Gone (fantasy) fishing

It’s that time of year we've all been anxiously waiting for… NFCB!!!

(And right THERE... 1500 red blooded young American men just stared at a screen. Blinked. And said.. WTF is this girl talking about?)

But for the hundreds of thousands of other guys out there.. The kind who can sympathize with Leroyyyy Jenkins... The kind who when you say "rotisserie", they don't think chicken... And the kind of guy who waits for Baseball Prospectus to come in the mail.. The kinda dudes that understand what positional scarcity and ADP actually are (and are all too happy to explain it to you. For hours. Without anesthetic.) All just simultaneously said... Yes!!!!!..

Let me explain.

It’s National Fantasy Championship of Baseball. Seriously, some of these guys have fantasies that don't involve me and my girlfriends. It's usually David Wright .... which I get ... but for me. Not you.

There are several types of baseball fans. There are guys that love to go to the games, drink beer and are simply spectators. There are guys who sit in foul ball territory with gloves like eight year olds. (Yes, that was me laughing at you last season on the third baseline at 'New Yankee'). There's the kind of fan that gets taken out of the stadium in handcuffs while their kids watch on, for telling Alex Rodriguez to do something to his mom that I couldn't quite make out, but apparently the cops did. (We will skip them.) Finally, there are the types of fans that sit patiently in front of their laptops and watch a computer generated baseball dude as he swings at red and blue dots. Even when it’s a shitty team whose entire season has practically been blacked out (sorry Pittsburgh), they'll do it just to see how one player’s individual stats may affect his chances at being a fantasy Joe Maddon.

Well, this blog’s for you.

I tried fantasy baseball a few years back. Didn't really like it. It was just so time consuming. Kinda like a marriage; you had to work on it every day adjust for injuries and line ups because they play so many games and most of it is so day-to- day. Way too high maintenance. So I eventually found this genius guy to pretty much run the team for me after I drafted. He was the pool boy I hired to keep the wife busy while I attended to the rest of my life.

Now fantasy football. That was something I could get behind. It was more like the hot girl you called up once in a blue moon at 3am on a weekend and all you had to text was.. "?"

Yes. That actually works on some of the dumber ones.

But then one day, one of my friends came in bitching about his fantasy league. His.. Fantasy fishing league.

No, I'm not joking. Note the lack of LOL’s.

I sat there perplexed.

“So wait. You chose a line-up of fishermen.. To sit on boats all day and catch fish by pure dumb luck.. And you call this a sport?”

He nods enthusiastically.

“So how do you choose how to sit or start??”

“Well...” he began.

“No, WELL. I mean. Do you actually strategize about it? Like… Well, I gotta sit Bob this week he got wasted off some Nati Light, puked, and then passed out. So his opponent Frank caught a shark off his chum and my buddy Mark's team won because of that. I mean, do you sit in front of Versus all afternoon long and listen to dudes with such thick southern accents they sound like Boomhauer on ‘King of the Hill’ reruns? Do you yell at them and cheer for them like you would at an MMA match or a football game? Really?”

But how can you call something a sport, let alone devise a fantasy league around it if it’s fate rest in the hands of the Gods and whether or not a fish is smarter than you are?? Fishing is really all about luck. You just put your rods out there, see what bites.. And decide what to toss back. Pretty much how most men I know date. They just set a couple of rods out there.. And see what they can snag as it swims by. Hell, I've watched guy friends of mine do it in one bar on a single night. I'm pretty sure it’s called a catch and release program.

But what happens when you get multiple bites? How do you know which line is worth all the effort of reeling in? Is it the one of least resistance? Or the one that makes you work for it?

The couple times I've gone fishing I've been quite successful. I always caught the biggest fish, with the least amount of effort. Shit, I didn't even take the hook out of them; I let the boys do all the dirty work. But they were usually cursing me the entire time, because they hadn't caught a damn thing. Maybe that's because I fished with the real thing. Good old fashioned worms.

Sure, they were gross and I hated touching them, but damn did they work better than that stupid artificial crap the boys were raving about.

And when it comes to dating I'm the exact same way. I put my real self out there, and if they like what they see, hopefully the right fish will come along and take the bait. But I by no means use any trickery.

Me? I'm gullible .. I fall for shiny things. Get hooked. And then it’s too late. Hook. Line. Sink “her.”

Despite my success, there was one thing I couldn't get past with fishing. It was boring. Sure, some people may call it relaxing, but if you can sleep and do it at the same time, well.. it’s not exactly multitasking. Personally, I found it a waste of time, as I do the whole initial dating process and the games. But girls I know insisted it was the way to go.

So I cast myself a few lines into the water to see what I'd find. Problem is, when you're fishing in the Hudson real fish are hard to come by. You're more likely to catch garbage, a mutated three-eyed monster, or maybe even a finger or two of Jimmy Hoffa that wasn't buried at Giants Stadium. However, when my friends would inquire about my dating life, and I'd just say “I was dating,” the guys got a little indignant about it. But I figured, if men are allowed to keep their rods out there, well why the heck shouldn't I? One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish. Each line had something different to offer, and that made choosing the right one like looking at the menu for Cheesecake Factory when you're beyond famished. Good luck with that.

But it got me thinking...

When is it time to reel in your catch and call it a day??

Maybe we should fall for a lure not because of how it looks, or its glossy appeal, but fall for it because in all honesty, it looks like the real thing. Until that day happens for me, at least at the end of the day..

My mom says “I'm a catch.”

But 'til then.. I've gone fishin.'