MLBeat

The message boards for ESPN Fantasy Baseball leagues are shifty, as no person is allowed to keep more than one message posted at a time. So I took it upon myself to record for posterity the text of our particular league's message board (the league is called 24-Hour Procrastination Center), as it stood at the date and time of posting. Come tomorrow morning it may well look completely different, but the overall tone is likely to be the same.

(We promise to take it easy on the fantasy baseball stories in '06. We here at MLBeat know of the potential resemblance to rambling on about one's golf game or one's NCAA tournament bracket. But we consider ourselves to be performing an important service in this case, and we can't promise we won't indulge ourselves in future, less-important cases.)

A brief backstory: One team, suspected to be the JNLV Tigers, has anonymously protested every single accepted trade since the league's inception a year ago. The protested trades have gone to ESPN's monolithic review board, which then ruled to veto at least fifty percent of the time (a conservative estimate). The league's managers, who represent decades of collective fantasy baseball experience, have detected no rationale for which trades make it through the system. Various appeals and inquiries to ESPN have gone unheeded.



Scott W, Pawtucket Redwolves Wed, Mar 1, 3:15 PM
Do you think ESPN ever looks at leagues message boards and knows what people think of their games?

Taylor U, The Mission Magicians Wed, Mar 1, 10:02 AM
interesting post, dan. you make it sound like ESPN is going the way of MTV, which would be unfortunate if true. but sports can be such a huge market on their own without the glitz/glamour, so yahoo and CBS are more than happy to step in to fill the void.

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it appears the dissatisfaction with ESPN's service is more than justified and well on its way to unanimous in this league...except perhaps for our lone protester / s h i t h e a d. unfortunately i'm not sure what to do next, except for maybe hacking into JNLV's account and committing an act of fantasy baseball terrorism.

because i'm all about accountability, i must take this opportunity to apologize to everyone i personally convinced to pony up $50 for this league, myself included. i'll still be showing up to compete this year, just a little more reliant on the waiver wire than usual i guess, but it'll be a cold day in hell before i recommend ESPN over the myriad alternatives again.

Daniel Z, Agents of Fortune Wed, Mar 1, 6:39 AM
It was pretty plain to see the writing on the wall when ESPN decided to make sports akin to Hollywood. Everything is flash and no substance...it's a sad state of affairs in sports all around. It seems media types like ESPN are more interested in who went to what party and who they were with rather than focusing on what their bread and butter really want...sports. It's filtered down to staples like their fantasy sports and sooner than they think they'll be wondering what happened and how do we fix it. But it will no doubt be too late...we will all have moved on to greener pastures. ESPN has gone the way of the DoDo bird and broadcast news....irrelevant and hardly noticable anymore.

Patrick F, No Hope of Redemption Wed, Mar 1, 6:39 AM
Yeah... I would much prefer a league that, when my 800th trade attempt is vetoed, would at least tell me why. I am really tired of having to go through 3 days of review each time and then having proposals rejected without knowing which way they feel the trade is tilted unfairly. Half the time I can't even figure out what the logic is behind the review. It's killing me. How are we supposed to trade if we don't know what the standards are for review? (esp. when we KNOW it's going to be protested!).

Mike S, OSU BEAVERS Sat, Feb 25, 7:04 PM
ESPN sucks. Each year I have bought around 20-25 teams in each sport. This year I have zero baseball teams other than this adopted dead team. I am sticking to CBS where I can make money and I dont have to put up with the crap of ESPN. Their service has gone to hell over the past couple years.

Joey R, Kevin Brown,To The Glue Factory Fri, Feb 24, 10:52 AM
i'm wondering the same thing. after this league finishes up, remind me to avoid espn fantasy leagues like the plague. why i spent $50 on this is beyond my comprehension.

Gabe W, (Pay)dro Martinez Sun, Jan 15, 4:32 PM
I agree. I will be on vacation from the 9th to 16th, and I very much would like to be there for the draft this year.

Bobby G, Unbeatables Fri, Aug 26, 12:28 PM
Tigers just moved Randy Johnson onto his bench for his start today despite the fact that he has less than half of the maximum allotted starts for the whole season with just over a month to go!

Marc D, The Odeon Panthers Sat, Jun 18, 3:43 PM
Upheld. It's all good. Given the recent rash of injuries to my team and the thin availability on the waiver wire, Guillen and Thome (with precieved upside) were more of a gain for this season's production. Cabrera will be missed, but Edgardo will not. Besides, you know I'm a sucker for Thome every year, Dan. He usually doesn't disappoint. No acrimony and no bad vibes. Let's play on!