My Not Too Shabby List for 2017 Instead of The Usual Crummy New Year’s Resolutions

Yup, it’s that time of year again. Time to make the list. Time to make the donuts. Throw down the gauntlet and take on your biggest challenge. Wait, not that big.

There’s a bunch of ways to slice it, but I’m going to take another path. The painless path. You say easy. I say different.

Humor me. For fun, I’ve made a list of 7 New Paths to take for 2017. Lucky 7. The pursuit of excellence. The pursuit of ergonomically untested waters. Maybe just the pursuit of take the edginess off things. Comprende? Only 3 of the ones listed below are ones I’d genuinely consider. I’ll let you figure that out for yourself.

I think this is a healthy exercise and I’d urge you to do the same.

List on.

1— Become a Unicyclist

Why not? You get plenty of exercise. It’s an eco-friendly way to travel and now with all the bike lanes around it’s an efficient way to get from point A to point B. And with all the Citi Bikes hogging up all the limelight, this would be a great way to steal some of their thunder. Get it. A way to stand out. From what I gather, it’s also a natural segue to make it into the Big Apple Circus and a helluva lot less dangerous than sticking your head into a lion’s mouth or teetering on the trapeze artist’s wire line.

2— Backgammon Champ

It’s the frustrated Chess Player’s best shot at making it into the big time. No Giuoco pianoing required. You can throw your textbook theory out the window (out of a moving vehicle). Combining Fancy Checkers luck and skill you can either be hustler of obscure playing parlors or take your gaming on the pro tour. Truth be told, I’ve always like been really smitten with their carry cases.

3— Goatherd

I’m going to get metaphorical on you. These guys constantly get lumped in with shepherds. They’re not the same at all. First off, I prefer goats and their milk and their cheese. Who doesn’t like goat cheese? I think some of their stubbornness could rub off on me (in a good way). think of all that fresh air and the dewy smell of grass.

4— Fantasy Ball Player (Batter Up)

This is totally doable. I could really sink my teeth (or cyber cleats) into this. I’ve always said immersing yourself in all the infinite possibilities is the best way to enjoy the ol’ American pastime. There’s something very Borgesian or is it Borgeseque about it too. The infinite possibilities that is.

5— Tat Artist

Yeah kid. This is the ticket. No doubt. They make some pretty good coin too. No reason to fiddle with finger paints and Crayolas forever. New Year means New Horizons. New Outlook. Newness. Ink it!

6 – Lightsaber Inspector

You wanted me to wield the laser sword? Admit it, didn’t you? Puh. I’m not taking those kind of chances. I’ll still play a great part, a bit part to be sure, but a safe part. Thank you very much. I want to keep all my limbs and eyeballs in 2017. The Balance of the Force will be in my Nivea-enriched hands. Come on, don’t try to play it off. You know that you’d kill to be that special somebody who ironed out all the chinks of the most awesome weapon in 17 and half galaxies and made it possible for the newfangled Jedi Knight Master to the N-teenth power to take care of business until infinity and day. Yeah.

7—Wizard

This shouldn’t come as a total shock to my closest peeps. You know who you are. Let me make it absolutely clear just what I mean by being a wizard. Of course I’d love to have a trusty wand and make potions spew from the unsuspecting mouths of baby sparrows and spill out of Tupperware containers stuffed with tofu. It would like be super often to have that capability, but nay, I’ve got a different hankering for 2017. I’m going Bard up. Bard in the true wizardly sense— you know, engage in the musicality of the cosmos and whatnot. Find the right muse and pull the stuffing out and spread the love.

Thanks for playing! Happy New Year!
JG

Chatting with the Champ, Chip Dunston

So maybe you missed the one-on-one with Wayne Gretzky or the tête-à-tête with Tiger Woods or the gab-a-gab with Roger Federer. No biggie. Now’s your chance to meet the real treat. This is one for the ages, one to grow on. Here it is, at last. Sports Fans everywhere, I give you my exclusive interview with the Greatest, the most Heralded, the most Hated, the most Feared and Famous Fantasy Baseball Player ever to lope across this planet, the switch-clicking, Chip Dunston.

JG: I’m here today with the World’s Greatest Fantasy Baseball Champ, Chip Dunston. He’s won 733 League Championships and something like 1239 Fan Duel single-day comps (the 50-yard-dash of sabermetrics). His opponents call him he WHIP Wizard, The Call-up King, Fantasy Fanner, Supergeek, and sometimes, pardon my French, El Diablo. Thanks for taking the time to swoop by today.

CD: Where’s my Chicken and Waffles?

JG: It should be here soon.

CD: Better be.

JG: Now Chip, I’m no mathathlete, but how exactly did a young buck like yourself win 733 League Championships. You’re not Yoda with Botox are you?

CD: No dipshit. I play in like 12 leagues a season, not including my daily Fan Duels.

JG: Oh, I get it, kind of like piggybacking.

CD: Your mother piggybacks.

JG: We don’t do mothers here on the show.

CD: Yeah, I already did yours in an elevator.

JG: Let’s get back to interview.

CD: Whatever.

JG: Tell us when exactly you knew that you wanted to be a Fantasy Baseball Player? Was it something you always wanted to be? Did the inspiration hit you one day when you were eating your Coco Puffs?

CD: Did Peter Parker ask to be Spider-man? Did Picasso ask to be a painter freak? Did Russell Brand ask to be a Pimp Daddy? Nah-ah. Each of them in their own ways had to sow their wild oats and be their unique, crazy-ass, crackerjack selves. Take your average hump, for instance. Your ordinary hump gets his cup of joe at 7-Eleven or Mickey D’s. He mopes to work, forklifts till his first smokes break and then he smokes a blunt a little bit after that, and then he’s thinking when can I crack open my first Corona. What are you shaking your head for?

JG: I don’t get my joe from 7-Eleven. I prefer Think Coffee, Queens Kickshaw, Birch (if I can find one), and yes, I’ll admit it, I like my Starbucks reserve blends.

CD: Well, you a freak.

JG: I can live with that. Let’s get back to you. What are your routines? How do you stay so sharp?

CD: Fantasy Baseball is nothing like the MLB. First off, you don’t’ get to loaf half the game away on the bench, farting and spitting out sunflower seeds. You have to be 100% fully-engaged, your bloodshot eyeballs keep scanning stats like you a CPA for the IRS, but instead of AGIs, MAGIs, CAP Gains you looking for subtle ways to outperform the other punks in your league. You get it? It’s not a half-time, half-ass thing, you have to be 100% all-in, all-the-time, 24/7, maybe even 35/8. Days bleed into each other: Muesday, Tednesday, Faturday. There’s no letup.

JG: Now hold on here Chip. Are you saying that your laptop-punching and mouse-clicking is more rigorous than what real ball players go through?

CD: That’s exactly what I’m saying. What are you laughing at dipshit?

JG: I hate to be the harbinger of bad news, but I don’t think most folks out there will buy that.

CD: I don’t give a rat’s ass who buys it. Who’s the champ here anyway? I know what I know. Whip this, OPS that. Do you know how many hours I log in BABIP? Too many that’s how many. And, I have to keep my eyeballs peeled for every rising star that’s about to shoot into the Ursa Majors. A few times this year alone, I’ve nearly gone through coronary thrombosis or something like that when one of my ace hurlers landed on the DL. My life is a constant flux. I wouldn’t wish my curse on anybody, not my worst enemy.

JG: So in the annals of baseball history, and by that I mean the one with the dirt diamond and the grassy outfield, if you wouldn’t mind indulging, who would you say you’re most like? That is to say, who would you find an analogue for you from the all-time Louisville-slugging greats? Would it be The Bambino, Ty Cobb, Shoeless Joe, Mickey Mantle, Greg Maddux, Kirby Puckett, Miggie Cabrera, Nolan Ryan? Who?

CD: You’re trippin, right?

JG: Fraid not.

CD: You’re not going to pigeonhole me into any analogue, dialogue, monologue, bump-on-log. No way, no how. I’m not like any of those fatheads you mentioned. I’m my own unique entity.

JG: No argument there. Now would you mind sharing any hobbies you have, ways you like to pass the time?

CD: Nope.

JG: Favorite soft drink?

CD: Mr. Pibb.

JG: What’s your sign?

CD: Capricorn.

JG: Me too.

CD: Are we done here? I need to take a whiz.

JG: Hang on. Only a few more questions.

CD: (Deep sigh plus crotch-grab.)

JG: There you have it Sports Fans. Chip Dunston, the greatest there ever was, so far anyway.

CD: Where’s my chicken and waffles?

It's Fantasy Baseball Season: Batter Up

Most boys would rather be Giancarlo Stanton or Clayton Kershaw, but since that’s such a longshot many have decided to become Pro Fantasy Baseball Players. No, I actually didn’t flip my MLB fitted lid. Becoming a Pro Fantasy Baseball Player is probably the next best thing. It’s what modern adolescents have been pining for. Okay, so maybe some of them would like to slip into their Xboxes and splash onto the screen of their MLB 15: The Show. You do know that quite a few players participate in Fantasy Baseball too. Pretty cool if you asked me. How awesome is it that you can find pundits analyzing sabermetric data.

Yes, I know sabermetrics seems to have gotten out of hand, and maybe it’s not as sexy as a video game, but the growing popularity of this uber-geeky enterprise has been morphing baseball into something more like Big Bang Theory (the sitcom) than The Natural (book or movie). I can’t get enough of it myself and this season I’ve added a 3rd league. I’m covering all the bases, so to speak. I’m in a live auction/NL-only keeper league, a bare-bones autodraft on Yahoo, and a Mixed Keeper League/Head-to-Head format.

You may be asking, how do you hold down a job? It’s not easy. I try to pick my faves and apply them to multiple leagues so I can minimize my stat-scrutinizing, but that’s not always easy, especially since I am now in 2 Mixed Leagues.

What’s really awesome about Fantasy Baseball is not the vicarious thrill of logging dingers and RBIs as if you were notching them to your own major league record. Although we all know, at least, one or two guys in our leagues who fit that profile. Taking home the championship is pretty sweet, but even better than that is being able to uncover talent, hidden gems from nooks and crannies that others have missed. This is especially true in Keeper Leagues. You grow attached to your finds, nurturing them for seasons until it’s time to send them onto greener pastures.

Fantasy Baseball is scorecards on steroids. It’s the hypotenuse of homerun derby. It’s the ne plus ultra way to commit to the great American pastime. I am really looking forward to this upcoming season, and I’m beginning to break a sweat as if stepping into the batter’s box. See you at the cage.