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Mets love themselves some fantasy football. Times implies Niese really comes out of his shell where this other sport is concerned.
Where Mets Go Deep
By TIM ROHAN
The Mets held the annual draft for their fantasy football league a few weeks ago, after a day game in Atlanta. Participants gathered at the team hotel, ordered food and placed a big draft board at the front of the room. One by one, each team went up, announced its pick and placed a sticker with the pick’s name on the board. It was an ordeal, and now the board is on display in the team’s training room.
The clubhouse is often filled with chatter about football lineups and the waiver wire. David Wright and Jon Niese recently chirped at fellow owners from across the room. ESPN’s “Fantasy Football Now” was playing in the clubhouse before the game, and the late-starting Sunday football games were put on televisions immediately afterward.
“It’s like a drug,” Niese said. “You have to have it. You can’t stop watching. Every week you’ve got to see how your guys are doing. It’s crazy, but it’s fun.”
Wright, who runs the league with Dave Racaniello, the bullpen catcher, said they played for the camaraderie and for a way to stay in touch in the off-season. It has become a Mets tradition, something the players look forward to. It perhaps resembles any other league among co-workers, friends or extended family members who want something else to discuss around the dinner table at Thanksgiving.
In the case of the Mets, it doesn’t hurt to have a distraction from what will now be five straight losing seasons.
The Mets have 12 teams split among 23 owners, including players, coaches and bullpen catchers. The rules are pretty standard, although they award a half-point per reception and one point per 15 yards gained by a skill-position player.
In years past, points were hard to come by, Niese said at his locker. “If you scored 100 points, you’d win,” he said, wistfully. “Now, this year, it’s crazy — half the teams are scoring 100 points.”
He scanned the waiver wire in search of a boost or a gem, but found it bare. Because it is a 12-team league, all of the worthwhile players were taken. Niese was among a group crowded around a TV, watching the San Francisco 49ers play the Indianapolis Colts last Sunday, chatting about teams and players.
“I like to stir the pot, get everybody going,” Niese said.
The trash-talking generally picks up once the baseball season ends and the players go their separate ways.
Eric Young and Tom Goodwin, the first-base coach, may brag about LeSean McCoy. Daniel Murphy can hype Giovani Bernard. And Anthony Recker and Andrew Brown will boast about Aaron Rodgers and Marshawn Lynch.
Last week, Josh Satin and Justin Turner sat at their lockers, listing their injured players.
“I liked our team the first week,” Satin said, “then half our team got hurt. Ray Rice, Jones-Drew, pretty much all our good people.”
Turner said they were trying to trade for a running back. Scott Rice was apparently shopping Knowshon Moreno for a top wide receiver. But Turner scoffed at the idea.
“We’ve got to do a complete makeover on our roster now,” he said. “I don’t know what we’re going to do. We’ll definitely be up for G.M. of the year if we end up making the playoffs.”
He and Satin plan to watch games together in the off-season. Maybe Matt Harvey and his co-owner, Jim Malone, the strength coach, will find time to get together, too.
Dillon Gee said he did not know anything about football, but he owns a team with Rice just to be involved. They have one of the better team names: “GEEsus RICE.” Murphy’s team is “Co-Captain.” And Wright’s is “Score That E-5.”
“It’s kind of funny because he never makes errors,” Turner said, shrugging.
Anyone who wants to join the league can, but some choose not to. Carlos Torres decided not to play fantasy football at all this year, so he could focus this off-season.
“Nobody really likes playing with me,” Torres said. “I have an obsessive personality, so I’m the guy calling and texting a trade to everybody, every single day.”
Tim Byrdak hears all the football talk and smirks. He is amused how each September, as the season winds down, he hears more and more about football around the clubhouse. He used to play fantasy football, until one day while at his daughter’s cheerleading competition he had his buddy race to a computer to get him a quarterback. His friend got Vince Young. Byrdak knew then he had to stop.
“I have a wife and four kids,” he explained.
But his fellow relievers, Scott Atchison, David Aardsma and LaTroy Hawkins — the “old guys,” Turner said — own a team together. Atchison said this was common in baseball. Most teams, if not all of them, he said, have a fantasy football league.
Wright has been playing fantasy football with his Mets teammates since his rookie season, in 2004. He was not running the league then, but as time went on and older players left, he assumed the responsibility along with so many others.
He missed the draft for the first time this year, rehabbing from his strained right hamstring. He had to message in his selections. He had the 10th pick and drafted Calvin Johnson, Larry Fitzgerald, Randall Cobb, Steven Jackson and Eddie Lacy.
“I’m putting a lot of stock in the wide receivers,” Wright said, then mournfully added, “but both my running backs are hurt.”
He is having a trophy made for the league. He does not know what it will look like yet, but he wants something they can engrave names on, something that will last, something that can be passed down for years. |
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