Hitting a line drive into couples therapy

For the past two years, Chris and I have participated in fantasy baseball together. Typically, we share the responsibility of managing one baseball team together. This year -- the very same year we're going to join in holy matrimony -- we've decided to manage separate fantasy baseball teams and compete against each other. This could be bad.

For those of you unfamiliar with fantasy baseball, it's basically an online, season-long competition. Each "league" has about eight to 12 twelve teams, each managed by a different person. These "managers" are responsible for drafting players and choosing who plays every day. Points are assigned to your team for things such as runs, hits, errors, stolen bases, ERA, innings pitched, etc., based on how the real-life players on your team did that day. Then using those points, each team in the league is ranked. We don't play for money, just bragging rights.

For the past two years, the teams Chris and I managed together haven't done very well. Everyone else in the league seemed to accept this because I was the only girl in the league. However, in reality the reason Chris and I didn't do very well was because we were unfamiliar with the fantasy baseball process, There's a whole complex system of scoring that changes based on which type of competition you use. It took us a while to figure out this system and develop a strategy. However, because the draft is before the season, by the time we figured out our strategy, we were pretty much stuck with our team, whether those players fit our strategy or not. (You can trade in fantasy baseball, but it's usually pretty difficult to make trades that will save a sagging team because everyone can see everyone else's stats.)

So here's the problem: I'm pretty competitive. So is Chris. And chances are we're both going to be fueled by our desire to prove our independence. If Chris does better than me this year, he'll be able to say that the reason our past teams sucked was my fault. And I'll be able to say Chris was dragging me down if I end up improving greatly. But I know the whole gender thing could get ugly. Everyone expects Chris to do better because he’s a guy and guys tend to know more about baseball than girls. However, if I do better, I’m pretty sure everyone in the league will give Chris shit because he got beat by his fiancé. And Chris really doesn’t like to lose anything. He can be a bad loser. He can also be a bad winner, so I know if he excels above me, he’ll rub it in my face on a daily basis.

I’m worried that all of this could lead to us bickering our way down the aisle in September. Thankfully, like the Cubs after the all-star break, the fantasy baseball season is pretty much over by the end of July. The ranks tend not to budge much after that point. So hopefully by September, we’ll be able to accept our rankings and proceed to live happily every after ... If we make until then.

Stay tuned….