I’m a Sports Junkie …

I’m in three football fantasy leagues (FFL). One with my boys, one at my work and one with a bunch of strangers who love to write and apparently like to join FFL comprised of, um, strangers. In addition, I’m in a baseball fantasy league, and help my sister run her FFL.

Outside of my fantasy ties with sports, I actually find time to play some as well. I play in a softball league, a flag football league and once in a while find time to hit the basketball courts. Lately, I’ve had the itch to play golf, so I’m planning to get into that as well. Fortunately, I’ve never been a gamer so Madden and virtual dunks don’t fill up my day—although I could probably get really into that as well.

When things are slow at work, I’ll read ESPN with meticulous delight. I read ESPN2, namely the Sports Guy and Jim Caple. Other sports columnists I follow and read are Tony Kornheiser, Mitch Albom, Rick Reilly and ex-ESPN writer Dan Shanoff. I listen to sports radio on my drive to and from work (Mike&Mike in the morning and the Michael Kaye show in the evening), and around 2 p.m. I stream the Dan Patrick Show on ESPNradio via laptop. For lunch, if I’m not heading out to a restaurant with coworkers, I pull out the sports page from USA Today and spend at least 30 minutes doing that—it kills the loneliness. If that wasn’t enough, I often download podcast versions of PTI and The Big Show. And of course, after a long day at work, I easily lose myself watching baseball games on TV. Don’t even ask me what I do on Saturday afternoons (college football), Sunday afternoons and nights (NFL) or Monday evenings (more NFL).

I probably spend more time engrossed in sports than I do in a lot of things of greater value. I try to explain to my wife that sports is like shopping for her, but that analogy sucks. If my wife spent that much time on the web, TV and the mall doing shopping things, I would send her to an asylum—albeit bankrupt. Still, there’s something engrained in sports that I truly love. It’s part camaraderie, it’s part competition, it’s part fantasy, it’s part fun and it’s part diversion from the heavy doses of life. It helps me through the day at times, and sometimes I can’t wait to rush home to get my fix.

I’m a sports junkie and this blog is part of my rehabilitation process. I would continue to wax philosophically on this, but I have to pick up a player that just went on waivers in my fantasy league.