Fantasyland

Last night I watched Fantasyland, a movie about fantasy baseball that follows one Jed Latkin as he competes in the most competitive fantasy baseball league in the country, Tout Wars. This super competitive league is composed of baseball writers and statisticians, most of them demigods in the world of fantasy baseball. The movie was inspired by the success of a book of the same title, written by Sam Walker, which chronicled the author's first year in Tout Wars. In the book, Sam travels around and talks to most of the players on his team, and talks to managers and coaches looking for inside scoops on platoons and injuries and what not.

In the movie, it's the same story line, except this time Jed Latkin is the rookie that all the other managers want to shoot down. I won't go into too much detail, but this Jed guy is a douche bag. It's rare that I detest a character so much in a film, and this was a real guy in a documentary. After reading the book I was amazed at how obsessed Walker was with his fantasy team. Jed puts him to shame. Jed places fantasy in front of everything else in his life. He completely ignores his wife and in one scene he actually tries to swing a trade while she's in the delivery room giving birth to twins. Pretentious and tactless, he fits in perfectly with the cadre of losers that consider themselves kings of the fantasy baseball realm.

The movie is entertaining to say the least, but it left the same acrid taste in my mouth that the book did. It pointed out how silly and frivolous fantasy baseball is, and how much time we all waste scouring box scores and clicking through pages of stats. Of course, while I type this I'm refreshing box scores and watching the Twins/Angels game on MLBtv to make sure the Twins bullpen doesn't blow Slowey's outing. Even so, in 2009 I was in 3 fantasy leagues, 4 if you count the 1-on-1 league that outlawed adding players or trading )it was more of a draft challenge than a league) and this year I'm in only two, both AL only. So it's not like I'm getting worse.

There's one scene that is particularly funny and telling. Sam Walker, who also plays a major role in the movie, sits beside his wife while she imparts a little story about her husband, and the moment she knew he was sick with the fantasy disease. She came home and the house next door or across the street, I can't remember, was on fire and they were evacuating everyone in the area. Her husband was still sitting in their apartment watching the ball game because he had some fantasy players involved. That is some kind of twisted dedication.

You can watch the film for free at snagfilms.com by clicking here.