Let’s say your portfolio includes AIG, Lehman, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Merrill Lynch, and GM.
One year ago, these investments were worth tens of thousands.
Today? $5.27.
You’ve had it with this insane volatility. No more stocks. Dow Jones, Nasdaq, S&P 500. They all blow right about now.
A common tenet of the mainstream investment world states that there’s no such thing as a sure bet, with any sort of worthwhile upside. Of course, you could invest in US Savings bonds and get, like 1% interest – guaranteed by the full faith and trust of the US government. But that stuff’s bullshit. The bonds from my Bar Mitzvah are still maturing – almost 20 years later. Nobody has that kind of time horizon, except maybe for infants.
No, during times like these you need to look outside of the standard investment box.
You want something exciting, but fairly low risk. Something with serious upside, but minimal upfront commitment. Wholesome. American. An investment you can be proud of.
Buy a piece of my future fantasy sports earnings.
Your investment will return a portion of my league winnings in baseball, football, and possibly basketball (although I don’t really follow basketball very closely) in as little as one calendar year. You’ll also have the opportunity to invest in my weekly office football pools for both NFL and NCAA.
And of course, there are my March Madness brackets.
You can own a piece of it all – but only if you’re a shrewd investor.
Here’s how it would work, as I envisioned while brushing my teeth this morning:
1) You give me some money. Let’s say 500 bucks, but it’s ultimately up to you, I guess. I’ll make a note of it on a piece of paper so I don’t forget who gave me what.
2) I enter various fantasy sports leagues throughout the course of the year, using your money to pay my league fees and purchase premium subscriptions to online fantasy sports strategy websites. Additionally, I’ll use the money to enter some football pools and March Madness bracket competitions. I’ll also probably use the money to buy beer, snacks, and maybe a new pair of shoes.
3) Assuming I win most of my leagues, and do paranormally well in the pools and brackets, you will receive your entire investment back, plus a percentage of my winnings – minus a 5% management fee, 12% administrative fee, and 25% fuel surcharge (gas is expensive!!). Also, I will be keeping 40% of the total profits. It’s my brain doing all the winning, after all.
I’ve had some success in the past, wining a few fantasy football leagues, and finishing in the top 10 in a couple of football pools. So the track record is clearly there. Invest with confidence.
If you want in on this chance-of-a-lifetime investment opportunity, hit me back in the comments.
Note: Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future gains….or losses.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Tired of Losing Dough in the Stock Market?
Monday, June 30, 2008
Fantasy Baseball Hopes And Dreams
We all live a quarter of our lives in Dreamland.
There, we meet our heroes, our arch-enemies, our deceased pets, childhood friends, and sexy ladies with the heads of aliens from Star Trek.
Countless books have been penned to aid in analyzing our dreams. Dream theories abound - from the fields of psychiatry, neurobiology, Scientology, and crazy-ass-ology, among others.
Through all of this, it seems that one thread of truth weaves it way through all of our dreams. That being, if it’s important enough to be on your mind during the day, there’s a damn good chance you’ll be dreaming about it at night.
You study all week for a tough exam. You’re nervous as hell - the recurring dream being you show up late and miss the test.
Or, you’re nervous about getting fired because you’re in the shithouse with your boss. So you dream of being trapped in a latrine with your boss.
Sometimes our dreams really do mimic life.
But in my case - my own totally baffling and completely anomalous case – I never ever dream about fantasy baseball.
How is this possible?
When you expend over 80% of your brain’s processing power analyzing pros and cons of roster moves and potential trades, for days and weeks on end – basically the entire baseball season – how do you not dream about it?
If I don’t dream about trading my father for Manny Ramirez, and marrying my mother off to Alex Rodriguez (for some sweet Yankees tickets), then how can I analyze my deepest Freudian feelings?
It’s frustrating, really. But perhaps my subconscious is trying to tell me something. Something like, “You know Mill, you’re a real jackass for thinking about fantasy baseball every waking hour. I just don’t have time for it. You’ll be dreaming about an improved design for the hydrogen fuel cell tonight! We gotta kick our oil habit!!!”
Twenty bucks says I dream about fantasy baseball tonight.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Baseball's Firing Spree - Who's Next? Me?
It seems that firing managers is all the rage these days in Major League Baseball. Just last week, the Mets, Mariners, and Blue Jays fired their skippers.
It’s been an unprecedented deluge of pink slips, which begs the question – Is anybody safe?
It makes me paranoid - which is a relatively unfamiliar state of mind for me. Last time I felt this nervous was when I took a ballpoint pen home from my last job – accidentally – and didn’t return it for over an hour. I was scared stiff.
But now – am I at risk to be fired from my fantasy baseball managerial role?
My team, “Brokeback Outfield,” is in next to last place. We’ve been there pretty much all season. But before the season began, Brokeback was an outside favorite – the educated critics’ pick, if you will – to make a run for the championship. Instead of challenging for the title, my team has been an unmitigated disappointment for the past 3 months.
Nightmare - plain and simple.
I’ve insisted on believing that my players would break out of their season-long slumps any day now, and refrained from making any big trades or free agent pick-ups that could potentially change my team’s chemistry for the better.
My bad luck has astounded me and the rest of my league. And there’s no sign of a breakout from this all encompassing fantasy baseball recession. Pitchers, hitters, fantasy batboys and ballgirls. They’re all playing like crap.
And maybe it’s my fault. How else can one explain it?
Why, just the other night, my team went 2 for 59, with one run scored and one RBI. You couldn’t orchestrate a worse performance if you tried. I don’t even remember how my pitchers played, but I’m sure it wasn’t much better.
The only member of “Brokeback Outfield” who’s actually having a good year is Mariano Rivera, and with my luck - and with Rivera’s age – his arm is bound to detach from his shoulder socket the next time he throws a split-finger fastball.
Mo Rivera's been awesome this year - a lone bright spot for my team. But when will that arm of his snap off at the elbow?Alas, my only comfort is that this is all for fun. Fantasy baseball is not real life, and there’s nobody who can actually fire me from my managerial position. At least, I’m 90% certain that’s the case.
Sometimes the line between fantasy and reality is blurred, and I get confused. In a perfect world, I’d keep both my fantasy baseball job, and my real job through the end of the season. Still, I can’t help but feel that only my real job is secure – as long as I don’t take any office supplies home with me.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Where Fantasy Meets Reality
(From my weekly column at The Love Of Sports. I invent - and then examine through a rose-colored lens - an entirely new way of looking at fantasy baseball trades. Please try to enjoy.)
Last year, right around this time, I suggested a new way of looking at fantasy baseball trades. To tell the truth, I propose the same basic idea to my fantasy league each and every year - to no avail.
Now, with a slightly larger audience than the 11 other guys in my league, I’ll throw it at the wall again and see if anything sticks.
What if you could trade real-life goods and services for fantasy baseball players?
Why should we limit our fantasy trades to only include a swap of the imaginary ownership rights of real human beings?
Now, I’m not suggesting we should actually own a fraction of the athletes – although lord knows that’s already been done - but the melding of fantasy and reality is long overdue.
“I’ll give you my watch and Lance Berkman for A-Rod.”
“No way dude, that’s a shitty watch. You give me Lance Berkman's watch, and we might have something to talk about. I was with you when you bought yours in Chinatown last week.”
“Ok. You wanna play hard ball, huh? How about new running shoes, Lance Berkman, a case of beer, and my tennis racket for A-Rod?”
“Done. That’s a totally sweet deal.”
And it’s that simple.
Do you see how we can flawlessly infuse everyday material objects into our fantasy sports negotiations?
There are some lines, however, that we’d be wise not to cross. Here are a couple examples of clear violations of human trafficking and/or prostitution laws (be especially wary if Eliot Spitzer is in your league):
"You give me Johan Santana, I’ll give you my daughter."
"Travis Hafner, Erik Bedard, and Ken Griffey, Jr., for Chipper Jones, Derek Jeter, and sex with your wife."
Also, it’s best to avoid the following scenarios, due to their blatant illegality.
"I’ll give you Albert Pujols and Josh Beckett for Ichiro and 4 ounces of black tar heroin. Or just Pujols for the heroin, straight up, and we can do some right here in my basement."
"You trade me Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes for Paul Konerko and Orlando Cabrera, and I’ll kill your ex-boyfriend (or current boyfriend, wink-wink) for you."
Would you kill to have this man? On your fantasy team, that is.But with proper knowledge of local, state, and federal laws, and fair negotiating skills, you should be able to stretch your fantasy trading budget further than ever before.
Even if you don’t have much money or jewelry to throw at the other fantasy managers in your league, you may have more to offer than you think.
Can you hold a mop? Are you handy with a shovel? How about a bucket and a chamois?
If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, then you’ve got a great chance to nab a young star like Jimmy Rollins or David Wright.
All you need in order to trade for one of these top guys is a mid-level starting pitcher or an over-the-hill former All-Star, combined with a decent amount of attention to detail and upper body strength.
The hedges could use a proper pruning, after all. My topiary Gene Simmons is looking pretty bad – you can’t even make out his tongue. Anyway, you’ll get Chase Utley and Hanley Ramirez in exchange for Manny Ramirez and 30 hours worth of landscaping.
Nice work. You've now earned a great shortstop AND top-notch second baseman.A couple more examples of quality real-world/fantasy trades:
Magglio Ordonez + 5 car washes + resealing your driveway = Jose Reyes.
Edgar Renteria + 3 months of pool maintenance + 20 hours of babysitting = Miguel Cabrera.
All that hard work, inhaling those dangerous fumes, and the hours you could have spent with your children? No matter, your new third baseman is awesome!!It simply makes sense. And this allows for the most industrious and persistent competitors in your league to do whatever it takes (and I mean WHATEVER it takes) to assemble the best fantasy team possible.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Fantasy Baseball Draft Preparation - The Real Secret
(Originally appeared at The Love Of Sports as part of my weekly column, this post deals with topics ranging from baseball to illegal immigration, and back again - with underlying themes of ingenuity and the importance of fantasy baseball in today's democratic societies. If you have any interest in sports, freedom, or foreigners, than you should read on below.)
Baseball’s back. And along with baseball, comes – you guessed it - fantasy baseball.
So now’s the perfect time to let you in on a few of my fantasy baseball draft secrets.
The truth is, it’s all about the preparation. Especially when you’re drafting in a keeper league, like mine.
And I’m not talking about simply poring over rankings, and sifting through 2008 player projections for hours upon hours - many weeks and months before draft day. Or memorizing stat lines for every position player over the past 6 years, and calculating your own projections derived from a complex multivariable-calculus-based algorithm.
This data is then uploaded to a server farm in India (via secure satellite transmission), which crunches the numbers and spits out the left-handed second basemen who bat the best against pitchers with more than 4 vowels in their last names – and whose high school mascots were some variety of eagle (bald, golden, screaming, etc.).
Fantasy draft data-crunching, now outsourced to India.Every average fantasy manager does that stuff nowadays.
And I don’t mean traveling to Florida, Arizona, and the Dominican Republic to attend Winter Ball and/or Spring Training games in order to scout the starting position battles, and get a jump on the latest news.
Top fantasy gamers have been doing that for 5 or 6 years now, easy.
If this is all you’ve been doing to prepare for your draft, I’m afraid you need to step up your game, my friends.
In my current league, we’re able to draft minor league players. For example, I drafted Hunter Pence and Jacoby Ellsbury last year before they even played their first game in the majors.
Several years ago, one guy in our league drafted Scott Kazmir…..while he was still a junior in high school. I’m not kidding.
So, if you’re going to keep pace with crazy people like me, or my Kazmir-loving colleague, you need to look at all available avenues.
My suggestions if you REALLY want to win your keeper league?
1) Learn Spanish
2) Book a trip to Cuba (you’ll need to go through Canada, Mexico, or Bermuda).
3) Bring some extra suitcases.
4) Hang around some playgrounds and junior high school ball fields.
5) Evade the Castro regime’s “Policia Secreto.”
6) Take copious notes regarding the 13 year-old with the 102 mph slider and the unorthodox leg kick.
7) Discover the mythical 230-pound, 14 year-old right fielder with a howitzer arm and ability to hit a baseball so hard, it actually vaporizes upon contact with his bat.
8) Marvel at the natural beauty of La Isla Cubana - Make mental note to write congressman about lifting embargoes against Cuba, and allow for free travel to and from the island nation.
9) Gather all relevant personal information on the aforementioned individuals. You’ll need this info on draft day.
10) Find their younger siblings – play catch with them. Maybe hit a few balls around as well.
11) If talented - and small enough - place siblings in extra suitcases.
12) Don’t forget plenty of air holes, and stock suitcases with juice boxes and snacks.
13) Once safely in the USA, send the Cuban youngsters to Prep school and encourage them to play baseball.
14) Wait a few years. Draft. Repeat.
There you have it. You’ll be dominating your keeper league within 10-12 years.
These young Cuban children are of different ethnicities, but Castro has instilled baseball greatness in all his people. At least one is a future All-Star - if you can get him off the island.Alternatively, you could follow a similar process in Japan, or Texas. Both of which would be easier on a number of levels - legally, politically, and logistically. But more difficult on several other levels - larger children in Texas = harder to smuggle back to prep school, and Japanese is a really tough language to learn = difficult to convince parents that kids would be better off with you in America, and on your fantasy baseball team, which might be nearly impossible to explain exactly what a fantasy baseball team is in Japanese. They might think you're going to train their children for an "American Idol" spinoff, or something - which could be used as a great cover, come to think of it.
"Hello, Continental Airlines? One ticket to Tokyo please!"
In any case, best of luck in your draft preparations. May you discover the next rookie phenom, and draft him before anyone else even knows his name.
