Competition addiction

Every morning, before I can even consider going through the normal wake-up routine, I must sit down in front of my computer and review my fantasy sports teams.

Instead of going straight to e-mail, I have my browser homepage set to Yahoo! Fantasy Sports. I religiously check all the fantasy sports teams I manage.

I realized recently my obsession isn't normal. I have become an addict.

As I scroll down, I look and see how all my teams are performing. As of right now, I have a baseball team that just wrapped up its season, a hockey team that just recently had its draft, a basketball team that drafts in about a week and four football teams - the maximum allowed on Yahoo!. I also can't forget about my college football pick 'em pool.

I then browse my fantasy sports profile to view the history of the 52 different fantasy sports franchises that I have run. These include ventures into the worlds of auto racing, golf and soccer, which are sports that I lack a general expertise in, but played just for the sake of playing.

For football, Sunday is obviously the biggest day, as I glue myself to the television watching the games, or even reading just the scoreboards on the bottom of the screen to see how my players are performing. Mondays and Tuesdays are just as significant because those are the days that most of the information on injuries and new starters for the upcoming week is unveiled.

It's a different tale though in basketball, hockey and baseball. These sports require me to be on my toes at all times to check my teams daily. Not only do I have to deal with the typical issues of injuries and roster movements, but also with the increased number of games in their schedules, these leagues require me to judge when to bench and start players on hot and cold streaks to maximize my point totals.

My daily and weekly routines have not been the only things that have been affected by fantasy sports. Over the summer, I often spent a few weekend nights by myself just to look at statistics, read analysts' opinions and scan depth chart projections, all in preparation for the annual fantasy football league that I run. This wasn't limited to the gridiron though, as I also spent a great deal of time looking for that hidden gem pitcher on the waiver wire.

I think it's fair to judge me as a fantasy sports junkie. I have spent too much lost time trying to be a fantasy sports guru in putting together personal cheat sheets and staring at box scores instead of doing more constructive things: socializing, school work, sleep. These are some of the sacrificial lambs that I have slaughtered in order to quench my thirst to win free fantasy sports leagues.

So where did this passion for fantasy sports come from? Back in my high school football playing days, I would tend to get really excited and pumped for our team's games. Granted, I spent much of my career standing on the sidelines, but there was something about the atmosphere and about being a part of something big that got my competitive juices flowing.

For whatever reason, I get a very similar thrill from fantasy sports. Although I am not actually playing the games myself, just the very essence of the nature of them gives me a rush that acts like a vent for my competitive side that doesn't see the light of day like it used to.

Fantasy sports are also an outlet for my massive amount of predominantly useless sports knowledge. There are not many times in my everyday life where knowing who a team's third-string running back or practice squad players are useful but when looking for free agent sleepers midway through the season, this information comes in very handy to me.

Sometimes, I like to challenge myself to see how many players I can name whose undergraduate universities I remember. I'll go down lists of players' names, rattling off where they went to school and if I'm not totally certain, I click on the name and become enlightened. It has turned into a form of mental gymnastics for the sports trivia side of me.

But how much damage has this really caused in my life? In reflection, I may appear justifiably as a complete dork, but my fantasy sports addiction really hasn't harmed me too much. I may have fixations on a variety of categories ranging from stolen bases to obscurer ones like OPS and WHIP, but there are plenty of other vices in the world that destroy other people that luckily don't plague me.

I have come to realize that things could be worse off for me. I could be an alcoholic or drug abuser and find myself collecting welfare while living in someone's garage on the wrong side of town. Or I could have a gambling problem and take any money I can find and blow it at casinos or on bets through bookies.

My current obsession now sounds like a much healthier, safer alternative to pumping myself full of chemicals or having to worry about owing people money that I don't have.

So maybe things are not as bad as I think. My addiction is excessive but definitely not life threatening, and I believe that I'm very fortunate that I'm not afflicted with a more detrimental vice. I have never had a seriously negative issue ever arise from my fantasy sports obsession, and hopefully I never will.