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

by Matthew Berry

  Here’s Brian: “The loser of the league has to hang the Pink Leaf in a prominent place in their house for one year, bringing shame upon the loser and convincing the wives to allow us to spend more time improving our teams. Having that thing hang on your wall all year is a good reminder to put in waiver claims, set lineups, and check injury reports.”

  We move on from toilet seats to toilet-related accessories, like the toilet paper used in Eric Schoonmaker’s 12-team Jay Cutler for MVP Fantasy Football League. League headquarters are in Morris Plains, New Jersey, and they offer this up to last place in the loser’s bracket. Loser is required to display it at work and prove it with a photo.

  And of course, if you have toilets and toilet paper, you have a plunger. Right, Corey McDonnell? The Marple Newtown Fantasy League, out of Philly, has been awarding the last-place plunger to the previous year’s last-place finisher at the draft for five years now. It too must be on display all year.

  There’s no easy transition to the word “balls,” so I’ll just say . . . huh. Easier than I thought, actually. Balls. Lots and lots of last-place trophies feature balls. In Jake Walton’s league, the Balls-of-Defeat trophy comes to every draft (always in a crowded bar), where it sits in front of the loser. The chrome balls hang over a light that changes between eight colors. And whenever there is a dumb or questionable pick by anyone, the loser has to ring the balls like a bell.

  Christopher M. Curran’s Chicago–based Crotch Buffet Fantasy Football League gives out the Balls in the Basement Award to its last-place owner. The “winner” has to “proudly” display it in his house and change all of his social media pictures to include both his face and the trophy. Most important, the trophy features a removable set of realistic-looking balls. When the loser leaves the house, he must remove them from the trophy and carry them with him. If a fellow league member calls him out and he doesn’t have the balls on him, he loses one draft spot in the next draft for each infraction.

  Of course, it’s not just balls featured on last-place trophies. Let’s be honest: there wasn’t a safer bet for this book than finding a “booby prize” trophy in it.

  Carter Cordes’s 12-team Sig Ep Young Alum Fantasy Football League has been together since they graduated UNC–Chapel Hill in 2005 and gives a literal “booby” prize to the last-place finisher, who has to display it in his home. It’s actually a pair of dancing breasts retrofitted with plaques for the last-place team each year. I would have enjoyed being there when they brought this into the engraver’s shop.

  Speaking of trophies that might give you pause upon first seeing them, Nicole Ansaldi shares the story of the Gardner Trophy, so named for the woman who gave it to Nicole as a wedding present. “Apparently it was a fertility statue. We were pretty creeped out.” A creepy odd piece of art? Sounds like a fantasy trophy to me.

  As the symbol for winning the Rochester, New York–based league that Nicole and her husband are in, it holds powers beyond just recognizing a champion. “My brother-in-law won it the first year, and my sister won it the second year. Well, guess what happened? While they were in possession of the masterpiece known as the Gardner Trophy, they had a baby boy.”

  Now that’s a trophy. Nicole and her husband won in 2011, and now they’re expecting. See? The birth of a baby. We’re ending on an up note. What could be nicer than a trophy where the punch line is a new baby being born? Everyone loves babies.

  We started this whole section with smack talk, and I saved one last smack story for the end. Todd talks about a league he played in with his 10-year-old son. Todd did most of the work for his son in year one but had to stop in year two—his son was in the championship game against him. “Of course, he wins and is now the champion of the league. I hate to lose, but I’m also glad it was my kid instead of my brother-in-law.”

  Todd’s league has no trophy, but the winner can ask anyone in the league, at any time, for the whole next year, “Who’s the champ?” And everyone else has to answer, “You are.”

  Todd remembers the day after he lost. “The next morning I roll over to look at the clock because I have to get up at 6:00 AM for work. Taped to the clock is a piece of paper. ‘Who’s the champ, Dad?’ Be careful how you raise your kids.”

  That’s what’s great about fantasy sports. Winning and losing, dad teaching son and then son getting revenge, them spending time with each other and talking trash. Sounds like you’re raising your kid completely right, Todd.

  Stories like Todd’s were the ones that had me, well, a bit wistful.

  By 2009, I had been at ESPN for almost three years. Things were going very well professionally. My transition from a management/on-air expert hybrid to just pure analyst had worked well. In 2007, ESPN started a live Sunday morning show, Fantasy Football Now (we even won an Emmy), which proved so successful online that it eventually moved to ESPN2 and became one of the highest-rated shows on that channel. My ESPN.com columns and the “Fantasy Focus 06010” podcast kept growing in audience each year, and I was making regular appearances on some of ESPN’s biggest shows, like Sunday NFL Countdown, SportsCenter, and NFL Live.

  When I started at ESPN, the question had been: how do we get fantasy players to switch to ESPN.com from our competitors? My answer was: it’s hard to get people to switch. Fantasy players are creatures of habit, and leagues tend to like where they play. Instead, we’ve got a much better shot at just convincing new people to play fantasy. Instead of trying to get a bigger piece of the existing pie, let’s just grow the pie. ESPN reaches pretty much every sports fan one way or another. So let’s convince people who already like sports to try fantasy.

  The way we did that was to get rid of the stereotype that fantasy’s a nerdy or a niche thing. We needed to make fantasy sports seem like it’s just one of those things that people do. Look, everyone fills out a bracket, everyone likes Vegas, everyone likes the new big superhero movie—and everyone has a fantasy football team. Make it seem like everyone does it and if you don’t, you’re missing out. That should be the message.

  To that end, every year, thanks to lots of hard work by many people and tireless support from management, we kept making progress, getting more and more people at ESPN to play fantasy, to talk about fantasy on TV and radio, and to promote the game. When SportsCenter anchors and Monday Night Football analysts would make casual mentions of their fantasy teams, it kept chipping away at the “nerd” label and people realized it was cool.

  And it started to work. Every season our game and content on ESPN .com showed significant growth, both in general and specifically compared with others in the industry. We always strive to be better, but by 2009, we were very happy with where we were in the fantasy industry.

  Thank goodness my career was going well. Because my personal life was, um, basically the same as work, except I did it in my apartment. I had made some nice friends, but mostly I worked. And worked some more. And then slept a little so I could get up early and work even more.

  And as the calendar flipped to 2009, it was starting to get old really quickly.

  20.

  Husbands, Wives, and Fantasy

  or

  “I Paid a Therapist $100 to Hear Me Explain How the Waiver Wire Works”

  “I have three kids.”

  The drinks have not been ordered yet. The menus are still closed. We are less than 60 seconds into our first date.

  “Before we get any further,” she says, “I just thought you should know I was divorced five years ago and I have three kids.” Half-joking, she adds: “This is the part of the date where you run away screaming.”

  Now it’s time for the big smile. “Noooo. What are you talking about? I love kids.”

  The part I fail to mention, of course, is that the reason I love kids is because they are never around me. The ex–Mrs. Roto and I never had children, just my dog Macy, and at that point in my life very few of my friends had kids, even the ones back i
n Los Angeles. I didn’t live near any relatives. My interactions with kids were limited to stopping at lemonade stands and reading misspelled tweets by socially awkward 12-year-olds.

  She grins and says, “Well, I didn’t want to go too far without mentioning it,” and opens her menu.

  I didn’t think another thing about it because, truth be told, as soon as she told me that, I knew I wouldn’t be around long enough to ever meet her kids. Yes, I lied to her about liking kids. But it’s not my fault. She’s really hot. Guys will nod and agree to anything crazy a woman says if she’s hot. And so began our relationship.

  Date one goes well enough to lead to date two and then three, and eventually we’re seeing each other a few nights a week. She is funny, it turns out. Loves a good dirty joke. She’s got this wonderful empathy and nurturing side. She’s whip-smart. She’s adventurous and open-minded and has incredible energy. She’s the first to laugh at herself or make fun of something she does. An amazing cook and a Howard Stern fan. She’s an old-fashioned girly-girl and makes no apologies for it. Doesn’t understand basketball yet roots for my Lakers with the passion of a season-ticket holder. We have the same morals and point of view on most everything. She just . . . gets it. Whether we’re at a corporate event with my bosses or at a dive bar with friends, she’s totally comfortable. Everyone, including my dog, likes her more than they like me. But the thing I like the most? She’s positive. Always, always positive and smiling. Super-happy, laughs easily, and rarely complains or gets annoyed about anything. For a curmudgeon like me, that’s a breath of fresh air.

  So that’s why, after we had been dating for a while, we had a problem.

  The kids.

  I hadn’t met them. By design. She didn’t want me to meet them until we were serious and she knew it was going somewhere. I agreed completely. I’m certainly no expert, and every situation is different, but to generalize on a subject I know nothing about (okay, fine, another subject I know nothing about), I think it screws kids up if they’re constantly meeting new adults their single parents are dating. I’ve caused and been in enough therapy in my own life—I don’t need three kids’ neuroses on my conscience too.

  She told me she was worried. She was starting to really fall for me because—and I can only guess here—she’s human. To know me is to love me. Ask anyone. Wait. Just ask her. Actually, better just take my word on this one.

  “Where is this going?” she wanted to know, and considering the amount of time we had been spending together, it was a legit question.

  In a rare moment of adult clarity, I said . . . “I don’t know.” I told her she had every right to ask that question, but the honest answer was . . . I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to lie to her and say, “Yeah, I’m willing to commit,” because, well, she had three kids. Three kids I didn’t know. Three’s a lot, you know? I had no idea what that life was like. We only dated when the kids were with their father. A life with her and three kids would be very different from a life with just her.

  What if the kids hated me? What if I hated them? What if I discovered what I’ve always suspected is true—that I’m fairly selfish and like being on my own a lot more than with kids? I told her that I was willing to try, but I wanted to be honest. If I discovered I didn’t enjoy life with the kids—for whatever reason—I would have to bail. She respected my honesty, but her kids, rightly so, were more important. She wasn’t going to introduce me to them and take things to the next level without more assurances.

  So she broke up with me.

  But even while we were apart and going about our normal lives, we kept in contact, a rarity for her. I’m actually friends with almost all of my exes. She, however, never looks back. Except this time. She would text or call me from time to time, and we would have lunch or talk and catch up.

  Eventually, she said she wanted to get back together and give it another shot. She would slowly introduce me to the kids, and we would see. If it wasn’t a fit, then she’d deal with it and at least we’d know. I decided the shot at love was worth more than some sort of stand based on useless pride or ego, so . . . I said okay.

  So we got back together, and it was then that I got the biggest surprise since she first told me she had three kids.

  I loved her kids. Loved. Smart, good-natured (mostly), well-behaved, hilariously funny, energetic boys who were four, eight, and ten when we met. They’re all into sports, so I’m sure my job helps some, but they quickly embraced me. More important, I quickly embraced them.

  What I discovered was that I enjoy being around kids. Love it, in fact. Stereotypically neurotic, I get in my own head a lot. Except when I’m around the kids. Because you can’t be anything but focused on them. And when I’m focused on them, I’m not thinking about myself. Which is nice.

  Dating a woman with children at a vulnerable age can go a lot of different ways in terms of whether they accept or reject the new guy. In my case, their love of sports is huge. Plus, their father remains very involved in their lives and has never been anything but gracious to me, and they had been raised well before I ever showed up. They are filled with love, have no bitterness, and are just normal, upbeat kids who want their mom to be happy and like having someone else around who can shoot hoops with them or take them to the movies.

  I can’t describe the feeling as anything other than “freeing.” I’m amazed at how quickly my priorities changed once I had stepkids. That’s right. Stepkids.

  Because, you see, once I got to know the kids, the rest was very easy, and there was no reason to waste any time. Within six months, we owned a house together and were married.

  Crazy, right? I didn’t see it coming. I never saw myself as a stepfather, let alone to three kids. But in a way, it makes sense. When I started my journey, I never saw myself making a living at fantasy sports, never saw myself living in Connecticut, never saw myself working for ESPN.

  So perhaps it’s fitting that when I started this book, I never expected to have husband-and-wife stories. The original book pitch included many of the chapters you’ve read—stories about draft day, trades, obsession, work. Until I started reading my email. And just like I was blindsided by love, so too was I overwhelmed by how many people play fantasy sports with their spouse. Or play in leagues with family members, or even people who play in a league that includes a married couple. And just like anything else that involves family, it doesn’t always go smoothly.

  In 2011 a man who would like to be referred to as “Ricky L.” was in a 10-team non-keeper league with a husband and wife who were each managing their own teams. Very normal.

  The husband owned Buffalo Bills running back Fred Jackson, who was having a breakout season. The wife had Eagles running back LeSean McCoy, who was in the middle of a monster year. Still normal. On the Sunday of week 11 in the 2011 season, however, Fred Jackson broke a bone in his leg and was lost for the season. A tough break, to be sure, but sadly, injuries are a part of both football and fantasy football.

  And this is where the normal ends.

  Because two days later, on Tuesday of that week . . . tragedy. The wife suddenly and tragically passed away. Heartbreaking, right? Just devastating. As Ricky recalled, “It was a very sad and awkward and weird situation to be in a fantasy league with someone who dies. We all felt bad for the husband.”

  Of course, Ricky. There are no guidelines on how to deal with something that horrible. But here, gentle reader, is where the story takes a turn. You see, while there is a horrific event in this story, that is not why it is in this book.

  It is here because it turns out funny.

  On Friday of that very same week, just three days after the wife passed away, a new transaction pops up on the league message board. The husband trades out-for-the-year Fred Jackson. To the dead wife’s team. For LeSean McCoy!

  What? What?!? Now what do you do??? It’s a terrible trade, obviously, as no one would ever trade a stud for a gu
y who’s done for the season, but beyond that, the owner of McCoy is, you know, dead!

  Clearly, the husband is controlling both teams. But the guy just suffered a tragic and horrific loss. “Who wants to criticize a guy who just lost his wife?” Ricky asks.

  Of course. An awkward situation is now even more uncomfortable. So the league comes to a decision. “You know what? People grieve in different ways. There’s not a ton of money on the line. It’s just fantasy football, doesn’t compare to the death of a loved one. It’s weird, but whatever.” They’re just gonna look the other way.

  Except, as I described earlier in the book, some leagues have a jerk—That Guy. And in Ricky’s league, we’ll call him “X.”

  X doesn’t care. He starts blasting the husband all over the message board, emailing him privately, calling him names, and yelling about the trade. “I don’t care if she’s dead! It’s a bullshit trade!”

  NOW WHAT DO YOU DO???

  But then, finally, the husband responds: “Hey!!!” he says. “It was her dying wish.”

  Ball game, husband.

  For the record, I don’t believe it was the wife’s deathbed wish for her husband to have Fred Jackson, but I’m not arguing it. Neither did the league. They let him have McCoy and the husband didn’t make any more questionable moves. And because fantasy karma is a real thing, the husband’s team didn’t make the playoffs, “X” was kicked out of the league at the end of the year, and the wife’s team still ended up making the playoffs, with the husband just setting the best possible lineup for her.

  Crazy story. The whole thing, honestly, sounds like something from a daytime talk show. A feeling that Dan Press knows all too well.

  In 2007, Dan’s draft day in the Toth-Lacotte Bath House Fantasy Baseball League winds up falling on the same weekend as a trip Dan promised to take to Boston with his girlfriend Sara. Dan can’t get out of the trip, so it’s agreed that he’ll draft on the phone. It’s not ideal, but Dan will make it work.