While out on the town the other night, a wise man posed a question my way.

Ludacris, after telling me he wanted to l-l-l-l-l-lick someone from her head to her toes, asked, “What’s your fantasy?”

After thinking about an answer that could be printed, I settled on baseball – well, not actual baseball, but fantasy baseball.

Fantasy baseball gives average Joe’s a chance to act as a general manager for their imaginary team. Needless to say, I love it, and I think many students share my fantasy love.

The first thing about fantasy baseball that I cannot get enough of is the amount of work that goes into picking a team name.

When picking a name, there are a few possible routes someone could take.

The most obvious and popular route is a drive down Double Entendre Avenue. If gutter-minded is the way you want to go, it’s vital that you follow the simple formula.

Take an aspect of baseball (i.e. bats, balls (hehe), gloves or sliding pants) and look for any childish double-meanings. In one league, I drew from the pool of Major League Baseball team names to make my sexual joke, calling my team “Give It A Yankee.”

If you’re above naming your fantasy team “Pitchers not Catchers,” you could also look to great baseball names of the past and present for inspiration.

Once again, a simple formula is available. Take a player with a funny name (first or last) and put an apostrophe after the first name – “Frank’s Viola,” “Bobby’s Bonilla” or, my favorite, “Mookie’s Wilson” (not sure why I like the last one, but try and say” Mookie” without giggling).

Upon completion of the crucial step of naming a team, the difficult part is over. All that’s left to do is pick your players.

Now, I’m not an expert in this department, winning approximately one league title in my years competing. But what I am unable to tell you about who to draft to make the best team, I can make up for with advice about who to avoid.

The best advice I can offer is to stay away from drafting players from your favorite team. As an optimistic White Sox fan, I annually utter the words, “This is Joe Crede’s year to hit .280 with 35 homeruns.”

After suiting Crede up for my team at the start of last year, I cussed his name out and 0-for-April start like I was Tony Montoya.

The other pitfall to taking a player off your favorite team is the double-whammy factor. When your player hits a homer to help his team and your fantasy team win, you feel twice the satisfaction. But when he strikes out with the bases loaded in the ninth inning, you feel twice the pain.

And, lastly, to have a successful fantasy season, you have to find the sucker in your league and become trading buddies with him.

Now, the sucker could be someone who has little baseball knowledge, but I prefer to find the biggest Cubs fan in the league – the guy who would’ve dated Kyle Farnsworth before he got dealt.

Once you have this guy pegged, offer him deals like Jose Macias, Ron Santo, Dave Kingman and Hack Wilson for his two best players. Cubby-love makes people do dumb things. Exploit this.

Now following these steps won’t guarantee a league title. But, it may just fulfill your fantasy.

Dan Woike, a senior journalism major, has lots of other fantasies. Email him at [email protected] if you want to talk about fantasy football or basketball.