Chasing the NFBC 2014 - Now a Veteran of Chasing & Blogging
Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2014 8:58 am
I should be studying. After all, I have both a Main and a Primetime today starting in just a few hours and I feel nowhere near ready nor prepared enough. After last night's Super Auction, my lack of readiness was just confirmed in my mind.
Phil Hughes $4??? What the hell was I thinking?
Yet I'm not studying. I'm not getting myself ready. Instead, I'm blogging. Again, what the hell am I thinking?
When I first started this blog in 2010, I was only in my 2nd year in the NFBC and high stakes fantasy sports. It was mid-September, the season was winding down, and my Main Event team had just completed an incredible week that vaulted itself into 2nd place in the Overall. I couldn't believe it, just a few weeks left in the season, a red hot team, and within spitting distance of winning the biggest fantasy baseball contest in the world! The excitement was overwhelming and I needed an outlet. I started writing. And I wrote every day. Thus this blog was created.
Well as history tells the story, the evil Juprinka squashed my dreams and held on for his long overdue Overall title cementing his place in NFBC lore. I, on the other hand, just became long forgotten footnote to his achievement. However, I did take something great away from the experience. A love for the NFBC, a love for the chase, and a burning desire to achieve what seemed so achievable that one September.
A lot's happened in the years since that first real taste of the chase and my first real attempt at blogging. I've had other runs at Overall titles, other achievements in fantasy sports circles, culminating with last year's NFBC Ultimate Auction win in baseball and my first fantasy sports Overall Championship when I took down fantasy football's FFWC and its 6-figure grand prize. They being both the most prestigious and most profitable achievements in my time playing this hobby. On the writing end, the boys at Baseball HQ enjoyed the blog and other posts I wrote here, and over the past two years have sponsored a Main Event team for me and hired me to write a version of this blog about that team for their website.
I should be proud of what I've been able to accomplish in my time playing High Stakes fantasy sports. Yet there's something missing. The reason I joined the NFBC, the reason I started this blog, has still not been accomplished. To win the NFBC Main Event overall title.
I've cashed a Main Event league for every year I've played. Last year, I won my second Main Event league title. Yet, I've never come as close to winning the Main Event overall as I did that one year, my 2nd year, 4 long years ago. When you come so close so early in your time doing anything, it seems like it's bound to happen. You'll learn from what caused you to miss, make a few adjustments, and voila, you'll achieve what you set out to accomplish the next try. It seems like it should be easy. Of course, it isn't. 4 years later and I'm still in the same place. Still trying to learn, still making adjustments, still chasing.
I wasn't sure I was going to write this blog again this year. Like I explained when a few on these boards wondered if I'd revisit the Countdown to the NFBC again, I've done it already, I've been there (by the way, great job on taking the baton and carrying on the Countdown this year Russ, thank you). I'm starting to feel the same about this blog. With work, with family, with what seems like too many teams (yes, once again I've failed in my promise to myself to cut back ) and no definitive answer if the promised FAAB improvements will make Sundays easier (ummm Greg, how about an update? ), it just seemed like another tax to my ever decreasing amount of free time.
Then at yesterday's Super Auction, Jody Ryan asked me if I was going to write this blog again. He said he really enjoyed it and looked forward to reading it each year. It was real nice to hear. It made me proud. Thank you Jody. Boo-yah!!! That's for you.
So I'm back for one more year of writing this blog. It occurred to me while writing just now, that I will be heading into my 6th year in the NFBC. When I first joined in 2009, the NFBC was heading into its 6th year. I think back to my rookie year. The participants of these boards and at the live drafts who had been with the NFBC since its inception seemed like such veterans to me. Yet now I have as much time in as they did then. I am the veteran now that they were then. It's funny that I still don't feel like one. I still feel like I'm new at this, taking on these established pros, trying to prove to myself I belong in their company and am worthy of competing against them.
Well, I'm back for another year of competing against them. I'm back for another year of the chase. The excitement is still overwhelming, that excitement of the first time I entered the live Main Event draft room 6 years ago, the excitement of that run at the Overall 5 years ago, the excitement that caused me to need an outlet and start writing and writing and writing. Two more hours. The chase continues.
Phil Hughes $4??? What the hell was I thinking?
Yet I'm not studying. I'm not getting myself ready. Instead, I'm blogging. Again, what the hell am I thinking?
When I first started this blog in 2010, I was only in my 2nd year in the NFBC and high stakes fantasy sports. It was mid-September, the season was winding down, and my Main Event team had just completed an incredible week that vaulted itself into 2nd place in the Overall. I couldn't believe it, just a few weeks left in the season, a red hot team, and within spitting distance of winning the biggest fantasy baseball contest in the world! The excitement was overwhelming and I needed an outlet. I started writing. And I wrote every day. Thus this blog was created.
Well as history tells the story, the evil Juprinka squashed my dreams and held on for his long overdue Overall title cementing his place in NFBC lore. I, on the other hand, just became long forgotten footnote to his achievement. However, I did take something great away from the experience. A love for the NFBC, a love for the chase, and a burning desire to achieve what seemed so achievable that one September.
A lot's happened in the years since that first real taste of the chase and my first real attempt at blogging. I've had other runs at Overall titles, other achievements in fantasy sports circles, culminating with last year's NFBC Ultimate Auction win in baseball and my first fantasy sports Overall Championship when I took down fantasy football's FFWC and its 6-figure grand prize. They being both the most prestigious and most profitable achievements in my time playing this hobby. On the writing end, the boys at Baseball HQ enjoyed the blog and other posts I wrote here, and over the past two years have sponsored a Main Event team for me and hired me to write a version of this blog about that team for their website.
I should be proud of what I've been able to accomplish in my time playing High Stakes fantasy sports. Yet there's something missing. The reason I joined the NFBC, the reason I started this blog, has still not been accomplished. To win the NFBC Main Event overall title.
I've cashed a Main Event league for every year I've played. Last year, I won my second Main Event league title. Yet, I've never come as close to winning the Main Event overall as I did that one year, my 2nd year, 4 long years ago. When you come so close so early in your time doing anything, it seems like it's bound to happen. You'll learn from what caused you to miss, make a few adjustments, and voila, you'll achieve what you set out to accomplish the next try. It seems like it should be easy. Of course, it isn't. 4 years later and I'm still in the same place. Still trying to learn, still making adjustments, still chasing.
I wasn't sure I was going to write this blog again this year. Like I explained when a few on these boards wondered if I'd revisit the Countdown to the NFBC again, I've done it already, I've been there (by the way, great job on taking the baton and carrying on the Countdown this year Russ, thank you). I'm starting to feel the same about this blog. With work, with family, with what seems like too many teams (yes, once again I've failed in my promise to myself to cut back ) and no definitive answer if the promised FAAB improvements will make Sundays easier (ummm Greg, how about an update? ), it just seemed like another tax to my ever decreasing amount of free time.
Then at yesterday's Super Auction, Jody Ryan asked me if I was going to write this blog again. He said he really enjoyed it and looked forward to reading it each year. It was real nice to hear. It made me proud. Thank you Jody. Boo-yah!!! That's for you.
So I'm back for one more year of writing this blog. It occurred to me while writing just now, that I will be heading into my 6th year in the NFBC. When I first joined in 2009, the NFBC was heading into its 6th year. I think back to my rookie year. The participants of these boards and at the live drafts who had been with the NFBC since its inception seemed like such veterans to me. Yet now I have as much time in as they did then. I am the veteran now that they were then. It's funny that I still don't feel like one. I still feel like I'm new at this, taking on these established pros, trying to prove to myself I belong in their company and am worthy of competing against them.
Well, I'm back for another year of competing against them. I'm back for another year of the chase. The excitement is still overwhelming, that excitement of the first time I entered the live Main Event draft room 6 years ago, the excitement of that run at the Overall 5 years ago, the excitement that caused me to need an outlet and start writing and writing and writing. Two more hours. The chase continues.