The Paradox

Today was the first day of the 2009/10 season in the English Premier League. For those of you who are uninitiated, that is the professional football (read: soccer) league in England. So like MLS in the United States, except it's more analogous to the NFL and NBA put together in terms of stature, following, success, etc. Explaining to my American friends reading this how professional football works in England and Europe is way too ambitious a topic for this post, but maybe I'll get to it some other time. In any event, if you like football/soccer, you'd love watching the Premier League; it's the most exciting in the world in my humble opinion.

For now, I just wanted to discuss a curious phenomenon familiar to millions worldwide: the Fantasy Sports vs. Real Life Fandom Paradox (hereinafter, "The Paradox"). So imagine you are a NY Yankees fan, and you also play fantasy baseball. In your fantasy league, you acquire San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum, one of the best pitchers in the league (and best haircut in the league, but that's a separate issue). You are understandably excited. Right up until the Yankees and Giants begin a three-game series against each other in interleague play. Lincecum will be pitching against your team. You want him to win the game, strike out lots of batters, and allow as few runs as possible, all so he can score lots of points for your fantasy league. But you also want the Yankees to win the game and score lots of runs (against Lincecum). To make it worse, your biggest fantasy league rival owns the Yankees' pitcher for that game, C.C. Sabathia, who you similarly want to do well but also poorly. You've been hit by The Paradox.

Fantasy sports aficionados know what comes next. You start hoping for insanely bizarre things to happen. For example, you hope that Lincecum strikes out every batter for the first five innings (15 strikeouts) but then gets a really painful cramp that takes him out of the game (and only this game). You hope that in the meantime, Sabathia strikes out no one and gives up 10 earned runs, leaving the game. You then hope that the Yankees score 11 runs in the last four innings while allowing zero runs to win the game. Of course that won't happen. But that's what you hope anyway because of The Paradox.

So I got hit by The Paradox today. My favorite Premier League team, Arsenal (from London), was playing Everton (from Liverpool). I have an Everton defender in my fantasy team, where defenders are penalized points if the other side score goals. It was a fantastic match to watch (unless you're an Everton fan). Arsenal absolutely dominated. So I see Arsenal score one goal. Fantastic, they might win. And my defender only gave up one goal so the penalty isn't bad. Then Arsenal scores another. Okay, still fine -- Arsenal have a two-goal cushion so they have a really high probability of winning this game, and my defender has a manageable penalty for allowing two goals. Then Arsenal score a third. Hmm, getting troubling. No need to pad the score fellas, you're going to win anyway. A fourth goal. Uh oh. A fifth. Crap. A sixth. Holy bajeezus.

The match ended in a 6-1 victory for Arsenal. Which I'm happy about, don't get me wrong. Everton are an excellent team, especially on defense (usually), so beating them is a very good thing, especially at their home stadium. And this was one heck of a win. It's as if the Indianapolis Colts (contender with a good offense, like Arsenal) beat the Baltimore Ravens (contender with a great defense, like Everton) by a score of 42-3. Problem is, my defender got hit with a HUGE penalty. So do I feel elated or depressed? Well, both.

That's The Paradox.