I can't stop looking at my fantasy baseball team

It's true. I can't stop looking at my fantasy baseball team.

I have been playing fantasy sports since I first started surfing the Internet in middle school. The first fantasy sport I ever participated in was at Small World (which has since been swallowed by Sporting News). It was great--I felt the power of a general manager at my hands. I was "buying" players. They were on my team. And now, checking my team is one of my essential functions of even going on the Internet.

This is how bad my "disease" has gotten (and I know other fantasy managers in my league have it as bad--or worse--than I do...and it's times like these when I wish Bill Simmons could be in our league. I'm sure he'd understand our delightful plight.):

I go to the league homepage every day. After perusing the league posts to see who has been talking trash, I click on my team to see how they did the night before. The days where I see my team batted .160 and my pitching staff had an 8.53 ERA lead me to fits of internal cursing, shame, and a desire to trade/eliminate every last one of them. But the days of a .400 batting average and an ERA under 2.00 make me crap for joy.

Of course, there are the numerous mediocre days that fill in the norm, but all scenarios lead to one result: I wind up staring at my team. For minutes. Sometimes, for an hour...or more. There's a constant feeling of "How can I make my team better?" How can I improve my lead? How can I comeback from such a terrible week? Why did David Ortiz suck such a big one for the first two months of this season, and why am I still looking at his face on my team? In fact, I just looked at my team again...right now. I had to take a break from blogging (of all things) to see if my team has miraculously changed.

It didn't.

I'm currently in the middle of the pack in our league, which consists of die-hard fantasy baseball addicts and friends of nearly eight years. I probably will not win this year, but there's still a feeling that maybe my team will breakthrough over night. All I want is fantasy baseball immortality, and my only solution right now is staring at my team.

I love it. It's my drug. Better this than crack, I suppose.

Video of the Day: As a former mascot, I can appreciate this act.