My Nemesis

Jason Budden: Un-Common Sense?

Why do I torture myself? Year after year I make the same mistakes. I don’t learn and in the end, it just leads to constant suffering. I’m talking about Fantasy Baseball, or as I like to call it…My Nemesis!

Fantasy Football and me are boys. We get along great. I check in with Fantasy Football a few times a week during the NFL season and our relationship always seems to be positive. Even when we fight, it is normally just for a week and then we’re great pals again once Sunday rolls around. And come December, we always make time to celebrate a few championships together. Fantasy Football takes a vacation during the first half of the New Year and then we reconnect again in late summer.

I’d even call Fantasy Basketball a good acquaintance. We get along great, but at times Fantasy Basketball struggles because I spend so much time with Fantasy Football. In the end, come March, things are always back on an even keel. We’ve had some good runs and in the end, we appreciate each other.

But Fantasy Baseball clearly hates me…and these days, I hate Fantasy Baseball. After a rough year last year, I thought we had made our peace this winter. We put in a lot of extra time researching players and preparing for the start of the season, but it seems to all be for naught. It was like a charade that Fantasy Baseball was playing with me. Trying to get my hopes us so that I’d come back and try to re-kindle the relationship. Fantasy Baseball has a way of pulling me back in each spring, even when I tell myself that I’m not going to get fooled again.

Too late…I’m stuck to rot out the rest of the season in the bottom of the league, waiting for David Ortiz to get healthy, Alex Rios to start hitting and Jimmy Rollins to figure out what has gone wrong.

Next year, I’ll be smarter. Next year will be the year that Fantasy Baseball and I can finally bury the hatchet. Next year, is our year…

Jason Budden is the Vice President of Operations and Marketing at Baseball Factory. Jason joined the Baseball Factory in 1997 while still a junior in high school. After going through the Baseball Factory's college recruiting program he was placed at Johns Hopkins University where he played two years of college baseball before graduating with a degree in Economics. After working part-time at the Factory throughout college, Jason joined the team as a full-time employee in January 2002 when he was promoted to Director of Marketing. He currently oversees all marketing projects and sponsorship opportunities at Baseball Factory. He is also in charge of development and marketing for Baseball University, the leader in online baseball education and a division of Baseball Factory.