Late news flash: I am so going to crush my opposition in my fantasy baseball league.
And what's the reason for that? An Internet expert who calls himself Grey Albright.
Wait. Before you move on to the next blog in your queue, understand that this post is more than about fantasy baseball. It's about generosity in the digital age.
Image from here, with a chuckle for any of you trying to decide on a name for your fantasy baseball team.
For any who are new and still interested: Fantasy baseball is a sport where you and your friends pick a team of players you think will do well in the real world. The players accumulate their real statistics (home runs, batting average, stolen bases, etc.) and you count them in your fantasy world. The team with the best stats, and, in general, the player with the best predictive ability, wins.
Fantasy baseball is universally considered to be the most difficult of the fantasy sports to do well. There are so many games, so many players, so much unpredictability. You've got to spend quite a bit of time on research, daily, to do well.
Hence the need for experts who sum it all up for you, and hopefully in an entertaining way.
For my first four years of fantasy baseballdom, I was mostly a fan of Matthew Berry. He is the most recognizable star in the fantasy world, and he is a funny, opinionated guy who makes it fun to follow the game and the stats that go along with it. But he is now a happily married man, and he is kind of over being right about his predictions. He is, for this sport, an emeritus.
Enter Grey.
Grey is the owner of Razzball.com, a fantasy sports blog that showcases his considerable writing talents and his formidable fantasy baseball acumen.
Grey is hungry to get his predictions right and prove others wrong. He writes hilarious pieces that have a clear chip on the shoulder. To like Grey, you have to like outrageous puns, sly pop culture references, and name-drops of old-school ball players who were fun to watch back in the day.
You also have to like good advice.
In addition, Grey has developed a large tribe of contributors and followers who write, comment, and hand out fun apps and tools (such as Excel spreadsheets) to help the rest of the tribe win.
Even better-- probably the best part of the site-- Grey strives to answer every commenter's fantasy question himself. Even the dumb ones (as I raise my hand).
All of this, by the way, is free. There is a ton of fun, information, advice, entertainment, and enjoyment on the site, and Grey charges nothing for it except that there are some advertisements on the left and right column of the blog. A la public radio, you can make a contribution if you want, but it's not in your face.
I appreciate the heck out of that.
It is now widely becoming accepted that content, on the Internet, is king. The people who win in Internet business are those who actually have something interesting to say or show, rather than just sell. Gary Vaynerchuk, Internet marketing guru, just came out with his latest video saying, once again, that the people who are generous with their talent are going to succeed in the long term. If Mr. Vaynerchuk is right, I see big things for Grey.
So a slice of tiramisu goes out to Grey Albright, guy who still has something to prove. All fantasy baseballers (<-- his mom's term) are in your debt.