Kicking Rocks: This One’s For the … Significant Others!

The woman or man in your life, depending on your lifestyle, that doesn’t care about fantasy baseball….

The holidays have now come and gone and hopefully you and your significant other rang in the New Year in style. But here we are just nine days into 2014 and already you’ve been inundated with an unusual amount of senseless baseball chatter. Tom Glavine in the Hall of Fame over Craig Biggio or Mike Piazza? Shin Soo-Choo and Prince Fielder hitting in Texas? The Rays want to trade David Price? And who the hell is Masahiro Tanaka? It seems like every year the winter gets shorter and shorter and you’re starting to feel like they’re just making stuff up just to have an excuse to jaw with their buddies about a game you really couldn’t care less about.

Well, it’s time for you to take back January. Fantasy widows unite! If pitchers and catchers don’t officially report until the second week of February, then from January 2nd (we all need New Year’s Day to lay on the couch and recover) until that frightful day, it should be all about you. If they want to ignore you for six months during the regular season and stretch that time even further with spring training and the playoffs, then the least that they can do is give you the month of January and the first two weeks of February.

Got a favorite restaurant or two you’ve been dying to go to? Make that reservation now. If you need to get a babysitter to give yourselves a quiet night out, then do it. You’ve got a little more than four weeks here so pick a couple of nights that don’t conflict with his actual job and get ready to strap on that fancy feedbag.

If you do have kids and just want a day away from it all? Take it. Offer him up the choice of a Saturday or a Sunday, call your friend and make that spa appointment. If he says anything about the NFL playoffs, just give him that death stare you gave him when you caught him sneaking away from your sister’s wedding last June just to check his live scoring.

Need some in-home pampering? Well pick a movie off Netflix that you want to see and bust out that peppermint foot lotion. It’s the least he can do, right? This one might need a little extra coaxing so either slip him a flask full of Jack or send him for a walk around the block so he can tend to his glaucoma beforehand and it’ll all be good. He can tolerate that depressing, subtitled foreign film that you’ve wanted to see if he’s properly lubricated.

Obviously these are just some helpful suggestions, but you understand what I’m saying. Make this month all about you. Got a list of Oscar-nominated films you’ve been dying to see? Now is your chance. Wanna double-date with one of your co-workers and her new boyfriend? He can put in the time. Whatever it is that you need or want from him, the next 30-odd days are yours. Take advantage of them and do it quickly.

Now mind you, if you want this month of bliss, love and his/her undivided attention, then that means once pitchers and catchers do report, you have to be more than just a little understanding. We have an incredible amount of work to do to prepare for the season. We’ve got rankings to assemble, depth charts to make, mock drafts to do and a world of number-crunching ahead of us. We’ve got at least one big draft day to do and that could take up to six hours depending on whether it’s a snake or an auction, not that you know or care what that means. We need our time and we need it without the hovering or the guilt that we’re not spending any time with you. That means no major household projects, no day trips to your cousin’s new place in the ‘burbs, and certainly no complaints that you have to endure endless hours of ESPN and the MLB Network on the T.V. Winning a fantasy baseball championship takes countless hours of both prep and in-season work.

We’ll throw you the All-Star break in the middle of it. That’s four days we really don’t care about. But from the time spring training officially opens in February to the final pitch of the World Series, we need your love and support. Play the game during our time and we will happily play the game during yours.

 





Howard Bender has been covering fantasy sports for over 10 years on a variety of websites. In addition to his work here, you can also find him at his site, RotobuzzGuy.com, Fantasy Alarm, RotoWire and Mock Draft Central. Follow him on Twitter at @rotobuzzguy or for more direct questions or comments, email him at rotobuzzguy@gmail.com

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Freddy T
10 years ago

This is my wife’s favorite article every year.