What does Tommy Pham, Joc Pederson fantasy-football slap say about the future of sports?

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Years ago, I talked to a futurist about what sports would look like in 50 years.

I also asked a few academics. They were full of apocalyptic guesses (my favourite being that bear baiting and gander pulling were going to make a comeback).

The futurist had a whole utopian system worked out – in the years to come, there would be no need for actual people in sports. We’d be rooting for “huge robotic duplicates” of famous athletes, playing on “space-based platforms.”

I’ve had to cover baseball in Houston in August. The yawning emptiness of space sounds like an improvement to me.

It all seemed pretty far out at the time. But in the intervening years we have begun moving toward this sci-fi vision of what sports will be in our post-human future.

The latest example – professional sports people who play real sports coming to blows over imaginary sports.

Had Cincinnati Red Tommy Pham and San Francisco Giant Joc Pederson decided to hold a public slapping contest in April or October, it might not have got much play. But it’s nearly June – the beginning of MLB’s slide into summer torpor – and stories are light on the ground.

The broad strokes are this. Pham and Pederson had a meeting of the minds during a pregame batting practice. They did it on the field where everyone could see them. Hard words were exchanged, and then Pham slapped Pederson. A “Will-Smith-style” slap, according to one observer.

There is nothing sadder than baseball players trying to fist-fight. No one was hurt. Neither of the two guys involved are stars.

So this would not be as big a story as it has become had the reason for the fight not come out – fantasy football.

Pham and Pederson apparently belonged to the same fantasy league, along with a bunch of other major-leaguers.

We all know that fantasy leagues are terrible. They suck up a huge amount of brain power that you might otherwise use to cultivate useful hobbies. They destroy the experience of watching sports because rather than watch a game, you spend three hours staring a hole in the one guy who’s on your fantasy team. The more you stare, the stronger the football-repelling force field around him grows. And while most people are bad at fantasy strategy, everyone thinks they’re really good at it, which can cost you real money.

This is where sports is going – sports about sports, just a lot more expensive, with or without robots.

So when you hear something has gone wrong in a fantasy league, no one’s surprised. But actual swinging fists? That’s a new one to me.

Pham felt Pederson was cheating in the league. Pederson claimed the offending move – putting a player on injured reserve and then slotting in a free agent – is totally legit.

Pham countered that “there was a lot of money involved.”

Pederson agreed about the money, but said Pham made the same roster move that very week.

“That was basically all of it,” Pederson said.

But no, it was not basically all of it.

There was also the .gif Pederson sent to the fantasy-league group chat. That also upset Pham.

There is nothing less funny than listening to someone explain a joke. But there is nothing more funny than watching someone explain a joke like they are giving testimony at a war-crimes trial.

This is the role Pederson, downcast and speaking just above a whisper, was forced into.

“It is true. I did send a .gif making fun of the Padres [Pham’s former team]. And if I hurt anyone’s feelings, I apologize for that.”

Since the court needed to know more about Pederson’s sense of humour before it could render judgment, he decided to show everyone the .gif on his phone.

“It was, like, three weightlifters lifting. And, um, …” – Pederson held up the phone.

The weightlifters, tagged with the logos of the Dodgers, Giants and Padres, throw kettle bells in the air. The Padres lifter gets brained by his.

“ … Because they were a really good team. It was kind of making fun of how they were, ah …” – at this point, Pederson pauses and seems to fully realize how ridiculous this is – “ … not playing well to make the playoffs, with a very talented team … It was supposed to be lighthearted.”

The comedic effect of this clip is heightened by a few things – the mournful silence of the reporters on hand, the fact that Pederson looks like Dennis the Menace on dietary supplements, and that he has his baseball cap screwed onto his head like his mother slapped it on him as he ran out of the house. All these things combine to make this a pretty great episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. All you need is Larry in the MAGA hat lurking at the back of the scrum.

As a general rule, I enjoy a lot of aggro in sports. It shows that the millionaires out on the field aren’t just punching a clock.

But more and more, sports feels like high school. The tension isn’t based on intercity rivalry or fan animus. It’s a bunch of popular kids jockeying among themselves for social position, with occasional flare-ups when someone’s feelings get hurt.

Take the recent example of Josh Donaldson mocking Chicago’s Tim Anderson by calling him ‘Jackie’ (after Jackie Robinson). That’s mean-kid behaviour. It’s got nothing to do with sports.

On the one hand, there is a sort of shameful joy in watching your physical betters make public knobs of themselves. And on the other, it’s just depressing.

Maybe that’s the future my futurist saw. One in which we remove the pettiest human parts of our pastimes and get back to caring about things that don’t actually matter, like who wins ball games.