I have broken the mirror. Walked under the ladder. Opened the umbrella indoors. Forgotten to knock on wood. I have broken one of the worst sports vows a fan can ever make. I joined a fantasy football league.

First off, keep in mind I did NOT pay to be in this league and therefore am not betting on anything.

So at least I’m semi-pure.

My buddy Jason from high school dropped me a line the other day (actually, it was an e-mail. How do I write that? Dropped me an ‘e’?) and suggested I get off my proverbial sports high horse and challenge him and some buddies in a Yahoo football league.

I’m not unfamiliar with the concept. I’ve read up on the popularity of fantasy sports and I have a rough idea of how most things are scored.

What I was interested in — and why I said yes — was finding out how owning a team would affect me. I’d heard from a lot of athletes and writers and other fans that it kills the fun of the game, in a way. Instead of focusing on who’s winning and why one likes a player over another, a fan is more interested in how well a player is doing.

Allegiances are broken. Emerging superstars are ignored (unless they can tally some fantasy points). Classic match-ups are balked at, in lieu of pitiful contests featuring point-gathering, faceless names for MY team.

I’d heard most of the criticisms. But I got in anyway. I named my team “Housh and the Hawks” after T.J. Houshmandzadeh and the Seahawks.

After the draft (an auto draft in which one simply lists the players he/she wants the most and the computer generates who gets first picks, etc.), I got some solid picks like Peyton Manning, Chad Ochocinco, Steven Jackson, Ray Rice, Jeremy Shockey and — get this — T.J. Houshmandzadeh.

Sweet.

And so far? Yeah. I pretty much don’t pay attention to the NFL anymore. I had to look over a couple of NFL-targeted columns before realizing, “Holy crap! It’s week two already?”

That’s what fantasy football does. It makes you look first at the stat box (which I did a lot of anyway, but not usually first) and THEN at what’s happening around the league. I pay less attention to how teams in the Seahawks’ division are doing and how my former favs (San Diego, the Redskins) are faring, than how well my sixth-string wide receiver (Andre Caldwell, Bengals) is doing. Should I replace Johnny Knox with Caldwell this week? Hmm.

But I’m sticking with it. After a bad loss in the first week I rallied to win my next match-up, then got spanked by a winless (0-2) team in Team Ultra.

But I have made the most moves in the league and hopefully that means I’m a deft, aggressive and insightful manager.

Or it means I’m desperate.

Or that I have no idea what I’m doing.

Or both.

Wish me luck.