Behold! The most boring three days in fantasy sports! aka the All Star Break
By Mike Marteny
Can you name the only two days in a calendar year in which there are no sporting events in the Big Four leagues? Christmas? Nope, the NBA is going full throttle then. Thanksgiving? Nope, the NFL and NBA are both capitalizing on you gorging yourself in front of the TV. Give up? It is the day before and day after the MLB All Star game.
That is why it is the three most boring days of the year for us fantasy geeks. No lineups to set, no matchups to analyze. The only thing you can do is send trade offers. Lots of trade offers.
I have irritated more than one owner over the years because of the repeated trade offers over these three days. Some people just have no sense of humor!
So what does one do pass the time? Aside from trade offers?
Watch or take part in the All Star festivities! The home run derby has become a staple of the All Star break, and it reminds me of those old Home Run Derby shows. I was fortunate enough to catch several reruns of those shows on ESPN when I was a kid. The players are all having fun, and it makes you forget about the exorbitant salaries for a while.
I may have been young, but even then I appreciated the chance to catch the likes of Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, and Eddie Mathews on my TV. Even if it wasn’t in color! I wish MLB Network would dig all of those out of the archives and show them all again for those of you that never got to see these national treasures.
But, I digress. The actual All Star game on Tuesday can still be fun to watch. I know, some of you haven’t tuned back in since the joke that was the tie game in 2002. I get it. But this is supposed to be just for fun, after all.
My only complaint about the All Star festivities is that I wish they would hold the Futures game on Wednesday. There are still MLB games on the Sunday before. If they showed the Futures game on Wednesday, there would be no “dead air” so to speak.
At any rate, try to enjoy three days without setting your lineups!