Today's Fantasy Rx

When evaluating anything that crosses my path, be that an opinion, book, image, philosophy, baseball player, or on-line game, I bring my preconceived notions and perceptions with me as I write. Our beliefs, upon which we've elaborated at length on our philosophy page, are what drive both our infatuation with baseball as a game and business. Fantasy baseball is the nearest outlet for us and countless millions of fans to, if only for the briefest of moments during the season, prove to the world that "Of course I know what I'm talking about. I always knew Scott Williamson would win the Rookie of the Year after only 23 games above Rookie ball."

No Cub fan in history would now admit to approving of Brock-for-Broglio, and not even the most ardent theater fan believes that essentially trading Babe Ruth to finance "No, No, Nanette" was a prudent decision. Baseball fanatics know that they could lead their team to the pennant, be it through visions of athletic prowess as children, displaying managerial acumen by dealing with thousands of everyday details like parents, or finally the eventual recognition that the General Manager and Owner control the money and therefore the talent on the team.

Fantasy Baseball must provide a substantive illusion for participants that allows the continuation of these fantasies through exhibition of the talent evaluation skills integral to the third stage of athletic fandom. Different games are tailored to different levels of fanaticism, for both those that need to micro-manage the most specific details to remove the most chance, and the casual rooters who only desire some small substantive share in great leisure events through the personal involvement of "owning" a player.

Aside from the rewards of active participation in these skill games of talent evaluation, we require other elements before we commit our time and efforts to a particular fantasy contest. With the multitudes of available options, we, along with every other interested party, can exercise extreme selectivity when choosing the specifics of our pastime.

We look for games that will be fun, games that will be challenging, and games that give us a good chance to win a desirable reward. We've gotten involved in the Baseball Weekly Challenge games because of the financial upside, and after a year of participation, we've definitely grown enamored of this particular format of play. We continually compete in both roto auction and roto draft leagues because they were the first two formats of fantasy baseball that we experienced. We'll no longer play ESPN Fantasy Baseball because we no longer find any upside to the game; our closet already has four "league winner" T-Shirts and hardly has room for more.

My opinions of and reviews about several popular on-line games are rooted in these philosophies. Perhaps I judged one or two contests somewhat hastily because I didn't personally see how they could be fun or rewarding, but all I can offer are my opinions on any matter. While I can predict that Jose Acevedo will win over a dozen games this year, I still generate that prediction based on my opinion of his skills and potential. We started this website in part as a new forum upon which to test our baseball skills.

I'm offering this last review, of Baseballmanager.com, based on a reader's suggestion, who in turn based that suggestion on a reportedly enthusiastic recommendation from his brother. Like most of the other games I reviewed, I have no personal knowledge other than what I learned after thoroughly examining the Baseballmanager.com website.

Internet Fantasy Baseball Contest Review of:

Baseball Manager

Continuing a common theme of the game reviews, I again conducted a cost-benefit analysis and found this game wanting. The site offers three separate 2002 games: BBM Ultimate, $99.95/entry, the standard BBM season-long game; BBM Lightning, $24.95/entry, which only lasts through 54 simulated games; and BBM Keeper, $179.95 for a 2-year entry, their brand new keeper offering.

BBM games are H2H simulated games, and they offer the following prizes:

Full-season league winners receive an ESPN spring training windshirt.

Full-season playoff winners receive a 2002 Baseball Manager pennant.

"The overall winners in each of the three divisions (AL, NL, and All-Universe) will receive a three day/two night fantasy games trip for two to spring training at Disney's Wide World of Sports."

While these prizes are superior to ESPN's current offerings, the full-season entry fee is over three times more than the ESPN team price. You can currently buy an ESPN fleece for $26, and we suspect this is a better value than the Baseball Manager prize; technically you also receive a half year of ESPN the Magazine, but we prefer 2-ply toilet paper in our home.

A small disclaimer: "Residents of Montana, Vermont, Louisiana, Minnesota, Florida, Missouri, Rhode Island and Arizona and the province of Quebec may play Ultimate Baseball Manager and have their places noted in the standings but are not eligible to win any prizes."

The other feature of Baseball Manager that completely turns us off is that they don't appear to offer any live draft option at all. Like the traditional Scoresheet draft and the ESPN list drafts to some extent, you submit a few separate ranked lists of players and an all-powerful, all-knowing computer (likely labeled either WOPR or IIgs) chooses your players for you from your list. (Note: I couldn't actually find a detailed description of the draft process anywhere on-line, although I'd be happy to readdress this in the future if someone wanted to send us the publicly-accessible web address that provides this information.) Now if you lack the time for a live draft, this is certainly an acceptable option, but I find it extremely difficult to believe that anyone who lacks a three-hour block of time in March to draft a team will be able to find at least three minutes every couple days to review a team compiled off a ranked list.

Why do I keep referencing ESPN as a comparison?

"SPONSOR: The Sponsor of this game is ESPN, 506 2nd Avenue, Suite 2100, Seattle, WA 98104"

Baseball Manager certainly offers unique innovations that we've not seen anywhere else on the web. Their penultimate feature is that "Each BBM manager gets a unique BBM Daily page announcing highlights from last night's action, as well as personalized pages with complete results from all the games in the league, and full box scores and stats, just like a newspaper!"

However they also make a huge deal about absolutely pointless comparisons. "Unlike "canned" games or fantasy games with weekly updates, you'll receive fresh, daily results for your team--win or lose--based on events that happened in real stadiums just hours earlier. You won't handle a joystick or watch fuzzy animations trot the bases. You'll control strategy and tactics--who bats, pitches and relieves, who you draft or trade." Almost every fantasy game and state service of which we're aware offers daily updates, so I don't see the relevance of this advertising.

I certainly believe that, based on their overall presentation and claim of "Longest Running Internet Virtual Baseball Game", Baseball Manager offers an interesting alternative to traditional roto or points' play, and that there's no reason why most fans wouldn't enjoy their experiences here. Unfortunately, due to our interests and preferences as discussed above, I can't recommend this game based on the information presented at their website.

Tomorrow I'll return to magazine reviews for a day with Major League Baseball 2002, which appears to be basically a catalog masquerading as a baseball preview.

Today's Fantasy Rx: If you have the time, we certainly recommend that you explore the web to find either public or private on-line games that suit your individual preferences as a fantasy baseball participant.