
1. Scott Podsednik Mil OF 2003. ESPN had a game called Diamond Daily where people paid $20 and picked one player a day out of a pool of one third of the available teams. Every month $2,000 each went to the person whose players had the most home runs, runs batted in and batting average among the over 6,000 entries they had.
In September that year, I had players who were getting hits all month and in spite of Sammy Sosa going 0 for 5 one day, I had a chance to win the batting average portion. Since I had the minimum number of at bats needed to qualify for the batting average portion, I decided to not play players for the last week. On the last Saturday of the month, I was in third place and put Scott Podsednik in for Sunday since he had a favorable matchup and was planning on removing him if the people above me had their average fall below mine and I was in first.
I was at a convention that Saturday and did not get a chance to look at a computer until it was too late. I found out the two people above me had players who did not do well on Saturday and I was in first going into the last day of the month. Scott Podsednik went 4 for 5 that Sunday and I won $2,000. For what it was worth, I still would have won had I not played him but had he gone 1 for 5 or worse, I would have lost.
