Don’t ask me for fantasy football tips

I suppose because I’ve been in the sports business for the past five decades or so, I’m always asked at this time of year who I like. “Who’s going to the Super Bowl?” “How are the Warriors going to be?” “Can the Giants get to the World Series?” And this week, there’s more inquiring than at any other time of the year. This week, you can add, “Who should I draft in my fantasy league?”

Let me preface my all-knowing knowledge of the future of the 49ers, Warriors or Giants and potential fantasy point-getters by saying that, like most people who do what I do, I know just enough to get myself beat in any venture that involves a game of chance.

My prognosticating career reached what I felt was the ultimate blow when my dog won $1,000 by selecting the most victories against the point spread out of 50 players in a season-long pool. I finished 38th. After that, the dog wouldn’t even share his Milk-Bones with me. I embarrassed him.

So, to all those who over the years have asked me about their hometown team or who to select as their fantasy starting quarterback, I’m sorry, but I told you so.

It is for that reason that I don’t gamble on sports. I did it once, as I think I’ve previously mentioned in this weekly yarn. It was on the Super Bowl game in which Joe Namath guaranteed victory for his New York Jets over the powerful Baltimore Colts. I boldly said on the air, “If the Jets beat the Colts in this game, you could have my house, my car and my first born.” My oldest daughter has never quite forgiven me. She says she’s had a relatively happy life, but still misses home.

My one lapse into the underbelly of the gambling universe is playing in a fantasy league that is so old we’re starting to get the grandchildren of the original participants as partners in our 12team league.

Fantasy football actually started here in the Bay Area with a group of American Football League administrators led by some the thenOakland Raiders’ management people. That was in 1963. In 1969, it moved to a San Francisco bar called King’s X. By 1983, it had moved eastward, and that was where our little league began. It began at what had been described to me in my being recruited to work there, “a little cable company.” Not only didn’t I know what fantasy football was, I didn’t know what cable television was because there wasn’t any. The little cable company was HBO. Needless to say, it grew just a bit, and so did fantasy football. As of 2019, fantasy football was a $7 billion industry.

And, with the growth of the cable television industry, our little fantasy league has plodded along with pretty much the same original players. Draft night used to be in a small conference room. Now, it’s literally worldwide on Zoom. Everyone has moved on to far corners, but our little league keeps calling them back.

We are made up of television sports professionals who know everything there is to know about the colliding worlds of television and sports, except that we don’t.

Every year, somebody’s projected “sleeper” is either cut from their team’s roster before the midway point of the season or suffers some sort of horrendous injury that sidelines him for a decade or so, 10 minutes into the first game.

I’ve played in this league for 38 years and I’ve won my league’s championship twice. If I were a real coach, I’d have been fired 30 years ago.

So, if you haven’t yet had your draft for this year, don’t ask me. I don’t know. I sometimes think I do, but I don’t. But, I’ll tell you what I will do for you — I’ll ask my dog.