(this man would surely not approve)

Salutations to longtime CSTB fixture David Roth on the publication of “My Overactive Fantasy Life : What Happens When You Love Your Fantasy Team A Litte Too Much” in Wednesday’s edition of Slate. David describes a growing social problem with harrowing detail :

It started with simple flip-overs to WGN from Mets games. You know, an innocent, Oh, I wonder if Jermaine Dye is up”I could really use a two-run single and two stolen bases from him. Then it became a full-on addiction. I watched my fantasy players’ at-bats with an intensity that I can’t bring to Mets games until the weather starts getting cold. I watched them not only instead of Mets games, but also instead of whatever else I was supposed to be doing. I write “watched” instead of “watch” because, after hitting bottom a couple of weeks ago, I’m trying to change.

My moment of clarity came on a beautiful April afternoon at Shea Stadium. For the first time in my Mets-attending life, I was treated to the spectacle of the Mets putting a nice, easy walloping on the Atlanta Braves, their longtime divisional nemesis. But there was a complicating factor: One of my fantasy pitchers, Chuck James, was starting for the Braves. So, while I enjoyed watching the Mets pound him silly, I felt empty high-fiving my friends as runs five and six crossed the plate. My mouth said the right things, but my fantasy-sodden brain wondered why a nice 3-1 win (with, say, one of the runs being unearned and James registering eight or so strikeouts) couldn’t have sufficed. It was then that I decided that I needed to get a handle on this.

Given that David’s squad in the Charlie Kerfeld Memorial League is currently 9th out of 13 teams, I think we can safely say he is making ample progress towards sanity.