Fantasy Life: The Outrageous, Uplifting, and Heartbreaking World of Fantasy Sports from the Guy Who's Lived It

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Overview

Fantasy football, fantasy baseball, fantasy basketball, even fantasy sumo wrestling: the world of fantasy sports is huge, and still growing. Today, more than 35 million people in the United States and Canada spend hours upon hours each week on their fantasy sports teams. And as the Senior Fantasy Sports Analyst for ESPN, Matthew Berry is on the front lines of what has grown from a niche subculture into a national pastime.

In Fantasy Life, Berry celebrates every aspect of the ...

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Fantasy Life: The Outrageous, Uplifting, and Heartbreaking World of Fantasy Sports from the Guy Who's Lived It

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Overview

Fantasy football, fantasy baseball, fantasy basketball, even fantasy sumo wrestling: the world of fantasy sports is huge, and still growing. Today, more than 35 million people in the United States and Canada spend hours upon hours each week on their fantasy sports teams. And as the Senior Fantasy Sports Analyst for ESPN, Matthew Berry is on the front lines of what has grown from a niche subculture into a national pastime.

In Fantasy Life, Berry celebrates every aspect of the fantasy sports world. Brilliant trash talk. Unbelievable trophies. Insane draft day locations. Shake-your-head-in-disbelief punishments. Ingenious attempts at cheating. And surprisingly uplifting stories that remind us why we play these games in the first place.

Written with the same award-winning style that has made Berry one of the most popular columnists on ESPN.com, Fantasy Life is a book for both hard-core fantasy players and people who have never played before. Between tales of love and hate, birth and death, tattoos and furry animal costumes, the White House Situation Room and a 126-pound golden pelican, 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.

Fantasy will save your life. Fantasy will set you free. And fantasy life is most definitely better than real life. You’ll see.

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Editorial Reviews

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Let's be honest: Many football, baseball, and basketball enthusiasts watch sports with a split sense of loyalty: On one hand, they want the local team to win; on the other, the 35 million North American fantasy sports fans want the players on their personal game teams to succeed. What began in the late seventies as a modest venture has become a national obsession that receives regular attention on national news and network sports shows. Fantasy Life takes us into the weird, wondrous, self-contained universe of "reality" sports gamers. Readers couldn't ask for a more knowledgeable guide: As ESPN's Senior Fantasy Sports Analyst, Matthew Berry has covered every facet of this popular indoor sport; from players and officials to attempts, both legal and illegal, to gain a winning advantage. An off-season or on-season must-read. Editor's recommendation.

Publishers Weekly
Mixing autobiography with reportage on friends and field-famous players, ESPN personality Berry delves into the psychology and, more to the point, the comedy of fantasy sports. From mustache-growing pacts to Twitter accounts devoted exclusively to intra-league trash talk, Berry introduces some of the most creative fantasy traditions known to breed league-spirit. His tone—laid-back, witty—suits the beery, good-time atmosphere of fantasy sports. A one-time sitcom scribe, Berry knows how to frame a scene so its full, maybe even shocking, humorous glory shines through (See the one about the repo man, the owner of the would-be-repossessed car, and the cop who all put aside their differences to convene on the wisdom of a draft pick). Similarly, his comic timing comes into play in observations on the non-fantasy ramifications of fantasy team construction. Without abandoning his comedic baseline, Berry successfully journeys into philosophy—that of team play, that of living—and practical advice for leaguers concerning, for instance, how to not be That Guy. Though some sections are targeted solely towards fantasy fans ("20 Most Soul-Crushing Ways to Lose"), readers don't need a commissioner's knowledge to enjoy this insider's peek into the often astounding and always fun realm of fantasy sports. (July)
Kirkus Reviews
Fantasy sports: more fun to play than to read about. Rotisserie baseball, which began as a bunch of overly intelligent baseball nerds in New York playing with numbers, has since blossomed into a multisport, multimedia phenomenon. Before the Internet, the typical fantasy league pulled its statistics from the newspaper, after which its members ran the numbers by hand; now, numerous Web outlets have programs in which the masses can draft their teams and let the technology do the stats work. One of the most notable is, unsurprisingly, ESPN, and ESPN.com offers not only online services as a repository for league stats, but also advice columnists, the best of whom is Berry, aka the Talented Mr. Roto. In his debut book, the author combines memoir, history and cultural study in what was likely intended to be the definitive volume on fantasy sports; however, the topic is too thin for this much study and analysis. A genial gent, Berry relates his entry into fantasy sports, touches on fantasy's roots and presents numerous case studies--i.e., stories from fantasy leagues around the world. Unfortunately, the autobiographical sections are less than compelling, the roots-of-fantasy stories have been told time and again, and the case studies are simply uninteresting. In addition, the long, trying-too-hard-to-be-clever chapter titles begin to grate--e.g., "The Benefits of Fantasy in the Work Place, or ‘No One Seems to Realize That Adrian Peterson Isn't a Parishioner.' " Berry's fantasy advice columns on ESPN.com and his ESPN on-air work are flat-out enjoyable, so his many fans may be disappointed with this earnest yet tepid effort, which makes it clear that fantasy sports commentary is best left for the online world. Berry gave it the old college try, but the ultimate fantasy sports book has yet to be written--then again, it's possible that such an entity is a pipe dream.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781594486258
  • Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
  • Publication date: 7/16/2013
  • Pages: 352
  • Sales rank: 852
  • Product dimensions: 6.46 (w) x 9.16 (h) x 1.16 (d)

Meet the Author

Universally regarded as one of the leading voices on fantasy sports, Matthew Berry is ESPN’s Senior Fantasy Sports Analyst. Known as the “Talented Mr. Roto,” he’s an Emmy winner for his work on ESPN2’s Fantasy Football Now. As one of the most popular columnists and podcasters on ESPN.com, he appears regularly on ESPN television and radio shows, including Sunday NFL Countdown, SportsCenter, and NFL Live. He is one of only four people to be in the Hall of Fame of both the Fantasy Sports Trade Association and the Fantasy Sports Writers Association.

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