Benyamen’s BoSox fans rejoice!

Well, it’s baseball season now so my alterego fantasy sports manager Benyamen Kramar has branched out into fantasy baseball too.  Benyamen’s BoSox were the champions of “Canadas Worst Fantasy League” last year and are hoping to defend their title.  However, in search of new competition, Benyamen’s BoSox have also created franchises in two other leagues to test their talents against new competition.  If you’d like to keep up on the state of the franchise on ESPN.com than you can click the link to see where they’re stacking up.  The whole league is there for your viewing pleasure so now you can cheer for Benyamen’s BoSox throughout the entire season!  Feel free to frequent the Benyamen’s BoSox tab page to leave your thoughts and praise for the franchise and it’s illustrious owner.

Dedicated Blogger Fantasy Baseball League

Well, it’s spring again.  That means no more football . . . for a long time.  Like I said a few weeks ago though, I have finally developed a hobby to fill that long football offseason.  It’s fantasy baseball season again!  Benyamen’s BoSox (that’s my team logo up top) are ready for another season in the fantasy baseball realm of existence and I’m more fired up than a Gulf War oil well.  I’ve had a couple drafts already and am reasonably happy with who I’ve come away with, but you never know how your team will really be until they start playing the games.  For those of you unacquainted with the wonderous world of fantasy sports, you basically get a group of people together, draft teams of players and then accumulate points throughout the year based on those players performance.  Then through sheer guile you improve your team throughout the year through a series of trades with other owners and through sage like pickups off the free agent list of undrafted players.  You can put as much or as little time and effort into it as you want, and it’s a great way to fill some free time from March through October.  Some people look down on fantasy sports players as mouth breathers with no real life of their own thus they live a fantasy one, but to them I say “at least it’s not Second Life.”

Here’s where you come in, I’d love to put together a fantasy baseball league of dedicated (or even moderately interested) blog readers.  It’s free.  It’s fun.  It’s a great way to get to know some new people and to have bragging rights over menial things with people you barely know!  You don’t even need to know much about baseball to play.  If you’d be interested in getting in on this league just leave me a comment (when you comment it asks for an email address so I can get a hold of you) and you’re in.  Have a good one and hopefully I’ll hear from you soon.

I swear, I am actually Canadian

Is it possible for me to still maintain my Canadian citizenship despite the fact that I don’t like NHL hockey and I am increasingly becoming a MLB baseball fan?  If the answer to that first question is yes, does the answer stay yes if I don’t cheer for the Blue Jays but am instead a Boston Red Sox fan?  I swear that I am a born and raised Canadian, but something apparently went wrong with me along the way for me to wind up like this.

I’ve honestly tried to like NHL hockey.  I really, really tried this year.  I tried to watch some hockey.  I even joined two fantasy hockey leagues.  None of this was successful in growing any interest in the sport for me.  If you asked me who my NHL team is I’d probably say Edmonton or LA, but I don’t think I could name more than a couple names on either of the teams.  More than likely I’d even name some players who don’t even play for them anymore.  I could likely list you most of their rosters from around 1992, back when I was a kid and hockey was the only sport allowed to be shown on TV by the CRTC, but I have grown up now and thanks to sattelite I can watch whatever I want.  Is Alexei Zhitnik still playing?  Is he even alive anymore?  After much soul searching I have determined that hockey is not one of those things I want to watch.  Much like my short experiment at trying to enjoy NASCAR last year, NHL hockey has now been officially pruned from my tree of sports interests.  Oh sure, I’ll likely still catch some of the playoffs – like I do with any sport – but the regular season is just unwatchable.

Colin Cowherd of ESPN radio fame often speaks of the sports tree.  Every person has interests which are branches on their tree.  When they are young they often have many young and thin branches, but as they get older they trim off some of the weaker ones and the stronger ones get even stronger because of the pruing.  In hockey’s stead, a new branch has budded and been growing on my sports tree over the course of the past couple years.  It’s a little more red, white, and blue than the red and white maple branch it’s taken over for; it’s baseball.  I’ve grown to really enjoy baseball.  I bought an XM radio purely so that I could listen to all the baseball I want, and I got an online subscription so that I can listen to baseball when I’m away from my radio.  I enjoy the strategy of the game.  I enjoy the marathon like endurance that a 162 game season requires.  I enjoy the history of baseball.  I enjoy the fact that I can read a book, make lunch, and work in the garage while listening to baseball and really not miss a whole lot because it is such a slow moving laid back game.  I enjoy the fact that baseball is just as much fun to listen to on the radio as it is to watch on TV because it is so easy to picture exactly what’s going on.  I also enjoy the fact that the team that I cheer for actually has a chance of winning something unlike my woeful Chicago Bears.  Yup, I’m a baseball fan.

It all started a couple of years ago when I thought I’d give fantasy baseball a try as a way to fill the fantasy football offseason.  I didn’t think that I would grow such a deep enjoyment of the sport; it just kind of happened.  With that in mind you can understand why I think I can officially write off NHL hockey.  As I mentioned before, I purposely joined two fantasy hockey leagues just to give NHL the fair chance that I gave baseball three years ago, but baseball grabbed my and hockey did not.  I’m now into my third year of fantasy baseball with two drafts coming up in the next week and I can’t wait!  Not only fantasy baseball starts soon though, pre-season baseball officially starts tomorrow too. Life is good.  Now I can just ride this slow moving baseball wave through until August when my beloved NFL football starts again.  I swear I am Canadian.