I thought this was an interesting podcast – Basically I can see the legal point being made, and perhaps it will stand up in court -

But isnt it a little sad? Once again the big money men are moving in on the small-time enthusiasts? Once again the romance of professional sports (its a love affair for most fans) is being assaulted for a few more $$$

I dont participate in fantasy baseball (I am from England and I play similar games with soccer and cricket) but my overwhelming feeling was that the whole debate doesnt leave anyone feeling good

The mystery that is Chien-Ming Wang reared his ugly head last night.
After two stellar starts during which he threw 16 innings, giving up 3 earned runs and recording 37 of 48 outs on ground balls, the ineffective Wang returned the mound in Fenway Park …

The conversation, as I’m listening, keeps referring to fantasy baseball as inherently monetarily driven. We’ve been playing fantasy baseball from the newspaper box scores for years, free of charge. The product, to me, is not the stats, rather the method of organization and the convenience of computerized automation… not at all the stats and names associated with those stats. With a tool as simple and ubiquitous as a newspaper box score, absent the fantasy sports companies, we can continue to play and will continue to play fantasy sports ad infinitum.

MLB needs to find a new target. How about Las Vegas?

Fantasy sport breeds obsession; the good fantasy players are the ones who dive in head first, and are truly swimming in the sport. (It’s important to emphasize that just because you own a certain player doesn’t mean your allegiance is just with him. If your team isn’t performing, you dig through the box scores, watch entire games for players you can acquire who can pick up the slack.) My league, again, is a case in point. When we started four or five years ago, the playing field seemed even. But one player has become the clear-cut favorite. Why? Because the fantasy sport had allure, due partially to gambling I must say. And now he reads up, consumes the numbers, digs for scouting reports, and in so doing perenially wins our league. Fantasy sport, for this player, created his obsession with the sport. He was born India, and thus, of course, had no aspirations of ever playing football or any other sport, but fantasy sport turned him into the information-crazy sports-hungry fully invested monster he now is. The leagues should be encouraging this. They should want as many rabid crazy fans out there as possible, encouraging fans to get as involved in ther game in as many ways as possible. But, as Gary Gilette said, the MLB has been shortsighted before.

I also agree with Jon Garfunkel, Russ Jones was underwhelming for his side. But Gary Gilette was right on. I had no idea of the budding world of baseball statistic mad scientists working underground, nor of the insider-outsider relationship between scouts and statisticians.

Glad to see you folks did a show on sports, though. I was trying to think of a good package including sports for a while now, but didn’t come up with anything worthy of a show suggestion. This will hold me over, probably for a week.

On the other hand, baseball’s counsel Russ Jones should switch jobs with Bush’s lawyers– I can’t remember somebody doing a worse job of defending his case on this program. He went as far as claiming that game-playing wasn’t free expression protected by the first amendment.

Chris read this comment from alokemon on air: “For us, though the players are remote, it doesn’t feel all that much like fantasy. We earnestly feel like we own the player, and his stats or production.” Interesting, metaphysically, but what does that have to do with the height of grass in the Fenway? Oddly enough, Jones jumped on it, saying, Look, these fantasy players feel like they own the players! And they didn’t pay for that ownership! Ha ha!

The conversation about the court case, not surprisingly, boiled down to money, which to me was a question of values, see above.

Brendan read comments from Joel and Thomas. I feel like I’m stranded on third. Oh well.

BTW, in the last two minutes of the show, some necessary background was offered by Benjamin– that “up until last year or the year before, CDM was paying a small baseball royalty for the use of the numbers.” Hmm. That would have been pertinent for the earlier discussion.