The Roots of Fantasy League Baseball

not a female for miles around

Its that time of year again, when lonely Bill James-wannabe nerds all across the land begin pouring over the latest statistics in Baseball Prospectus in an effort to momentarily distract themselves from their own pathetic existance and create something out of their sad lives - in this case, a winning baseball team on the back of real life performance. In prepartion for the upcoming fantasy league season, I just picked up my copy of the STATS Inc. 2005 Scouting Report, so I guess I'm partially guilty of said nerd-like behavior.

While cleaning out my storage unit the other week, I came across an old copy of the the 1984 book Rotisserie League Baseball. This book traces the orgins of the game, the rudiements of which were allegedly founded by Bob Sklar, a professor at the University of Michigan, and then refined in 1980 by Dan Okrent, with the help of some friends at a now-defunct Manhattan restuarant call La Rotisserie Francaise (thus "Rotisserie" League). This book outlines the original basis for points and rules of a "keeper league", that is now the basis for virtually fantasy league for every sport across the globe.

Also, inside the book, I found an old article I had ripped out of Cleveland Magazine from April 1983, called "Of Time and A Summer" by Doug Clarke that was, at the time, a very inspiring account of an exciting season of fantasy baseball.

I bet Sklar, Okrent and Clarke had no idea how big their little numbers game would become....