This could be the worst mistake I’ve ever made. I have nothing to lose though.

 

“I found the best thing I could do was just type away at my own work and let the dying die as they always have.- Bukowski

Two things are true at this moment in my life.

1. I am in transition, from college to the everyday life of an adult. In some ways I’m living it, in other ways I have a lot of privilege that is keeping me going day to day.
2. My sports journalism career is going nowhere fast. Sorry dad, but you know it’s true. I have the dedication and grind level needed to be successful but the truth is this, there are already thousands of sports blogs that spew the same mediocre sports takes over and over again. I’m part of contributing to that, the writers that do matter in today’s sports landscape are the ones that tackle topics above sports, I have some ideas for that but they need some working out this fall. So, I am here to try something new.

Something new

I have a confession to make, for about two years now, this will be my third, I have been writing a fantasy football column. No, not the love hate style opinion-based guesswork semi-bullshit, a column for a fantasy league. A column that oft includes grotesque shit talk, personal attacks, and at points brilliant turns of phrase and soliloquies that can only be delivered within a fantasy column. It is a mix of comedy writing and gonzo journalism with a touch of the unexplainable phrases that come from my brain. It is hard to explain, but for this project to work it needs to be, you the reader need to understand everything going into this fantasy season. I will attempt to guide you through the complex waters that are the Big Spoon Classic.

What the actual fuck are you talking about Eric?

Let me walk you through it, probably five years ago I was invited to join a fantasy football league by my oldest and best friend Walter (we’ll keep last names out of this for privacy’s sake). This however is not your typical fantasy league, it is as high stakes as it possibly can be for a bunch of dudes post college. I believe the buy-in this year will be 100 dollars but the punishment will remain the same. If you lose in this 12 team fantasy league, not only will it never be forgotten, but it will be immortalized on your body with a dreaded and highly symbolic Tattoo of a spoon. The prize however is about 1,200 dollars minus the cost of a low quality spoon tattoo and the ultimate prize, the big spoon. Which is quite literally a big spoon. It’s also a collection of wild characters across the board all bonded through a mix of college, high school and boy scouts. There is a tremendous amount of anxiety, pride, loyalty, valor and grit put into this league every single year.

Ok dude, sounds like a normal fantasy league why should I give a shit?

You have to understand that post-college one of the only things strong enough to bond male friend groups together is fantasy football. I will not lie to you, if I did not play fantasy football with this group of people I would have exactly maybe 3 friends in total. Sure, I have lots of people that care about me and are good consiglieres but true friends I maybe have 10 max and a large quantity of them play within this fantasy football league. Women have sororities and book clubs (don’t get me wrong, I am a huge book club fan if you’re reading this and have a book club, specifically poetry focused, let me know) Men have fantasy sports. Without fantasy sports, men just don’t have the time, emotional intelligence, or frankly the wherewithal to consistently communicate with each other on a day-to-day basis. Fantasy is what keeps friend groups together as they shatter across the country. The other thing that makes this fantasy league unique is that it does have a column. And so you are probably asking yourself……

What exactly is THE COLUMN?

Dear reader, I am glad you asked. The column is best described as a weekly to bi weekly written document of between 500-2,000 words addressing the goings on within the fantasy league, the matchups of the upcoming week and the current dynamics of relationships between 20 something year old men playing a child’s game. It is juvenile, silly, trivial, and yes entirely pointless, but if you live in the world of this league, it is entertaining, extremely funny and “Some of the best writing you do Eric,”-Walter. Yahoo really screwed us this year though and took down the message boards, replacing them with a wholly stupid league chat that would also include all transactions, if we kept the column on Yahoo this year it would have been a jumbled mess that nobody could make sense of, as you can tell it is quite extensive, so it moves the forum of the blog. Sure, we could have used a google doc but the league has been petitioning to make this public for a while now, and so this year for the first time we will give that a shot.

Ground rules

For this to work though the column needs to be taken a bit more seriously though. The things you write on a private Yahoo message board are probably a bit more graphic than a blog that sits on a resume. I would say at points the column sometimes reaches NC-17 rating, rarely, but sometimes. Here though there are rules. This section is mainly for my dad, who is my only reader and my target audience. So just an idea of what you’re going to get into here.

1. There will be swearing, it will be used minimally though. Cuss words spice up conversation, they add flavor, this at its core is a comedy blog. You will occasionally see the words: Damn, fuck, shit, ass, dick, and some combination of those words put together. You won’t see any slurs, those have never really made the column before and they won’t start now.
2. In the past there have been attacks made on personal lives specifically romantic ones, the time for that is over. Several significant others read the column but they for the most part will be left entirely out of it. They didn’t sign up for this madness, they don’t need to be drug into it. You may however occasionally see old-timey words for loose women like floozy and harlot being thrown around, that’s because those are inherently funny words.
3. Outside of this piece, you will never really find out much about the personal lives of the people involved in this league. Everyone shit talks and plays fantasy football with their friends, there is no need to get anyone fired or reprimanded if this blows up on the internet. The biggest one at risk here is myself and I have complete editorial control of this column. I will decide what gets published and what does not. I control my own destiny.
4. The purpose of this project is to show off my writing skills, I would concur with Walter that my best stuff does often get put out in this column and I want to share that with the world. The members of the league may find this new version tamer and more inviting to the outside world, but I will eventually come with vitriol as well. This is a grand experiment, it might fail, but at this point, I am ready for that failure.

So now, meet the Big Spoon Classic.

The Players

Vishwa

The commissioner. Vishwa is perhaps one of the most interesting human beings I know. He is a maniac, in the best way possible. His work ethic and drive are that of a sociopath and ultra focused on being ultra successful. I am only really friends with impressive people and Vishwa is an insanely impressive person. A finance bro by day, a city influencer by night who might one day for all we know run a record label or an arts collective. His focus and work ethic are unlike anything I’ve ever seen from anyone else I know and I am fairly certain that by thirty he might be a millionaire. As a fantasy football player, I fucking hate him. As a commissioner of this league, I fucking hate him. Vishwa is a fascist, no other way to put it, he plays and runs this fantasy league like he is a fascist. He’s currently working on the league’s first ever pick swap just to jump over me and pick Travis Kelce. Mind you that pick trading has never been allowed before until Vishwa conveniently needed it  to screw me over. This is just the way this guy operates though, he’s a schemer as the Joker would say and he just schemes and schemes and it has won him two championships. It is however important to realize that he is tatted, the man has lost the league and he lost in spectacular fashion last year. It makes me so happy to type that out, Vishwa was the worst player in this entire league last year. He’ll claim he’s a brilliant GM, and to his credit he is, his roster transformation last year was unreal, but the facts are the facts, the man is tatted. He’s got a scarlet utensil and that will never fade away. He was the worst player in the league last year and I consider him my true rival. Although the rivalry is one sided as I have only beaten him twice. It’s a rivalry that has now probably cost me 500 dollars as the loser of our matchup each year must take the other out for an all-out three course meal at one of Salt Lakes most expensive establishments, Current.

Walter

Walter’s work life isn’t really worth getting into. Mainly because I am pretty sure in about five years he’ll be tapped into working for the CIA. I do not fuck with the CIA, like do not get me wrong, I respect the shit out of the CIA but like I’m not really trying to mess with the CIA, so this will be the first and last mention of Walter’s line of work. Walter is my oldest friend, extremely funny, extremely loyal and an extremely good time if you want to go have a fun black out night in any random city across the United States. He’s just a good guy. He’s also extremely hard working and very dedicated to being successful, again another guy I wouldn’t be shocked to see become a millionaire at some point in his life. He’s a ginger though, so he can’t fully be taken seriously. Gingers are the last truly unprotected class in this country and I will one hundred percent be taking advantage of that within this column. I will not be shocked if Walter potentially keels over and dies at 47 due to melanoma, the sun is his greatest enemy. He also is a 23 year old that rocks a mullet, kind of gross, kind of cool but ultimately something that he needs to grow out of, he could just get a tapered fade like the rest of us and we could just continue to live our lives in peace. He could also dye his hair and we could pretend to accept him into society and we would end the ginger freak show. Walter is a truly mid fantasy player. He will brag that he drafts well and makes good trades but he lacks any and all killer instinct when it comes to clutch time. He consistently finishes between third and sixth place, but never truly contends for a title.

Eshan

A man looking to get into bed with big pharma, a Salt Lake prep school nerd turned into a now southern bell in Chapel hill. A truly unique individual inclined to listen to house music but hang out at coffee houses and indie bars. It is not easy for Eshan, that is the theme here. He is on the perennial fantasy struggle bus. A few outlier seasons aside, usually a bottom dweller in the league. Usually due to simple and avoidable user error. It’s not his fault though, I don’t even think he watches football. It makes sense that he is perennially snake bitten. Eshan is to say it in a word, likable, maybe the only person in this league who is outwardly likeable. In a league filled with dickheads, Eshan is just a good guy trying to get by, and usually he does, he’s never been tatted.

Henry

Simply put Henry is an easy target. This column doesn’t really work without at least a few easy targets, and Henry is one of those. He comes from new plumbing money and currently studies finance at USC. He’s diminutive in size and the only member of the league I feel wholly confident I could take in a physical confrontation. Henry is very bad at fantasy football. Very bad. Like sometimes I don’t think he understands the rules. I would say Henry’s understanding of fantasy football and really football as a whole is kindergarten-level at best. He’s an affluent short, white, straight, male studying at USC. In reality he is the newest class in this country to be persecuted for just being who he is. He didn’t pick any of that, and when I said all that I bet you thought of him in a derogatory manner. He is a good friend, a degenerate and just a really good hang, but for the purposes of this column someone that will constantly have a target on his back.

Jordan: Stereotype a frat boy. Consider that they have been molded by natty light and marijuana and stronger more powdery drugs, and consider that they hold strong beliefs that the best days of this country are behind us. Consider that they see themselves as a persecuted class. Now imagine all of that, but with the complexity of ultra sharp social intelligence and cutting whit, and something more than that, loyalty. That is Jordan. Foul-mouthed, opinionated, right wing, the enemy in the current culture war. The thing about culture wars though, is that they are inherently asinine and deeply stupid. Jordan is an all time vibes guy. Somewhat lost, yet finding his path a little bit more every day. A complex and interesting character with a lot to say. It is hard to write the story of this league without complex and interesting characters and Jordan provides perhaps my biggest challenge. Because frankly the idea that we live in a now “PC” society makes me a little sick to my stomach, but I keep that to myself, Jordan does not. He is a fighter and an enigma and a drinker and a mercenary for hire all rolled into one. A shit stirrer, and part of the anti-establishment. This is a part of America that exists, they are not all monsters. They simply hold different views. As a fantasy player Jordan’s game is confidence based and impossible to predict. A true wild card.

PJ

I am legally required to type this part out: PJ, Paul, is a totally normal well mannered self starter who is an entrepreneur and a good friend. I was barely able to stomach typing that out, because it is now August and when we hit August, we all fucking hate PJ. That’s the truth. He’s the best fantasy player in the league, if we talk about who delivers year to year the most consistently, wins the most, and a player that will no doubt be a threat for a title every year, that is PJ. He is a killer, no way around it. He’s also a cheater, he has multiple collusion cases against him. He looks like a neanderthal. He oozes white privilege and is the definition of a trust fund baby. He is a swindler, no trade he has ever completed has ever been fully consensual, he  whispers and manipulates and somehow always wins. He is unlikable. He is the main source of vitriol of this column, the only time I ever truly hate him is when we play fantasy football. But I do, I truly hate him. He’s the champ, that part is the worst. He wins, he studies and he cares and he implements and he wins and I hate him for it. So does everyone else in this league. I actively pray on his downfall as a human and as a fantasy football player from August-December.

The glue guys: Shagen, Zaq,Ty, and Adam

Not much to say. All four of these guys are extremely good dudes. Shagen is an extremely chill and funny stoner as most stoners are. Zaq is just a really nice guy. TY is a man of his word and a grinder whose committed to setting his lineup. Adam is a degenerate who is in about year six of college at Michigan. The league simply does not work without these four. They are silent assassins all extremely shrewd and prudent GMs and even though they won’t always get mentions in these columns I would be remiss to not mention that they are critical. Without this group, the league dies.

Rick

This brings me to myself. I watch the most football of this group, I know the most players, I do the most prep work, I devote the most time, and yet, I suck. And let me tell you reader it bugs the shit out of me. I do hold a view that I am the smartest football mind in this league and it pains me that I can’t back it up with on field results. I have terrible luck. I get smoked by my rivals. I’m not viewed as a threat by literally anyone in this league aside maybe Henry. Sometimes I lose to Henry though and that sucks. It sucks to be me. It sucks to suck.

I have no shot at a title. None. And when I am good, they don’t give me my flowers, it’s all luck. No credit. Only downside. This fantasy football league has made me cry, yell, scream uncontrollably into a pillow, given me panic attacks and caused at least two major mental breakdowns. I don’t know why I keep coming back. I really don’t. About the only value I bring to the league from a fantasy perspective is comedic relief and column writing skills. This year is different though, this year I’ve done no research. No mock drafts. No fantasy podcasts, nothing. I’ve ignored it. That has to change something, my gut has to be the secret weapon. Maybe this year. Maybe.

The rivalries

Briefly

PJ vs everyone.

Vishwa vs Walter

Vishwa vs Rick

Henry vs Rick

Henry vs Eshan

And so dear reader we begin!

And so we launch, into the unknown. Perhaps this will fail spectacularly. I expect massive backlash from my dad but the facts are the facts, this blog isn’t doing shit on the internet. I need a new slant. Telling this story is the slant. The story of why fantasy football is the last institution of American male friendship in America, welcome to The Column.