Who's In?

Last year a pal I play hoops with cajoled me into joining his fantasy NFL league. It was fun to study the rosters. I’ve always been fascinated by people’s names. Somehow football players’ names are particularly fascinating, maybe because they’re so prominently displayed on the gigantic billboards that are their backs.

So naturally, knowing very little about the current crop of individual players, I chose a team based entirely on the players’ names. I could have made a whole league of such teams. An entire team of Toms playing an entire team of Cedrics and Derricks? An entire team of people with last names that are professions (Miller, Baker, Cook, Porter, etc.) versus an entire team of people with names longer than 10 letters? Or a team of all players with sexually ambiguous names (Marion, Lesley, Randy, etc.) I wonder who would win? Well, despite all the fun I could have had, I created one team with players who had tough names. Rough tough names. Like Mack Strong. Or Alge Crumpler.

I actually did all right for awhile. And way under the salary cap, I might add. Until I, uh, took my eye off the ball and several of my players were out for weeks with injuries unbeknownst to me. I played a few weeks with no quarterback, I think.

But I can see how the fantasy league concept is a fun one. Especially for the attentive.

And there's a league for everyone. You can play fantasy Congress too. Fantasy Congress: Where people play politics. I haven't played, mainly because returning from reality after fiddling around in a land of fantasy politics would be just too devastating. But if you want to play, you have until Thanksgiving to draft for the fall season!

Instructions are simple:

• Draft your team of Members of Congress (MCs).
• Earn points as your MCs legislate effectively.
• Manage by trading, benching, or picking up free MCs.
• Win by getting the most points by the end of the season and go down in political history.

Good concept! The site encourages teachers to use it, which seems like a good way to get kids involved in thinking about what's going on in the halls of the legislature beyond the posturing and speechifying we see most of. (What am I saying, "kids," really for anyone to get past the weapons of mass distraction constantly used against us.) Good luck!