This might be weird
So as I've managed to hide from many of you, or gush endlessly to others, I really enjoy What If Sports. This is a crazy simulated quasi-fantasy sports website. It has hockey, basketball, football and baseball SimLeagues where you can choose from just about any player who has ever lived and put them on your team, with one catch.... you have a salary cap, and they've all been given salaries based on their abilities, and you compete against an entire league of similar teams built by other players. Want beer-swilling and hot dog eating Babe Ruth on your team? He'll cost as much as a 'roided-up Barry Bonds.
I got hooked on the baseball sim a couple of years back, as baseball is one of the more passive, stats-driven sports, so it made sense. And when I say hooked, I mean hooked. Badly. I don't like to think about how much money I blew (oh, yeah... it's not free), but after I started making the playoffs with regularity and won a World Series, it started to get old.
Then came Hardball Dynasty. The site had other dynasty sports (college basketball, college foot ball, even a NASCAR-type one) where you have a "Career" and they keep track, comparing you to other players. And while I tried some of them, the baseball one really hooked me. You get a major league team and 5 minor leage teams, all populated with players you have to play and evaluate (they have ratings for every skill imaginable, but also play a full schedule for you to see how those ratings translate to performance). You can trade, draft, release, promote, waive, everything. You hire coaches and control the style of play of your team, as well as the ballpark they play in. It's almost too much. Almost.
Now, the real reason I brought all this up. It was mostly as background to explain why this shit might be on my mind, and why I might be on the site a little too much... Anyway, with my first team (yes, first.. I'm getting to that), I got saddled with a woofer. My team finished last in the division. Shitty deal, but I got to deal what little I had in the way of decent vets for prospects. In the second season, I brought some of the young guys up, hoping to get better, and I end up sneaking into the playoffs as a Wild Card, and knocked off the top team in our league on the way to losing in the World Series to the defending champs.
After the series, I get chatting (there's a feature called Trade Chat) with the owner of the team I knocked out on my way to the WS, and we end up making a huge blockbuster trade that basically give us two of the top three teams in the league.
Anyway, without boring you with the details (why do I hear someone yelling, "I thought you were already?"), I've been keeping in touch with this guy over the season, bitching about our teams, other owners, comparing ideas for trades in other leagues (we both joined other leagues in the meantime), and just generally have been in touch several times per week for the last several months. Recently, he put my name up for an invitation-only league for "good" owners (a certain amount of playoff success is mandatory) that he was already in. And since then, we have been talking even more. Even to the point that we know what city the other lives in, basically what they do for a living, our "real" first names, and that we both seem to invest waaaaaaaaaaaay too much time in sports (we've even talked roto baseball last week).
My final point? I think I have an internet friend. This is only marginally creepy to me.
I got hooked on the baseball sim a couple of years back, as baseball is one of the more passive, stats-driven sports, so it made sense. And when I say hooked, I mean hooked. Badly. I don't like to think about how much money I blew (oh, yeah... it's not free), but after I started making the playoffs with regularity and won a World Series, it started to get old.
Then came Hardball Dynasty. The site had other dynasty sports (college basketball, college foot ball, even a NASCAR-type one) where you have a "Career" and they keep track, comparing you to other players. And while I tried some of them, the baseball one really hooked me. You get a major league team and 5 minor leage teams, all populated with players you have to play and evaluate (they have ratings for every skill imaginable, but also play a full schedule for you to see how those ratings translate to performance). You can trade, draft, release, promote, waive, everything. You hire coaches and control the style of play of your team, as well as the ballpark they play in. It's almost too much. Almost.
Now, the real reason I brought all this up. It was mostly as background to explain why this shit might be on my mind, and why I might be on the site a little too much... Anyway, with my first team (yes, first.. I'm getting to that), I got saddled with a woofer. My team finished last in the division. Shitty deal, but I got to deal what little I had in the way of decent vets for prospects. In the second season, I brought some of the young guys up, hoping to get better, and I end up sneaking into the playoffs as a Wild Card, and knocked off the top team in our league on the way to losing in the World Series to the defending champs.
After the series, I get chatting (there's a feature called Trade Chat) with the owner of the team I knocked out on my way to the WS, and we end up making a huge blockbuster trade that basically give us two of the top three teams in the league.
Anyway, without boring you with the details (why do I hear someone yelling, "I thought you were already?"), I've been keeping in touch with this guy over the season, bitching about our teams, other owners, comparing ideas for trades in other leagues (we both joined other leagues in the meantime), and just generally have been in touch several times per week for the last several months. Recently, he put my name up for an invitation-only league for "good" owners (a certain amount of playoff success is mandatory) that he was already in. And since then, we have been talking even more. Even to the point that we know what city the other lives in, basically what they do for a living, our "real" first names, and that we both seem to invest waaaaaaaaaaaay too much time in sports (we've even talked roto baseball last week).
My final point? I think I have an internet friend. This is only marginally creepy to me.
posted by Iain @ 10:32 PM
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