Fantasy Life: The Outrageous, Uplifting, and Heartbreaking World of Fantasy Sports from the Guy Who's Lived It

by Matthew Berry

  So when they go to a bar with her friends on draft day, Dan sets up shop and starts drafting. He remembers, “Forty-five minutes into it, I start getting flak from the girlfriend. Two and a half hours later, we’re wrapping up and I’m in an all-out fight and had no idea. We argued, and she ran out of the bar, disgusted at how rude I was with her friends.”

  Dan had to search all over the streets of Boston to find her and eventually calm her down. So, okay, a big fight that started because of fantasy sports. We’ve all been there.

  Except for the part where Dan’s girlfriend went on The Rachael Ray Show to complain about him.

  It was a “Girl’s Guide to Football” episode with Valerie Bertinelli (really? . . . really), and Dan’s girlfriend complained on the show about his obsession watching football (for fantasy). Next time your significant other rags on you about your fantasy obsession, remember Dan. It’s one thing to get grief about fantasy; it’s another to get nagged on national TV.

  Tough times.

  But proving love is bigger than fantasy, Dan ended up marrying her, and they have two beautiful children. As Dan says, “We are still madly in love . . . but she’ll never understand just how much fantasy sports mean to me.”

  One person who finally understands what fantasy means to her husband is Katie. You see, her husband, Kyle, is into it. How into it are you, Kyle? “I like to save my waiver spot as much as I can, so I have determined what time players become free agents every week. It’s at 3:00 AM Thursday and 12:00 AM on Wednesday in respective leagues.”

  Kyle tells me he would set his alarm, wake up, and make his picks. “I would bring the laptop to the bathroom so as not to wake my wife, make the pickups, and go back to bed.”

  Katie didn’t like how much time Kyle spent on fantasy sports, so he often hid it from her. One night, midseason, Katie walked in on him and he quickly closed his computer. Suddenly, Kyle found himself in couples therapy. She thought Kyle was looking at porn!

  “Basically, I paid a therapist $100 to hear me explain how the waiver wire works.”

  Even funnier is that when Katie found out the truth, she was disappointed. She told the therapist that “she would have preferred an Internet porn junkie over an obsessive fantasy nerd.” Apparently, she just hated fantasy sports since it took Kyle away from the family so often. Now out in the open, things got better. At least until the end of the year. Kyle won the league, you see, so he wanted to trash-talk his league-mates. Kyle explains: “I sent the league a picture of myself wearing nothing, with the trophy covering my junk.”

  “A week later my wife and I went out on a date. The next morning my son asked why I took a naked picture with my trophy. Turns out the 15-year-old babysitter was using the iPad camera with the kids and that photo came up.”

  I can see why a wife might get upset at that. Luckily, you already know a good therapist for the babysitter. You know she’s scarred.

  But, Kyle reports, there is ultimately a happy ending.

  “She loves the show The League and will watch with me and repeatedly say, ‘That is so you,’ throughout. We can now laugh at my fantasy addiction rather than fight over it.” The other positive is that Kyle smartly made a deal. Whatever he won from fantasy, he would spend on her. So when Kyle won two of his leagues this year, Katie finally got a Tory Burch purse.

  Katie eventually learned what many of us have known for a long time. When husbands, wives, significant others, and family members decide to play fantasy sports together, it’s a wonderful thing. Whether you’re playing with your wife or against your brother, the theme is the same. Fantasy football, as great as it is, is better when you share it with family. In often the most surprising ways . . .

  TIME-OUT:

  Playing Fantasy Sports While Your Child Is Born

  Of course, sometimes the mixture of fantasy sports and family happens immediately. In the hospital, in the delivery room, or in the case of Jason Stack, on the way to your child being born.

  Jason had his Alcohol All-Stars league draft scheduled on the same day his wife Bekki needed to be induced, so he left his draft early to take her to the hospital and planned to finish it from his cell. He picked up his wife, and as they were driving, Bekki’s contractions start. Suddenly, Jason’s phone rang.

  “You’re up.” Jason explains he’s not even past the house where they are drafting, let alone at the hospital yet. What happened to them waiting? “So just stop on your way and make your pick!” And in the background Jason hears other owners yelling, “C’mon, Stack! You’re holding us up!”

  Which is when Jason hears the little voice in his head. Hmm, the draft is on the way to the hospital. . . .

  So with his pregnant wife in the car starting to have contractions and about to give birth, Jason stops at the draft to make a pick. That’s right. He delayed the birth of his child for fantasy.

  Only by about ten minutes and her contractions were still fairly far apart, but still. I repeat.

  He delayed the birth of his child for fantasy.

  Jason adds that his daughter was born that day with no complications (save for some dirty looks from the nurses), and that “I love my wife. She understood my obsession with fantasy football and still married me!”

  After hearing that story, perhaps no husband should love his wife more than you, Jason. Of course, at least Bekki knew what was happening and begrudingly allowed it. Dave’s wife, Kim, went into labor, right on David’s draft day. Since his son was early, a stay in the neonatal ICU was required. At the ICU, David was told his son was totally healthy. So then what did he do?

  “I came to Labor and Delivery to ‘check’ on my wife. She was passed out, so I pulled out my laptop and logged on to the hospital’s wi-fi. I drafted from the daddy pullout chair, with birthing guts around, as my wife stayed passed out the whole time. And as I am writing this, she just turned to me and said, ‘You did what?’ She had no idea.”

  Why do I think there’s gonna be a lot of wives saying that after this book? Someone who is not in the dark, however, is Jennafer. She remembers exactly what happened on the day her son was born. As does Jim. Of course, there are two sides to every story. . . .

  JENNAFER: I enjoyed the heck out of college, went to Mardi Gras twice, ran with the bulls in Pamplona, and still managed to graduate. Then I became a teacher, backpacked through South America for a year, joined a rescue squad, and continued to do my best to help make the world a better place. But first and foremost, I’ve always wanted to be a mom.

  JIM: I started playing fantasy baseball in 2002.

  JENNAFER: When I met Jim, I tried to scare him away on our second date, but it didn’t work. We got married, and we were going to have children. They would be raised Jewish and Boston fans. And I continued to regale friends and family with tales of mystery and adventure, victory and defeat. I made them laugh and cry. But above all, the one constant, to the very core of my being, I wanted to be a mom.

  JIM: My draft that year was scheduled for the morning of March 16.

  JENNAFER: I reveled in my body’s determination to tip the scales at a buck-eighty before the big day. I marveled at the way my belly would ripple as the baby got bigger. I loved being pregnant! The months were rich with powerful, funny, life-changing moments. But those stories would have to wait until the baby was born. My water broke at 4:15 AM, and we had nothing packed, nothing prepared.

  JIM: I was prepared. I had all of my ESPN rankings printed out with each position tiered in color-coded highlighter.

  JENNAFER: Cameron Joseph Curran was born on March 15, 2002, weighing 8 pounds, 11 ounces.

  JIM: In 2002 we still didn’t have a laptop, and the hospital only allowed in-house phones, so I made sure to get the telephone number to my wife’s recovery room.

  JENNAFER: Cameron was magnificent. His hair was a platinum color that drew in visitors from all over the ward. He was peacefu
l and princely and pudgy. He rocked.

  JIM: I had arranged to have my brother Brian call me every five picks so I could keep up with the draft.

  JENNAFER: I was a mom. Jim was a dad. And I had so many stories to tell!

  JIM: I explained to Jennafer that it was very important to keep the line clear in case my brother needed to call with an update or for my picks.

  JENNAFER: The phone was off-limits. I couldn’t share the news. I couldn’t tell any stories.

  JIM: What would we have done if he was trying to call and she’s hogging the phone?

  JENNAFER: I couldn’t shout from the mountaintops or the comfort of my hospital bed that I was a mom. We had to keep the line open so Jim could get updated on who had been drafted.

  JIM: The last thing I wanted to do was establish a bad reputation with my league as one of those guys who tries to pick already taken players. Quite honestly, I felt I was being very thoughtful about the whole thing.

  JENNAFER: After Brian updated Jim on who had been drafted, Jim would go outside to use his cell phone to call in his draft pick.

  JIM: My brother and the rest of the league commended me for not holding anything up.

  JENNAFER: Then he would return to stare at the spreadsheets and agonize over who would go next, who would be available when his next pick came around.

  JIM: Her parents were there, and Cameron was requiring her full attention anyway.

  JENNAFER: I think his first pick was Ichiro.

  JIM: I had Ichiro in his prime and felt great about the categories he fills.

  JENNAFER: His newborn son was there for the whole thing, to hear his dad regale him with the stories about who he’d chosen as his retainers, his strategy, how he was going to hornswoggle his league-mates.

  JIM: I was very happy with my team.

  JENNAFER: Our day was filled with phone calls and stories, only I wasn’t the one making or telling them.

  JIM: I finished last in batting average and therefore out of the money by a couple of points. I got what I deserved.

  JIM: My in-laws, it was their first grandchild, were mortified. That was, of course, until my father-in-law hired me to run his high-end doctors’ league team.

  JENNAFER: Our equally magnificent daughter, Michaela Hope, was born at 10:39 AM on June 17, 2005, weighing in at 6 pounds, 9 ounces. Her dad chose Johan Santana in the first round for his fantasy baseball team in the draft that year . . . and he won his league.

  JIM: As I email this to you, Cameron is now ten years old, loves your podcast, and is my co-manager.

  Considering you were doing it when he was born, it’s only fitting that fantasy baseball has brought you guys closer together, Jim. Fantasy sports has a way of doing that with a lot of families . . .

  21.

  Fantasy Brings Families Together

  or

  “I Vowed to Always Support the Guinness Bowl Draft Day, from That Day Forward, ’Til Death Do Us Part”

  In 1983 the Austin Franchise Football League (AFFL) was started among eight friends in Texas. Theo Thompson III was three years old. His parents were already separated.

  Theo remembers, “My mom moved my sister and me to south Texas, so I would only see my dad sporadically over the next seven years as he battled drug and alcohol addiction. I don’t remember thinking too much about it as a child. Some kids had a dad around; I didn’t. Whatever.”

  But Theo does remember when his dad came back into their lives. “He and my mom showed up one Friday at my school. Apparently we’d be going to visit my dad in Austin every third weekend for the next eight years. He was required to pick us up after school on Fridays of his weekend and bring us back by five on Sunday.”

  Theo continues: “I don’t remember much about those first few years, except for the car rides. As an adult, I can appreciate how much of a commitment it took for him to pick me up at 3:00 PM on a Friday, two hours from home—four hours round-trip—and then do the drive again on Sunday. But as a child, all I remember is that I’d never seen a football game before (even though I live in Texas . . . that’s what happens when you grow up with only a mom).”

  But luckily for Theo, in 1990 his dad introduced him to both football and fantasy football. You see, his dad was a founding member of the AFFL. And young Theo latched onto it. “I wasn’t good at sports,” Theo remembers, “but I was really good at math. So while I wasn’t very interested in throwing the football, I was happy to pore over predraft magazines with my dad, looking for hidden gems.”

  So every third weekend Theo and his dad had a Sunday ritual. “We’d look at the matchups in the paper at 11:30 and decide on our starters. We’d watch the noon game on TV, then get in his truck for the drive to Victoria, Texas, for kickoff of the 3:00 game. My sister would complain about listening to the static-filled game as we switched stations as we traveled, trying to find either the Oilers or Cowboys. And I would sit next to my dad, roster in hand, estimating the score every time Warren Moon threw a TD or a game break came on to give us stats from other games. Of course, two weeks would pass before I saw him again and could see our record, but I reveled in those hours with my dad.”

  Theo must have been good luck. His dad won his first AFFL title that year. And in 1995, when Theo was 15, his dad made him GM of the Black and Tans. The commissioner of the league started mailing Theo the weekly scoring sheets, and Theo got to attend the draft. Most important, Theo and his dad would talk on the phone each Sunday (a first for them) about setting their lineup.

  “Fast-forward to 2003. My dad was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. The first one to call and let me know was the league commissioner.” Theo’s dad would be in the hospital for three weeks. “Every time I would come in to check on him, there’d be Owen or Steve or Terry or one of the other AFFL owners talking to him, holding his hand, reminiscing about the past. No one said it, but we all knew that the years of drug and alcohol abuse had caught up to him. During those three weeks, I was at the hospital every Sunday, going over the lineup with him and then tracking our players on the 17-inch hospital TV.”

  When Theo’s father passed away, the other AFFL owners were pallbearers. “He didn’t leave much of an inheritance,” Theo remembers, “but I did get to keep the Black and Tans. And with Tom Brady, Randy Moss, and LaDainian Tomlinson—all holdovers from those drafts with my dad—I was league champion in 2007. And after my dad’s passing, the members of the AFFL voted unanimously to rename the trophy the Theo Thompson II Memorial Trophy. So, with all due respect to everyone else in your book, I’ll take the AFFL trophy over any of theirs.”

  I get it. I 100 percent, completely, fully, totally, get it. Not that I needed Theo’s story to understand the importance of fathers and sons, the challenges of a divorced couple with kids, or the ability of fantasy football to help heal wounds and bridge gaps. No, I’ve understood it for a long time.

  After I got married, everything sort of hit me at once. Two jobs, three boys, and a dog made for total chaos. Wonderful chaos, but chaos nonetheless. And I finally felt what it was like to be in a family that had a lot of moving parts to it.

  As I sit here writing this chapter, my parents are a week from celebrating their 47th wedding anniversary. They dated for two years before getting married, so they’ve been together for about half a century. I was very lucky in that I never grew up having to deal with divorce. But now that I’ve married into a family that’s gone through one, my life and focus have shifted.

  Look, I can barely take care of myself. And other than my dog, I’d never really been responsible for any other living being before I got married. Now I’ve gone from seeing the kids a few times a week when their mother and I were dating to living in the same house with three boys ages 7, 11, and 13.

  It was a huge transition, but not just for me. Think about it from the kids’ point of view. They’d already been through a lot in their young lives, and
despite spending a lot of time with me before the wedding and all of us getting along, it still had to be a big adjustment to live full-time with your mom and her new husband, right?

  I tried to walk a fine line. I wanted to be there for them but also didn’t want to come on too strong, show them I cared but not seem like I was trying to replace anyone. The big decisions were their parents’ call, but I could be a sounding board, an advocate, or, when necessary, a disciplinarian. I tried to be positive and involved but not too pushy.

  A guy who had probably seemed new and fun to them when their mom and I were first dating was now in their face 24/7. So it was a bit of eggshell-walking for me and probably for them too. Everyone got along fine, of course, but it was more like we were all roommates than a true family, if that makes any sense. And although all three boys are sports fans and knew what I do, even occasionally watching me on TV, none of them had ever shown a real interest in my work. Until one day David, the 13-year-old, surprised me with this:

  “I want to play in a league with you.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. Actually, I want to do a team with you. Can we? Is it too late?”

  I looked at him, and I smiled. “No, it’s not too late,” I said. “We’ll start a league.”

  And start a league we did. My wife and I are friends with the parents of all the kids’ close friends. So I decided we should do an eight-team extended-family league. We’d invite parents to co-own with their kids and do it up. I would co-own with David.

  The next day we had just finished watching Matt’s (the 11-year-old) youth football game. As we were walking out, we ran into Matt’s father (my wife’s ex) and his longtime girlfriend. And a thought occurred to me.

  “Hey, uh, don’t know if you’d be interested, but, uh, I think we’re gonna do a little fantasy football league with all the kids. You wanna play? You could co-own a team with Matt.”