Fantasy Football: A Longtime Mets Team Tradition

By Scott Engel, The Game Day

Mets first base coach Wayne Kirby was willing to talk to me about his success as a Fantasy Football player, but first, he wanted to make sure I knew who I was addressing.

“You’re talking to who?” he asked me with a big smile.

I reaffirmed that I knew I was speaking with the defending champion of the Mets Fantasy Football team league.

“You’re right about that!” Kirby said.

Kirby, who has been playing Fantasy Football since his days as a Baltimore Orioles coach during the past decade, walked away with a 2022 league title that represents a longtime clubhouse tradition. Mets players, coaches, and staffers have been participating in team leagues since the storied years of the 1980s, and the competitors have included some of the most recognizable names in franchise history.

So, Kirby knows there is a “big target on his back” as he looks to defend his championship. Last year, he said he won it all based on rostering a healthy amount of running backs and targeting slot wide receivers. But he proclaimed that those who are looking to take his crown this year will have to be ready for him to pivot to new strategies.

“Somebody is going to try to steal that thunder this year, but I’ve got news for them. I’ve got a little bit of a different approach,” he said.

Kirby is an enthusiastic and fun-loving type who naturally fits into the banter and tight community fabric woven by a Fantasy Football league. He is an experienced Fantasy player who creates his own personal draft boards. Kirby also has guys like Francisco Lindor, who shares a team with Edwin Diaz, and a Mets staffer, gunning to knock him off his perch this season. Lindor says he is already looking forward to the team’s league draft in early September, and the league helps him to stay connected to the other Mets players after their season ends.

“It’s a great time to bond with your teammates. You talk some trash, and when the offseason approaches, you get to stay in touch with your teammates,” he said. “It’s going to be a team bonding day.”

As Fantasy Football players nationwide prepare for their drafts, current and former Mets are doing the same. David Wright has been playing Fantasy Football since he first arrived with the Mets as a rookie in 2004, and he is readying to draft in three leagues this year. As he eyes the new season, the Mets legend remembers his first Fantasy Football experience almost two decades ago.

“Joe McEwing asked me if I wanted to partner up, and I knew nothing about Fantasy Football. We all got to the visiting clubhouse in Philadelphia to do our draft. I remember we picked up cheesesteaks along the way.”

Wright recalls that in his first year of playing Fantasy Football, he fell victim to one of the basic drafting pitfalls of Fantasy Football that Kirby always recommends avoiding: Drafting with your heart. “I know we didn’t do well that year, in part because I was very insistent on taking Michael Vick. I grew up in Virginia and was a big Virginia Tech fan. We took him probably much earlier than we should have,” Wright said.

The origins of Fantasy Football leagues in the Mets clubhouse date even further back than the early 2000s. In 2012, I spoke with Howard Johnson, who told me that the players and staffers played in clubhouse Fantasy Football leagues in the 1980s.

“Everybody was in the league back then. David Cone, Keith Miller, and Darryl Strawberry. We had a bunch of guys involved. It was a very good league. It’s one of those things that gets passed down from year to year.”

In the “pen and pad” era of Fantasy Football, like others who played the game in the pre-internet days, Johnson and his league mates relied on extracting NFL statistics from newspapers.

“We just had to write everything down,” Johnson said. “We had fun. I remember looking at the newspaper to try and see all the numbers and add everything up.”

Years later, Johnson, who was a Mets first base and hitting coach, would compete against Wright as two of the greatest third basemen in Mets history played against each other in the team’s Fantasy Football league. As is always the case in any Fantasy Football league, a fun rivalry developed as Johnson won the league championship. Later in his career, Wright also found himself in a constant race for league glory with another franchise star.

“I would probably say the biggest rivalries that I’ve had would be Hojo, as a while back he had a really good season, and I always liked going up against him, and more recently, Jacob deGrom.”

Mets staffers who worked closely together operated as “Assistant GMs” for Wright and deGrom, further fueling the competition. While Wright is now enjoying his post-playing days, he has continued to stay heavily involved in Fantasy Football. Doing so not only allows him to remain connected to former teammates, but it also keeps him involved with other Major Leaguers from his era of on-field action.

“I’m in a league with Eric Hinske, Chipper Jones, Brian McCann, Tim Hudson, and a lot of those guys. I get a chance to keep in touch with them through Fantasy Football,” Wright said. “It’s something where I enjoy the competitive part of it. I enjoy trying to beat Chipper Jones in Fantasy Football, and at the same time, it gives us a reason to stay in touch.”

Hinske, who is now the Mets’ Assistant Hitting Coach, started playing Fantasy Football as a rookie with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2002. As a spinoff of the annually intense Atlanta Braves clubhouse leagues, Hinske created a larger Fantasy Football league in 2010 that included players from various MLB teams, including Wright and former Met Michael Cuddyer.

“Brian McCann, Tim Hudson, Dan Uggla, and Derek Lowe were in it and we needed some more players,” Hinske said. “We were playing here at Citi Field and I asked David Wright if he wanted in. The league’s awesome.”

Over the past 20-plus years, Hinske has become a very savvy Fantasy Football player who participates in many different game formats, including Best Ball leagues, where players only draft teams in the preseason and make no in-season moves. At this time of year, when MLB players and coaches actually have some downtime, the former MLB outfielder/first baseman is studying hard for his upcoming drafts. It’s an annual summer routine that started over 20 years ago.

“I got addicted right away,” Hinske said. “It’s just a way to compete. It consumes your day. It’s something to wake up for, to go to the waiver wire. It’s something to beat somebody at and have bragging rights. It’s what we love.”

Nowadays, it seems like every MLB clubhouse has a Fantasy Football league, and when talking to those who participate, the fraternal atmosphere of the leagues is what the players, coaches, and staffers enjoy the most. Wright said he was “hooked” on Fantasy Football after that first season playing with McEwing.

“It wasn’t so much because of the football part,” Wright said. “It was a means for us as teammates to keep in touch during the offseason. It created more of a brotherhood. Whether you’re discussing trades or talking trash, it gives you a reason to keep in touch with the guys. You get a little bit closer because of it.”

Lindor said that while he is still learning more about Fantasy Football, playing the game has increased his levels of interest in the NFL after he first became a Browns fan while playing in Cleveland. He started playing Fantasy Football when he joined the Mets.

“You have to keep up and learn about the players, and that is what kind of made me more of a fan.,” he said. “Understanding what it’s like to be a pro football player, what they go through every week, it’s not easy. I enjoy educating myself in every sport. I love seeing professional athletes in another sport at their peaks.”

For Kirby, who shares his team with former Met Eduardo Escobar, Fantasy Football is about “competition” and “camaraderie.” He said he loves to talk trash on the phone to his Mets league mates during the offseason. His younger brother, Terry, also played for the Miami Dolphins, San Francisco 49ers, Oakland Raiders, and the Browns from 1993 to 2002, so he has some extra insights on the NFL that he has absorbed.

“Trust me, I know how hard this game is,” Kirby said of the NFL.

Over the years, former players such as Hinske and Wright have picked up some interesting Fantasy Football tales to share, such as one from Boston when Hinske was playing for the Red Sox from 2006-07.
“Terry Francona used to call me over when I played for the Red Sox, and he’d act like I’m pinch hitting but then he’d tell me to run into the clubhouse and check his Fantasy score,” Hinske said.

Some of Wright’s fondest memories of the Mets team league were the live drafts, usually held when the team was on the road.

“A lot of it is the draft. Everybody loves the draft,” Wright said. “We used to do it big, where on the road, we’d rent a conference room at our hotel. We’d get really good food, and I would order a bunch of different hats with the team logos on them. When you went up for your first-round pick and made the announcement, you would take the hat and put it on like the real NFL Draft, which I always thought was cool.”

The Fantasy Football fun also extends to Wright’s family. He plays in leagues with his brothers, Stephen, Matthew, and Daniel, every year, and he does not want to be sagging in the standings when the holidays arrive.

“That’s the ultimate bragging rights because when I’m sitting around the table at Thanksgiving, you want to be in a position of being able to talk trash and not being the one that people are talking trash to,” Wright said. “My brothers and I are probably one of the most competitive families that I know; whether it’s Fantasy Football or playing ping pong, we want to beat each other.”

Playing Fantasy Football also helped Wright and Lindor better understand why fans are so passionate about the players they draft or pick up for their Fantasy teams.

“It changed my perspective as a baseball player because I realized what people were talking about when they were yelling at me from the stands to play better for their Fantasy Baseball teams,” Wright said.
I appreciate it a lot.” Lindor said of when fans draft him in Fantasy Baseball. “That means I’m helping people be into the game.”

As experienced Fantasy Football players, Wright and Hinske are starting to hone in on some of the players they might be targeting in their 2023 drafts. Wright, a Giants fan who used to display a team helmet in his locker at Citi Field, says you can’t go wrong with Saquon Barkley. Hinske, a lifetime Green Bay Packers fan, says the team’s new quarterback has a bright outlook.

“Don’t sleep on Jordan Love. He can run,” Hinske said. “I think he’s going to be an impact Fantasy player. He’s going to get drafted in the 13th or 14th round, but they’ve got a good organization and head coach, and they’ve won a lot of games. The system works.”

Meanwhile, Hinske has already started trash-talking in advance of draft day and the new season.“It’s very exciting for me because I’m personally going to take down Wayne Kirby in our Fantasy Football league with the Mets,” Hinske said.

Kirby knows that Hinske and everyone else in the league are aiming to dethrone him and said he is definitely ready to run it back. The reigning champion was the last one to sign up for the league this season, but he knew he was returning all along.

“They thought I wasn’t going to defend, but I’m here,” Kirby said before declaring, “I’m back!” “We will defend it proudly.”