In 1980 a group of people gathered in a French restaurant in New York City called La Rotisserie Francais for their regular lunch meeting to discuss their favorite team the Philadelphia Phillies. One gentleman, Dan Okrent, asked his friends if they would like to play a game. Okrent dug through the baseball almanac and other publications to gather the most prestigious stats in baseball and developed a game that would allow ordinary people to own their own baseball teams using real baseball players and real life stats. What started as a pencil and paper stats game amongst friends has become a multi-billion dollar business and has spread to all major sports.
Now to my fantasy sports story. About 3 to 4 years ago I started a fantasy NASCAR league called Pook Motorsports on ESPN.com. It started with a couple of friends. The next year 2 years saw the addition of my then girlfriend and her sister (now my wife and sister-in-law). Last year we added one more, and now this year we have 12 competitors in what is now called The Laughing Clown Malt Liquor Cup Series (Laughing Clown was Ricky Bobby's first sponsor in Talladega Nights). I thought that this was all of the fantasy sports I could handle. That was until a guy named Dennis transfered to my store to last summer.
Dennis, a huge St. Louis Cardinals fan, and I immediately became friends through our mutual love for the world's greatest game of baseball. He started talking about his numerous fantasy baseball teams and I continued to wonder, "how can anyone enjoy that?" Well, I got my answer this past January when Dennis asked me to join one of his league's. It was the middle of the Hot Stove League and I was constantly online looking at my roster and wondering what trades I could make and how the real baseball world would effect my fantasy team. That team I named the Pelicans (pretty weak I know). Then came my second team, an offshoot of the first league, in which I named the team the Henry Rosinbaggers from the movie Rookie of the Year.
I now am a full fledged fantasy baseball addict. I am an owner. I am an equal, in my mind, to the Steinbrenners, Ted Turner, Peter Angelos and Bud Selig. I have a group of ball players that I pay and make decisions on where they play, when they play and who they will play for next. Each day I walk in the door and jump on the computer and see how my teams have done to that point in the day. That is after I have checked my progress a few hundred times on my Droid while at work or on a date with my wife (just kidding).
Not only has fantasy baseball made me a complete obsessive compulsive nerd, it has made me better baseball fan. I not only follow my beloved Atlanta Braves, I follow the Yankess, Mariners, A's, Astros, Cardinals and the rest of Major League Baseball with the same fervor and passion as I once did as a kid. It's an outlet for the rest of the stresses in life, and a healthy outlet at that. It gives me something to look forward to when my wife is working. It gives me something to brag about. It gives me something to do with the game that I love so much and have for so long. I can't begin to imagine how awesome it would be to have been able to play this game with the only person that I know knew the ins and outs of the game better than myself, my grandfather. I know that I wouldn't have won, but I would have had too much fun getting my butt whooped.
As kids, my friends and I selected a starting lineup using our baseball cards each week. And now I get to relive those days and act like I am a real MLB franchise owner. If you have not already been exposed to wonderful world of fantasy baseball, then it is time. It is sure to make my summer one full of trades, waivers, adds, drops and disabled lists! GO PELICANS AND ROSINBAGGERS!
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