Fantastical Contraption

Last night I had my fantasy draft. It gave me the opportunity to examine, once again, my relationship to spectator sports. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you have probably encountered my periodic ambivalence toward my own habits. I find myself at once drawn to, and then repelled by my fascination with watching others play games. This is primarily limited to football, with a little bit of baseball sprinkled on top for good measure. I will watch a professional football game. I will watch a college football game. I will watch a professional baseball game. Don't ask me to watch a college baseball game. I don't have the time.
And that's where it gets confusing. I won't watch college or professional basketball, unless it's the playoffs. Again, I don't have the time. Or at least that's what I tell myself. Sitting on the couch is a privilege that I generally reserve for the end of a day, after the pigs have been slopped and the fires have all been put out. If I am reclining, I must have completed all the tasks I had put in front of me. Watching a sporting event, primarily football, falls into a different category. This is event television, and consequently must be watched live. It confounds my wife, from time to time, why I have to watch every minute as if I had some vested interest in the outcome. Why not record it on our DVR and play it back later without all the time outs and truck commercials? For an efficient fellow like myself, that makes a lot of sense. We have a friend whose husband has a similar affliction, and her reasoning goes still further: "Why not just wait until ESPN has all the highlights all put together at the end of the day? That way you can see all the best parts without having to wade through all the rest of that fuss and commerce?"
It makes sense, if you can divorce yourself from the absurd connection to the event itself. If I am asked, "Did you see that catch?" I feel the need to confess, "No, but I did watch it on SportsCenter." I suppose if I really cared, I would have season tickets for something, somewhere. I don't. Instead, on Saturday I sat in front of my computer and watched little lines, one of them representing my alma mater's football team, track from left to right across my screen. The game wasn't on television, and I couldn't pull in a radio signal from the other side of the Rocky Mountains. I sat there, transfixed, as the Golden Buffaloes roughed up the Colorado State Rams 24-3. I know this because I was "there."
Now I'm signing up for another season of fantasy football, most of which takes place in the same virtual realm I found myself in on Saturday. I could order additional cable channels and pay for the chance to watch what takes place in real time, in high definition. But I don't have that kind of money or time. That's the fantasy.