How I Became a Polygamist

I’ve crossed over to the dark side. Done what I swore I would never do. I’ve become a polygamist.

When I tell people I am a football or baseball fan, my dad will quickly correct me and tell people I am a Patriots and Red Sox fan. And this is totally true. I typically only watch football games that may affect the Patriots’ standings, and I almost never watch a baseball game that doesn’t influence the Red Sox in some way.

I’ve long held the belief that liking more than one team in a league is sports bigamy. I knew plenty of people who declared themselves Twins fans right up until the Red Sox started going for the first World Series win, and all of a sudden Sox hats were everywhere. I can live with being a Cubs fan and a Red Sox fan, but in the end, you have to have a preference. You can’t neutrally clap for both teams when they come head-to-head in an important match-up. It’s sports bigamy.

And if that’s sports bigamy, then fantasy football is sports polygamy. I found a sports bar here that will play all the Patriots games, and I always have to get there an hour before game time to get any kind of seat because of all the fantasy football people showing up with their laptops and cell phones, ready to make a trade at a moment’s notice. I want to scream “you are not a real GM. You do not have a real team! Your decisions affect nobody!”

I never understood how they could come dressed head to toe in Vikings gear, and yet be rooting for Green Bay or the Bears. It’s just not in me to root for anyone except the Patriots…and whoever is beating the Jets or Indy.

So how did I become one of them, these sports polygamists? I’ve turned down multiple offers to join fantasy teams. But a friend of mine caught me in a weak moment a few weeks ago and said her league of girls was short two teams. Would I be willing to join for $25 so their league could go forward? I sighed and said sure, figuring I’d just pick all the Patriots players and be done with it.

Well, apparently you can’t do that? The stats and algorithms and other dorky scientific theories that go into this “hobby” (or whatever you call it) say you don’t want a team of all one team because, you see, then the bye weeks leave you scoreless.
This is already more thought than I cared to put into this whole thing. But the other problem? As I’ve mentioned before, I’m very competitive. And the idea that a bunch of chicks, most of whom I know for a FACT had their husbands choose their teams for them, beating someone like me that actually KNOWS football was just too much to bear.

So I recruited my other Patriots-loving friend into helping me design a team that could win, but also would not require me to root for anyone at all involved in the Patriots’ standing. And that started a week of actually reading Fantasy Sports magazines (something I had incessantly mocked friends for only a year ago) and doing mock drafts, and…well all sorts of stupid stuff that makes me embarrassed to be a sports fan right now.

After reading those, I decided I had zero interest in sitting through a draft with a bunch of strange chicks, so I set my team up for Yahoo to pick it for me. By setting it up, I mean I excluded all Jets, Indy, Buffalo and Miami players. And then took a few tips from the “pros” in the magazines, and rated a bunch of players for Yahoo to pick from.

So color me surprised when I rated 30 players for Yahoo to pick from, and somehow I ended up with Ben Roethlisberger as a benched player and half a team with a bye in Week 8. What about the algorithms, Yahoo??

It remains to be seen how this goes, but I am already regretting my decision to become a polygamist. If you see me at the sports bar, feel free to shout at me that my team isn’t real and my choices mean nothing. I’ll gladly shout my agreement.

For those of you who care, here’s my team: