Fantasy Sports

I Suck at Fantasy Football—So I Might Have to Go to a Minor League Baseball Game

Alan Goldsher|
The dude who won me my first fantasy football championship.
The dude who won me my first fantasy football championship. | Matthew Emmons-Imagn Images

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Houston Astros

I’ve been playing fantasy football since 2002—and I specifically remember that magical season thanks to one Clinton Portis.

Y’see, I took a flyer on the University of Miami rookie running back in the final round of my maiden draft, and C.P. did right by me, racking up 1,508 rushing yards and 15 rushing touchdowns. The U of M Hall of Famer all but single-handedly won me the league, which is why he’ll always have a special place in my heart.

A great start, no doubt, but here we are, 23 years later, and I can count on one hand how many leagues I’ve won since Portis Fest ‘02. (We’re talking five league championships. That, some quick math tells me, is, indeed, one hand’s worth of trophies.) Does that make me a sucky fantasy football owner, as alluded to by the above headline?

I mean, I couldn’t be that bad. After all, Fantasy Sports on SI thinks I know what I’m talking about. So there’s that.

But if we’re talking league championships, I’ m not great.

Which is why on here on May 21, I might have to take a trip down to Sugar Land, Texas, home of the Sugar Land Space Cowboys.

Mess With Texas

The Space Cowboys are the Houston Astros’ Triple AAA affiliate, and as witnessed by their team moniker, they’re an irreverent franchise. This is why we can’t be surprised that this evening, they’re running a promotion called I Suck At Fantasy Football Night.

The evening is geared, for all practical purposes, towards embarrassing your league’s bottom-dwellers...which, as we all know, is one of the great joys of playing fake gridiron.

The good news for me is that I don’t actually have go, because in my two-plus decades of fantasy footballing, I’ve never finished last.

So maybe I don’t suck.

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Alan Goldsher
ALAN GOLDSHER

Alan Goldsher has written about sports for Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Apple, Playboy, NFL.com, and NBA.com, and he’s the creator of the Chicago Sports Stuff Substack. He’s the bestselling author of 15 books, and the founder/CEO of Gold Note Records. Alan lives in Chicago, where he writes, makes music, and consumes and creates way too much Bears content. You can visit him at http://www.AlanGoldsher.com and http://x.com/AlanGoldsher.

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