Roto World by Dave Diamond

Advice for the Roto Player - Keep Your Spouse Happy

We've all had this conversation:

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing important."

"Well, if it's not important, can you take out the garbage?"

"In a few minutes, dear."

"You're working on that silly fantasy game, aren't you?"

"It's not silly, I enjoy it."

"If you spent as much time on {fill in the blank} as you do on that game . . ."

Need I continue? Didn't think so. We really do need to appreciate that fact that our significant others may not be as into our game as we are. In fact, our partners may not be interested in it at all - or may actively HATE it. What to do?

Converting them to a love and appreciate of the roto game is probably not a great strategy. In some cases, if we could just get them to play - get them to come to the draft - we could convince them of the beauty of the game. They could be a co-owner with us. They could scout minor league players for us. They could help us analyze potential trades. They . . . yeh, right. Not going to happen. (I know one guy whose wife is co-owner of his roto team. Lucky stiff.) On the other hand, you might want to plant the seeds of interest subtly. If she (yes, I'm assuming most of the partners out there are women, so sue me) is a fan at all, and your home team has been talking about making a trade, ask the general question, "do you think this guy is better than that guy?" Get her involved in a general conversation about the relative merits of one ballplayer vs. another. Then gradually get up to, "if you were building a team for this season, and could pick any current player, who would it be?" At its core, this is what roto is all about, so if you can get her involved in the more abstract concept, it won't be such a big leap to the actual game.

But more importantly, we need to be considerate of our partners. We need to remember that they DON'T CARE about the minutia of the stats. They may not be quite as excited as we are about whether the official scorer awards a hit or charges an error on a particular play that we're watching, or whether Jimmy Rollins steals another base. We need to try not to obsess over these things in the presence of a partner who is not only uninterested, but downright annoyed by it. With this in mind, I'll offer a modest "top ten" list for us roto players:

10. Don't give out your home telephone number. Non-roto spouses are often quite annoyed with you getting calls at all hours from your fellow roto owners who want to talk trade, or just shoot the breeze about your respective teams. If you can, save them for the office, or make the calls outgoing. At the very least, put a curfew on the calls and make sure your fellow owners know not to call after a certain time.

9. Don't obsess over each day's games. You don't really need to know how Shane Reynolds pitched tonight against the Cubs in the first five minutes after you return home from the movie. Avoid making your partner feel that you are more interested in your roto team than in her.

8. Keep your reactions to yourself. Try not to scream when your closer gives up a home run and not only blows the save, but takes the loss. Yes, it's traumatic, but unless you have the rare spouse who will say, "oh, that's too bad," just wait to cry on the shoulder of a fellow owner.

7. Don't neglect needed home repairs in order to input statistics on your home PC in preparation for the draft.

6. Don't hang pictures of "your" team on the wall in your study.

5. Let her know the date of next year's draft. Now. Get it on the family calendar early, so there's no possible conflict.

4. Draft at least a few players from her favorite team, so she'll have at least that much in common.

3. Don't tape SportsCenter.

2. Let her know in advance that there's a trading deadline, and you may be a bit distracted that week.

1. Share the winnings! If you finish in the money, take her out. Buy her something nice. And make sure she knows that it's because of your success as a GM in your roto league.

There will always be conflict. We can only try to manage it.

Previous columns:

08/21/2001 - Advice for the Roto Widow

07/27/2001 - How to Pull Off That One Last Trade

07/18/2001 - First Half Performance - Pitchers