Fantasy and Morality

I’m in something of a philosophical mood today. Me doing my Kant/Wittengenstein impression might be a new internet low (which actually is tough considering some of the stuff on the internet), but here goes.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m in a fantasy league for the first time. We play Deadball Era ball and are currently doing the 1913 season. So far my team, which is decent but probably not a pennant contender is doing terribly. That creates a moral dilemma for me.  When the season is over, we draft for the new season in a fairly standard way. The bottom four teams go into a pot and are selected randomly by computer for their draft order, meaning the team with the fourth worst record could get the top draft pick, as could the third, second, or worst team. It’s a pretty fair way to keep a team from obviously “tanking” but it isn’t foolproof.

The problem is the 1914 draft includes a rookie pitcher named Babe Ruth. Heard of him? Bet you have.

So the question I ask myself is, “Self, do you want to ‘tank’ to pick up the Babe?” I’ve got a one in four chance (actually it’s weighted so the odds aren’t quite that cut and dried) of grabbing the best player ever and all I have to do is lose. That’s easy enough. My team isn’t that great (but it is pretty good and “tanking” would be fairly obvious).

Now remember, there’s no money involved, no trophy, and no real bragging rights (I wouldn’t know any of the other team managers if I saw them so I wouldn’t know when to brag), but, still, it is Babe Ruth.

I watch the TV show “NCIS” sometimes and there was an episode several years ago where the doctor on the show (played by David McCallum) was asked the difference between ethics and morality. His answer went like this (and I paraphrase): An ethical man knows he shouldn’t cheat on his wife. A moral man doesn’t cheat on his wife.

And so there I am in an ethical and moral dilemma. What to do? What not to do? Ah, the morass.

Tags: Babe Ruth, fantasy baseball