Fourteen years ago this fall, the Boston Red Sox reversed the Curse of the Bambino, winning their first World Series championship since 1918.
Around that same time, the city of Westfield was “cursed” with me as their budding sports guy. (I actually hope it has not been that bad of a run letting me try to paint a daily picture of our local sports scene to you, constant reader.)
Funny thing is, earlier that year in 2004, I planned a family trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.
I never in my wildest dreams ever expected that while I would be away vacationing in October, the Red Sox would complete one of the biggest comebacks in sports history against the Yankees, rallying from down 0-3 in the ALCS to win a trip to the World Series. We all know how the rest of that story played out.
While I don’t expect that kind of drama to unfold back in the Whip City during my upcoming trip across the country, I hope to make history of my own this week in San Diego, California.
Earlier this baseball season, I qualified for the 2018 FanDuel World Fantasy Baseball Championship in San Diego. I will be competing against 99 other finalists for a share of $1.5 million.
I might not be able to beat our regular contestants in our “Beat The Putz” and “Putz’s Ultimate Sports Challenge” contests on a regular basis, but I somehow managed to beat out more than 2,000 entrants for about the price of two Starbucks lattes.
I credit you, the public, for challenging my sports prowess on a daily basis; my friends for making me a better fantasy sports player; my family for supporting me; and my boss, our publisher, Patrick Berry, for giving me this platform to reach you.
For those of you who don’t know much about fantasy sports, I will need to pick a lineup of players from Saturday’s MLB games. All of the pro baseball players are assigned salaries based upon their current stats. I need to build a lineup of players staying under a salary cap budget that FanDuel decides upon.
That keeps participants from stacking a lineup with a bunch of All-Stars. You need to pick and choose wisely … and hope for a little bit of luck. (OK. How about a lot of luck? Hah hah.)
If you care to follow my adventures, I will attempt to post updates during the competition on Saturday through The Westfield News Facebook page.
Again, thank you Westfield for whipping me into shape. I now hope to make fantasy a reality.
