Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Fantasy Life by Matthew Berry

I finished reading Fantasy Life: The Outrageous, Uplifting, and Heartbreaking World of Fantasy Sports from the Guy Who's Lived It by Matthew Berry on the plane on the way back from New York. I brought the book after hearing Berry talk about the book on a podcast with Bill Simmons.

The book is really two interwoven pieces. First, it has lots and lots of stories about fantasy sports and the things that happen in fantasy sports leagues. The stories run the gamut from wacky to heart warming. Berry has collected these stories over the years both from personal experience and from readers of his columns.

Second, Matthew chronicles his journey from a fourteen-year-old fantasy player to the face of fantasy sports for the largest sports media company in the world. He interweaves the fantasy stories with the story of his own life. Berry uses the fantasy sports stories to illustrate his emotions and life lessons.

There was a period in the early 2000s that I was playing regularly playing a number of fantasy sports games on the ESPN web site. I can remember having Drew and Morgan help me with one draft... It started to get too time consuming and I dropped out completely.

The book was a mildly entertaining diversion after fighting my way through the third volume of the Life of Picasso. Nevertheless, unless you have some passion for fantasy sports, I don't recommend it.

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