The Commish's Court: Learn from your mistakes
Those of you who have young children know that one of the hardest things to do is get them to go to sleep at night. My own young son invents excuse after excuse to get out of his bed ... either he's too cold, or thirsty, or hungry, or he feels the need to track my wife and me down to tell us he is in fact "ready to go to sleep now," and then wonders whether we'd come in to help him get into the very bed he just left for no good reason.
The only thing we've discovered that works is sticking to the same routine every night, and that routine includes "The Good Night Show" on PBS KIDS Sprout. The show is a three-hour block of cartoons, interspersed with host segments dedicated to relaxation exercises, putting on pajamas and talking about pleasant dreams ... the kind of thing toddlers eat up. Our son knows that when certain cartoons arrive, he needs to brush his teeth, go upstairs and get ready for his "nap."
Unfortunately, somebody at the network had a wonderfully cute idea this Christmas Eve. Instead of the regular airing of "The Good Night Show," Sprout broadcast a 10-minute montage of all of the puppets, on-air hosts and the program's regular cartoon characters sleeping -- on an endless loop from about 6 p.m. until 3 a.m. So instead of the cartoon urging my child to climb into his bed, he caught Nina, Star and friends already fast asleep. No talking, no moving, nothing. So instead of a peaceful night, we had an inconsolable soon-to-be 3-year-old, who ended up not nestled all snug in his bed, but rather lying sideways between his mother and me, who were now pretty uncomfortable ourselves.
Hopefully Sprout will not do something stupid like that again next year. However, even more stupid would be for me not to videotape a night or two of this programming to have on hand just in case they do -- or if the cable goes out some night. If I don't do that, I'll be sitting there on the afternoon of Dec. 24, 2008, kicking myself as I realize it will be a very long, sleepless night ... assuming my sideways-sleeping son isn't doing the kicking for me.
And that's my advice to you fantasy football commissioners as your season comes to a close. Don't just pat yourself on the back for a job well-done and call it a day. Take a survey of your owners and ask them what they liked about the way the league was run this year and what they wished had happened differently. Act now while you still have the season fresh in mind. There's no bigger crime for a fantasy commissioner than having a fixable problem repeat itself, simply because you forgot about the problem until it reared its ugly head again.
Did your league have an issue with the way the playoffs were structured? Was there a tricky scoring scenario that happened back in Week 8 that already has slipped your mind? Maybe an owner had a complaint that you said you'd deal with in the offseason, and maybe, since it didn't directly involve you, you've forgotten about it. I bet he hasn't. Ask your owners to speak up before thoughts of points per reception and defensive fumble recoveries turn into discussions about runs produced and WHIP. And please, if you do nothing else, if you are in a keeper league, print out a copy of the final rosters of each team today, just in case. Yes, you might think whatever Web site you use to run your league might not lose that data, but why not be prepared, just in case?
At the same time, while it is good to gather information now and figure out what the concerns of your owners are, there's no reason to rush into making concrete decisions. If your league wants to figure out what changes need to be made to the trade veto policy, you don't have to etch that in stone today. Take your time to discuss it fully with all league members, and even ask around and see what other leagues do. Until you're ready to get the ball rolling on next year, you shouldn't make a firm decision that is likely to start an argument and has the potential to snowball into an unfixable problem with months of offseason still ahead of you.
One more thing to be patient about: naming your keepers. I can't begin to tell you how many questions I've received in the past two weeks about whether or not Player A is a better keeper than Player B, or, "I can keep only two of the following five players ... who should I keep?" Why some leagues announce their keepers immediately after Week 17 is beyond me, yet some do. It's insanity! So much can happen between the end of the regular season and the start of the next. First, there are still games to be played right now, and the NFL doesn't go injury-free in the playoffs. Then there's the retirement of some players, free agency, trades and incoming No. 1 draft picks to change the look of all 32 teams. Take a step back. Let the world turn for a bit before locking your league's owners into decisions that don't need to be made today.
Finally, I'd like to thank you, my dear readers, for reading my column each week, including those of you who submitted comments and questions to me. It's nearly impossible to address them all in the limited space we have, but each one is appreciated. I hope I have been able to both inform and entertain this football season, and I look forward to continuing to do so in the months to come, as we turn our attention to baseball here very soon.
But before we call it a season, Jon from the Granite State (New Hampshire) has our final question of the year: "I love your Commish Court articles and figure this question fits best here. I am the Commish in one of my leagues, and a mere participant in the other. Fortunately for me, I am in position this year to win something. I was wondering if it was standard practice to tip the Commish if you win your league?"
While my mailbox certainly has an open-door policy regarding personal checks and money orders, I certainly do not expect a share of my league champion's winnings. It would be different if, for some reason, I was the commissioner of a league in which I wasn't also an owner. In that rare case, I could see the winner giving me a little something for my hard work. But if I have a team and I'm competing for the winnings myself, then there's no reason for me to get a taste of someone else's success.
I'll take it one step further and say that red flags should be raised if a commissioner does take such a tip from an owner. What's to say the "tip" isn't a payment for some "help" the winning owner has received or will receive? Hmm.
If you want to do something for your commissioner to thank him for his efforts, by all means do so. Just make it a gift from all the owners so there's no favoritism attached, or even better, hard-wire it into your league rules. A nice idea would be to waive his entry fee, especially if he's shelling out any personal cash for the league Web site. But if you've had fun playing the game this year, and your league ran smoothly, a simple e-mail thanking your commissioner for a job well-done isn't too much to ask, is it?
And if you still feel this urge to give some of your winnings away ... I'm sure you can think of someone who might have helped you along the way, given you some good advice, answered some critical questions you might have been agonizing over, and quite selflessly saved your team from the brink of destruction. Hmmmmmmm.
All rise! The Court is adjourned.
A.J. Mass is a fantasy football, baseball and college basketball analyst for ESPN.com. You can e-mail him here.
