Yeah, we're doing fantasy football again
I have a problem. Can we have a problem together?
After much deliberation during this, my Summer of Insane Work, I have decided to run Bystander’s fantasy football league again this coming season. All interested parties should get in touch by Monday, August 12th.
Everyone who manages a team will get an exclusive piece of Bystander merch. OH YES THEY WILL.
And the winner…well, I’ll do something extra nice for them. I will buy them something kool on eBay which will henceforth become our league trophy. Will it be an impossibly large soapstone phallus? If I can find one!
What is fantasy football?
If you don’t know, consider yourself lucky, like all the people who walked past this Pinkberry with an opium den in the back and thought, “No soul-curdling sump of human misery here! Just really mediocre frozen yogurt!”
No, really, how do I play?
You and a group of your friends select a bunch of NFL players, to fill out a certain number and arrangement of positions. (A quarterback, two running backs, and so forth.) Each “team” of players plays in that week’s games, racking up points for scoring, yards gained, and various other activities. At the end of the week, your total is compared to your opponent’s, and you lose.
I think it’s pretty clear what kind of people would come up with a game like this…by which I mean “newspapermen.” Need I say more?
Why do people do it?
Because the 20th Century gave us both undreamt-of technologies, and a knowledge of Humanity’s utter depravity.
I don’t know the rules of football.
You should learn them, if only to participate more fully in your era. Not playing fantasy football in the Autumn of Our Lord 2024 would be like hearing Julius Caesar’s dispatches from Gaul being read in the Forum, and yelling, “Pics or it didn’t happen, ya git!”
You’re American. You’re not allowed to use the word “git.”
After Barry Trotter, I was grandfathered in. By the way, Simon and Schuster has been selling that book illegally for about twenty years now. Any lawyer who thinks it might be fun to write them a serious of hilariously vicious letters which we can then publish in the next issue, get in touch. I’m looking for the Michael O’Donoghue of the legal profession.
• • •
So that’s it. You wanna play? Get in touch by EOD Monday, August 12. We’ll arrange the draft after that. And obviously, it’s B.Y.O.P. (bring your own pipe).
Editor & Publisher of The American Bystander MICHAEL GERBER has gone merch-crazy. He and Laura have made a special secret piece of merch for all Chicago Bears fans, so get in touch at publisher@americanbystander.org.
Well, I have zero desire to participate in this, y'git, but I laughed out loud through my entire disinterest!
Also, what Neil said. 😎
Get help.