The archetypal fantasy-sports player feels that winning at fantasy says something about them.

A lot of fantasy players feel now as though winning in their fantasy league is more important than what they will at times describe as their childlike loyalty to one team.

They will describe success in fantasy sports as being a highly rational, statistics-driven phenomenon, and like in any sort of statistical process, you can't let one good game by one player affect your planning in fantasy sports. So they try not to watch too many games - because they don't want to be influenced by the events on the field.

I had one man tell me that fantasy had taught him to be a grownup fan rather than a child fan. The St. Louis Cardinals don't care about me. Why should I care about them? But I do care about whether or not I win my rotisserie league. Because I spend time almost 12 months out of the year researching, planning, managing, negotiating.

When you talk to people who play, the fantasy-baseball player tends to be more ardent than the fantasy-football player. Baseball is a game that is played every day, and baseball as a game in fantasy has so many more permutations than does fantasy football.

It is the most exciting thing in sports. Winning one like this definitely never gets old.