Chapter and Verse

I just realized I've never posted a complete chapter listing for my book...  and so I shall recitfy that in this post.

Hopefully, at least a few of these tantalizing titles will tickle your fancy... if so, you can get the book at Amazon.com, on Kindle, or for the Nook - and at a bookstore near you...

1 - Christmas Eve with the Iversons - An account of my unfortunate first-hand experience trying to figure out "The Answer" at an Atlantic City casino.

2 - WWJD: Who Would Jesus Draft? - An interview with Catholic Answers' Jimmy Akin explores what kind of fantasy commissioner the Bible's first-round draft pick would have made.

3 -  Alone on an Island - Jury consultant Marshall Hennington helps me understand why people simply can't change their minds about how they feel about certain players.

4 -  Sylvia Browne Told Me to Bench A-Rod - Noted skeptic DJ Grothe joins me for a discussion on why fantasy experts are given far less leeway than psychic charlatans.

5 -  Wall Street and Huston Street: Is There a Magic Formula? - Financial genius Paul Wilmott ponders whether or not the performance of athletes can ever be boiled down to a simple mathematical formula.

6 -  Matt Millen, Bring Me Your Torch - We take a look at art of the deal, and what Survivor's Yau-Man Chan learned from his attempts to bargain for a million dollar prize. 

7 -  Shall I Compare Thee to Tom Brady? - In which the Reduced Shakespeare Company doth offer pithy insight into what maketh a game a game and a sport a sport. Yea, verily. 

8 -  Looking for Kevin Love in All the Wrong Places - We all irrationally covet certain players, much to our fantasy team's detriment. Hear what Steve Ward of VH1's Tough Love thinks we can do to fix that.

9 - Why the Founding Fathers Would Have Hated Bill Belichick - When politics rears its ugly head and people try to game the system, fantasy sports league work about as efficiently as Congress.

10 -  Smarter than Stephen Hawking - Don't think you understand quantum physics or time travel? I'll bet you really do - and I prove my theory to astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson.

11 -  The Dark Side of Fantasy - Darth Vader probably never won his fantasy football league, and it has nothing to do with his penchant for early drafting of kickers. Alec Sulkin, Family Guy writer, muses intergalactic.

12 -  The Thrill of Vicarious Victory - With an emphasis on "fantasy", we talk to writer Jane Espenson (Buffy) about why people need these escapes, and then talk to Damien Echols, while he was still unable to escape from Death Row.

How Fantasy Sports Explains - Hurricane Irene

When Hurricane Irene was heading for New Jersey, where I currently live, it wreaked a lot of havoc on my fantasy football draft, which was very odd since the storm wasn't due to hit until sometime Saturday afternoon, and my draft was scheduled for Friday night. 

Part of the problem was that two of the owners in my league were vacationing in Ocean City, New Jersey and were told that there was a mandatory evacuation on Friday afternoon, and they had to pack up all their stuff and leave town, pronto. They ended up coming over to my house, ended up spending the night, and then headed out first thing in the morning so that they could get home to Connecticut in plenty of time to enjoy a power outage for over a week. 

Meanwhile, we got very lucky and although we lost one tree in the front yard, there was no significant damage, and in fact, we didn't even lose power. In fact, much of the area that was evacuated in South Jersey, because of the fact that the storm had weakened significantly by the time it arrived, ended up being just fine. 

What boggled my mind, though, as I watched the local television coverage as Irene slowly marched across the state of New Jersey, was how unwilling the anchors and meteorologists were to admit that the storm was not in fact going to be the end of life as we knew it, which is how it felt like it was being sold to the public by Governor Christie in an attempt to get people to evacuate in the first place.  

This footage - pretty much at the worst of Irene - was typical of how things were that night... certainly bad, but not nearly as severe as the "if you stay, you will die" tone before the storm arrived.

View more videos at: http://nbcphiladelphia.com.

One reporter for this station had been on the Atlantic City beach all afternoon, and each time the anchors threw to him, they'd say something like, "If you haven't evacuated yet, you need to do so... it is not safe to be in Atlantic City. Now, let's go to our reporter in Atlantic City...you look wet, Justin." And Justin would laugh and say he was and point to the one garbage can that had blown over as proof that the storm was going to be a killer. 

The fact is that we simply can't predict the path of a hurricane with complete accuracy anymore than we can predict how many yards a certain running back will gain when he takes the field this week. While we can get a general sense of the possible outcomes and potential paths that massive storms will travel, it's still only a guess -- just as we may have a sense that Steven Jackson is more likely to gain 100 yards than Ben Tate in any given week. But when Jackson gets hurt after two carries in Week 1, and Tate ends up as Houston's only healthy back halfway through his game, strange things can happen. 

Tate having 116 yards on the ground and Jackson only 56 was certainly not an expected outcome, but after having happened, it still wasn't an outcome completely out of whack with what someone might have predicted, albeit at the extremes.

So, while I am certainly not upset with the decision to evacuate coastal towns where the flooding could have been deadly -- because it certainly could have been that bad -- at some point, it would have been nice for the news to stop being fear-mongers and simply admit that the storm (thankfully) was simply not going to be as bad as it legitimately could have been -- just as at some point, although that point is not after just one week of play -- those who nay-sayed the fantasy value of players like Cam Newton should be willing to eat crow, provided he continues to excel.


I'll close with a video of a bit by Lewis Black, who correctly asserts that Al Roker and his ilk are often wrong -- by enormous proportions. I first saw him do a version of this bit in person in the early 90's, and at the time, he was talking about how if you predict 7 inches of snow and there's 14 inches of snow, nobody gets too upset because at least there was a "shitload of snow" but if you miss by the same amount in the other direction, and it doesn't snow, then there's going to be hell to pay. 

Jokes.com
Lewis Black - The Weather
comedians.comedycentral.com
Lewis Black Comedians Stark Raving Black Videos

He closed the routine (when I saw it) by suggesting that if Roker wanted to impress him, he should predict something interesting -- like actual shitballs falling from the sky! "Get that right and maybe I'll listen to you from now on, but until then, no, I shan't be sure to bring my umbrella on this day."

My experience tells me though, that even if that was Roker's forecast, and it actually took place, a large majority of people would treat such an occurrence just like Cam Newton's Week 1, shrug it off and say,"He got lucky. Let's see him do it again." 

And so it goes...

How Fantasy Sports Explains - The West Memphis Free

When I was growing up in New York, I was a Rangers fan, which was a very difficult inheritance that my father had bestowed upon me. Going to school surrounded by seemingly countless Islanders fans, all reveling in the glory of Bossy and Trottier and He Who Shall Not Be Named (except at the appropriate moment when the rhythmic whistling rains down from the blue seats) as they won Stanley Cup after Stanley Cup after Stanley Cup.

Every year, the playoffs ended in yet another disappointment. Some years, we'd come close to ending the "1940" catcalls once and for all, but most years -- and usually at the hands of the Washington Capitals of all teams -- all we got for our fandom was a swift kick in the nether regions. A championship remained ever out of our reach. We'd have to settle for Ron Duguay's jeans commercial. 

Then came Mark Messier. The guarantee. Stephane Matteau and the call by Howie Rose. 

And finally... victory! Celebration! Ticker tape parades! And then... well, now what?

Once the afterglow had faded, here was a huge void that was suddenly present. I'm reminded of a line from a song in the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: "The battle's done, and we (kind of) won, so we sound our victory cheer. Where do we go from here?"

The next season there was lockout, and when things finally got going, the Rangers barely squeaked into the playoffs, and were swept by the Flyers, and I happily gave them a mulligan. The same thing happened the next year when they lost to the Penguins in 5. Because the thrill of  that Stanley Cup victory had been so long in coming and so intense... the "void" that had been filled by that euphoria no longer needed attention.

By 1997, the team wasn't even making the playoffs anymore, and I'd already lost interest. I'd moved on... The story was told. The book put back on the shelf. Nothing more to see here, move it along. 

I think Red Sox fans might have some inkling of what I am talking about here... after all those years of coming so close to a World Series title and just missing out... and then finally the 3-0 comeback against the hated Yankees and that euphoria of finally reaching the top of the mountain. Of course, Boston has been a winning team ever since, so the investment is still paying off and I expect fewer fans have moved on to other pursuits... but I wonder if Cubs fans aren't headed for a similar fate -- should they ever win, that is.

All of which brings me back to the West Memphis 3, and the decade-long efforts of some of their supporters to get them released from prison. In some ways, the Alford Plea might be a good thing for them, since there's still a goal to be reached here -- namely, the clearing of their names.

After all this time of hoping for a victory, once the dust settles and Eddie Vedder has moved on. and the supporters have moved on, and the world has moved on -- Damien, Jessie and Jason may well be left sitting there saying, "Now what?" There's never been any other goal than their freedom. That consumed every waking moment, and likely the sleeping ones, too...

I'm glad Damien is a Red Sox fan. He's still not seen a World Series victory with his own eyes... so let another quest begin. There are still mountains to climb... time to take those first steps.

Hope Pays Off

When I was writing my book, I asked Damien Echols if people who were supporting him from afar should feel a sense of victory if he ever were to get released. He told me that they absolutely should because they would have directly participated in the effort, even if all they did was buy a T-shirt or put a bumper sticker on their car. 

Today, I celebrate his freedom after all these years. 

Congrats to Damien and his wife, Lorri, to Jason and Jessie and to everyone else who hoped this day would happen.

Victory is ours to share!

While still incarcerated, Damien Echols (right) kindly contributed to my first book. 

How Fantasy Sports Explains the World

With the book "officially" coming out on Wednesday, you should be able to find it in your local bookstore -- assuming your town, unlike mine, still has a local bookstore. 

I'd like to thank those of you who have already purchased a copy, and those who are still not caving into the peer pressure... you can join the cool kids by buying the book here.

Please do continue to spread the word, and if you have any comments about the book, I'd love to hear your thoughts. 

I've obviously put this blog on the back burner for the time being, in order to focus on promoting "How Fantasy Sports Explains the World" so I appreciate your patience. But I'll be back with a vengeance after this week's big media blitz, and as the reviews trickle in, I'll post some of them here.

Thanks again,

AJ

It's Official... I'm a Published Author

We talking published? Published?

With the words "In Stock" glowing proudly on Amazon.com, the long journey finally enters the next stage. If you've enjoyed this blog or my writing at ESPN.com, then you'll enjoy "How Fantasy Sports Explains the World" - available now!


An excerpt appears on ESPN's Page 2 here!

Coming August 1, 2011

Answer, Please?

So, what did they all have in common? 

All the people pictured in my previous post were interviewed for my first book, "How Fantasy Sports Explains the World: What Pujols and Peyton Can Teach Us About Wookiees and Wall Street" -- which is just a few months away from being found on the shelves of your local bookstore.

Also in the mix? The writers who created the two scenes depicted above, Alec Sulkin (left) and Jane Espenson (right)...  and many others who were all gracious enough to share their distinct points of view with me. 

How does it all come together and what in the world does this all have to do with fantasy sports? For those answers, we're just about 70 days away...

What Do They All Have in Common?

                                             Yau-Man Chan (Survivor)                             Steve Ward (VH1's Tough Love)

The Reduced Shakespeare Company

                                                 Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson                                    Damien Echols (see: WM3.org)

The Plot Quickens

Sorry for the lack of new posts this week... Not only did we spend some time up at Bristol, locked in a room with my ESPN fantasy brethren -- or in Stephania's case, sistheren -- ranking all the top fantasy football options for the next year, but we also are in the homestretch of the editing process for the book -- less than 90 days and counting!

Once we've locked down the galleys and can come up for air, we'll be back a bit more regularly... 

Oh, and for those who haven't already figured out the whole Marty the Fishboy thing... he was indeed the kid's show host's sidekick. But why is that important to me? Well... for that, you'll have to wait for the book...

New Title

Thanks for visiting the blog... we promise that we'll start writing again shortly. The reason we have been gone so long is, of course, because we have been busy finishing up our first book -- and we are happy to report that...

The completed first draft is now off to the fine folks at Skyhorse Publishing!!!

The working title was deemed to not work, so we have a new title to keep in the forefront of your minds...

How Fantasy Sports Explains the World: What Pujols and 
Peyton Can Teach Us About Wookiees and Wall Street

More information as it becomes available... STAY TUNED!!!

Coming Along

Thanks for visiting the blog.

You may have noticed a lack of well, blogging, of late. That's because I am busy writing my first book, which is now almost halfway finished. I'll keep you all posted on my progress, but for now --- back to the keyboard.

The Thrill of Vicarious Victory is scheduled to hit the stores in August of 2011.

No Agony of Defeat Here!

Good news! Good news! (Now, anyone know how to get on her "list"?)

It's officially official... we're going to be blogging a little less often as we devote our writing energies to our debut book.

Skyhorse will be publishing THE THRILL OF (VICARIOUS) VICTORY - a Freakonomics-style look at fantasy sports and how strategies for winning can come from unlikely sources, from the psychology of performance prediction on Wall Street and casino game theory, to the world of Ghost Hunters and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Right now, the plan is for an August 2011 launch date, but we'll keep you posted on our progress here as we get closer.

In the meantime, thanks for your continued support and please spread the word!