All the Marbles

I’ve lost my marbles.
At least it feels that way.
I loved marbles, as a kid: it was such a simple ‘sport’, so easily understood, so effortless to play.
Nowadays things are a bit more complex, a bit more demanding..
Nowadays you need a graduate degree just to read the Sports section of the newspaper.
But even with the proper education, you still need to regularly devote at least two hours a day to studying rosters, compiling statistics, and memorizing the names of mascots, just to stay competitive.
Not competitive in the actual sport, of course: no, you need all that education and ongoing research just to compete in the Fantasy Leagues.
The Fantasy Leagues!
You know what they are, don’t you?
The one thing the Fantasy Leagues are not, is a fantasy. They are all about real athletes, actual performance, player drafts, and piles and piles of statistics.
It takes weeks of intense preparation to be competitive in a Fantasy sport.
Don’t get involved in a Fantasy sports league if you are inclined to fantasize. Don’t get involved in a Fantasy sports league if you have a real life –unless of course you are willing to make the Fantasy Leagues your real life.
And please, don’t get involved in Fantasy Sports Leagues if you are only looking to have some fun.
You want fun, try marbles.

But as I said at the start, I have lost my marbles.
I succumbed to the alleged fun of March Madness and now, perhaps mercifully, I am already out of it.
Again, I am not talking about the real games, the actual basketball: no, of course not.
What I am talking about is Bracketmania.
All across the country millions of Americans put their chores aside, rescheduled medical appointments, postponed bachelor parties, and otherwise put their lives on hold so they could predict the outcome of 59 basketball games in three weeks.
You probably have a better chance of winning the Powerball game, but that hasn’t stopped hordes of people from filling out their brackets, putting down their cash, and staying up past their bedtime to find out if the Rootabaga Giants from the MidSouthern Conference upset Altoona’s Laughing Cows, or the Humpbacked Whales of Miller State managed to eek out a win against perennial powerhouse Anthracite State.
Are you following this?
Who’s fooling whom?
I’d never even heard of Arkansas Central Christian, and yet I was fairly confident that they’d advance to the second round.
I couldn’t tell you which side of the Alabash River the campus was located on, but I confidently predicted Whoozits U. would surprise St. Juleps of Naomi.
I never stood a chance.
Of course, hope springs eternal: before the first game of the first round I stood atop the leader board (tied with everyone else at zero points), full of potential, sure of victory.
I had even filled out the tie-breaker sheet, predicting the total amount of points that would be scored in the championship game.
Then they played that first game and I plummeted down through the standings, like the Knights without Roy Hobbs.
After two rounds I was still in the top 30% of all participants, which placed me ahead of over 100,000, but behind 37,105.
I took some solace in the fact that there were so many pathetic losers behind me in the standings, at that point –and even scoffed at those who purported to know what they were talking about.
I, on the other hand, never had a clue.
Marbles, as I said, are more my speed.
In marbles, you have your Clearies, your Snotties, your Purees and your Agates.
You draw a big ring in the dirt, and then you take turns with one opponent, dropping marbles into the circle.
Then you take turns shooting at the marbles.
If you knock them out of the ring, you keep them.
I still have a bag of Purees, mementoes of my days as 2nd grade champion of St. Johns Elementary in Bangor.
The last time I looked at my March Madness bracket, I was in 89,473rd place, with that number growing faster than the national debt.