Wednesday, August 22, 2007

From the Commissioner

I received this in the form of a comment from Janelle's husband, who leads the league my husband plays in.

From Heath: Husband of a Blogger and Player of Fantasy Football

Preface:
Amanda, I loved your story. Janelle directed me to read your post…she definitely feels your pain.

After reading the other comments of the “football widows”, I thought maybe I would respond not just to your story, but to perhaps share some insight from the biggest fantasy football nerd to ever play the game, to those wives and mothers who can’t understand their “boy’s” consuming need for sport. Since I’m not part of the “blogging world”, I hope I’m following all the right etiquette for posting.

My Thoughts:
As Commissioner of The Armchair Fantasy Football League, in which your husband "Ghostrider" is the defending champ, it makes me proud to see the mangers of my league taking such pride in their pre-draft preparations.

It is no doubt that Curtis was able to bring home last year's title because of the understanding and support he got at home last season, just as I did the year before (insert sarcasm).

We (men) may not spend endless hours detailing the nuances of our day to have strangers to tell us what they feel about our stories (you bloggers are a special breed; my wife especially).

Fantasy football gives us (men) a fleeting chance each year to satisfy our need for competition and strategy, our need to fight and conquer, and our need to win and just be men in the company of other men, whether in person or across town, without our man spirit demoralized by pink fluffy stuff (I love my Ella, but I feel like I live in a cotton-candy land).

We get to go head-to-head each week against our friends and take every opportunity to make disparaging remarks concerning their matriarchal lineage and their inabilities to defeat you, and no one gets their feelings hurt. We test ourselves to see if we are smarter than the “experts” at Yahoo, Sports Illustrated, and ESPN, buy benching a starter in favor of a waiver-wire-wanna-be, just to because he is playing Cleveland. We test our, albeit trivial, knowledge to see if the wide receiver we took in the 11th round will have a break-out season, and you are the only one who predicted it (Vincent Jackson WR-SD). And to see if this is the year Julius Jones (RB-DAL) finally becomes the featured back he showed flashes of his rookie year, now that Bill Parcels is gone.

We connect in a world, call it fantasy if you will, where we can talk for hours to each other about a subject that the mere mention of in front of our wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts, or female friends and cousins, is sure to grant a deep sigh followed by a prolonged rolling of the eyes. Probably much the same as my reaction to the click, click, clicking, I hear whilst I'm trying to watch a movie with my wife and she’s posting a comment on MommyBloggersUnite...I digress.

Ultimately, while watching football, basketball, baseball, (and golf when desperate), we men can sit in a room and hurl insults and sarcasm at each other all day. But thru the course of a game in those moments of victory or defeat, whether in the same room or across the world we can share a myriad of common feelings and thoughts that bond us without even saying a word. Just knowing that every Thanksgiving, my father, whom we seldom see on holidays, is watching the Cowboys just as I am, and without even talking, we are sharing the same experience miles away. And that ladies is real.

29 comments:

Holly said...

Fair and balanced...for sure!

My Chris is not a sports fan. He is an avid hunter, shooter, gun and car enthusiast. But he doesn't watch sports of any kind. I am blessed. He does, however, think that a golf course is the waste of a good rifle range...and that Call of Duty is a lot of fun with our son.

Thanks for sharing some good insight!
Blessings,
holly

Gayle @ thewestiecrew said...

Ummm...well...ahem, Alrighty then.

Darlene R. said...

THAT is too funny! :) I am fortunate enough to have a hubby that "doesn't really get into that" --- he sure did know alot about it though!!

LauraG said...

Men...you have just GOT to love them.

boomama said...

Now THAT is classic.

D. has his guys-only Bible study tonight...I'll make sure he reads this before he goes. Just for encouragement, you know.

Lauren said...

I love how he clarifies that by "we" and "us" he means "men."

Heather said...

Thanks Heath for making it all clear now :) (insert sarcasm)

Maybe you should start a fantasy football blog :)

Lisa @ The Preacher's Wife said...

THIS has got to be the most hilarious thing I have ever seen played out on a blog. When the husbands get involved, you know it's a hot topic...LOL

For lack of a better visual, I'm thinking of the 'Tastes Great' vs. 'Less Filling' commercial - Except this screams Bloghers Vs. Fauxball.

And we all know which one is the realest, don't we girls? :)

wendy's world said...

Hilarious!!!! I must say he's a pretty good blogger and storyteller! But...there are women out there who not only understand, but who enjoy football themselves. I'm one of them. Gearing up for some SEC football...War Eagle Girls!

Sunni at The Flying Mum said...

I just "granted a deep sigh, followed by prolonged rolling of my eyes."

jen said...

Oh my goodness... my husband wants to high-five the screen! LOL! This is too cute. Oh good grief. Scott just nodded and said, "think about THAT next time I'm watching the Cowboys". Sigh. Eyeroll. hehehe, we love football season!

kittyhox said...

Okay, THAT was awesome.

"We (men) may not spend endless hours detailing the nuances of our day to have strangers to tell us what they feel about our stories (you bloggers are a special breed; my wife especially)."

Touche'!!

What a funny guy... And very thoughtful to explain it to the ladies!

Erin said...

Kevin wants me to tell you that he agrees! And by deciding to share these last two blogs with him I got to listen to about five hours (or 20 min, same thing) of fantasy football talk...amazing

Sharon Brumfield said...

That was great.
I think Blogdom is real--very real.

MamaCass said...

This is too funny. I just read it out loud to Rodney and it was much appreciated. I am reading the book Captivating by John and Stasi Eldridge and Heath just summed up some key points. Men are warriors at heart and women are all about relationships that's why we love to click away on our blogs and connect with other women.

Shelly said...

LOL LOL LOL! Am I supposed to be laughing, b/c I'm rolling over here. I have to shake my head in agreement. Not a wife, and not claiming to know a lick about anything, but hysterical nonetheless.

I loved your spirit about eventually cleaning the glass ;)

Jackie said...

I made hubby read this- too funny. Well, I guess we should just let boys be boys, I guess we DO do our bloggy thing. I still say it's QUITE different, but whatever!!
:) thanks for that!!

Anonymous said...

My guess is that Heath is now getting a big, fat, virtual cooler of victory gatorade dumped on his head right about now from all his "teammates" (aka bloggy widowers)

connorcolesmom said...

Oh I love that he felt the need to answer the blog. So fun!!
My husband has said that he does not understand the whole blog thing that is until lately when my siestas have been so encouraging and supportive. He gets it now!!

And guys are made different tahn us. They are driven by competition and testosterone so I guess I get the whole sports thing too...
Love,
kim

A Place For Ministry Wives/A Place For Me said...

This is definitely C-L-A-S-S-I-C - if not anything else. :-)

Myrna said...

Too funny!

In our family the women have given in! I have a Fantasy team AND I play in the family online pick the winner pool. I figured with so many men in my family--husband, 2 sons, 3 grandsons--I might as well join 'em! Sometmes I actually win!

AKat said...

Philip (Pez McTitan in his league) and I got a good laugh out of this. Nice explanation, Heath. You know, we even had to leave the store early the other day to make it home for a draft...

jennyhope said...

he lost me with all of that fantasy football talk. j/k

Alicia said...

beautiful.

Anonymous said...

I am laughing my head off right now! I AM NOT ALONE! All this time I thought I was the only football (fantasy and real) widow! My husband would rather have a limb amputated than miss the Cowboys on Thanksgiving. Not only does he watch and play fantasy, but he also officiates high school football! Thank you for letting me know I am not alone!

Susan said...

The Man has expressed any interest this year in FFB, but The Boy...he's been playing for several years! His one comment about coming back from Colorado this weekend..."I've GOT to get my picks ready for FFB".

Oy.

Living to Love said...

I had to share this with my hubby..too funny!

Lindsee Lou said...

"Probably much the same as my reaction to the click, click, clicking, I hear whilst I'm trying to watch a movie with my wife and she’s posting a comment on MommyBloggersUnite...I digress."

That was my favorite part.

AND, when he found it funny that we random people comment on random people's blogs about random stories. Oh, you gotta love it!

And for the record, I do love blogging probably as much as they all love fantasy football! :)

Lindsee

Amy said...

I had to roll my eyes at this. I will be passing on both of these FF blogs to my husband to read... not that it will make any difference