When Dan Okrent, a now well-known sportswriter, decided to take the game of baseball and statistics managing off of the field and into his own hands, who knew that he would be giving birth to one of the biggest hobbies, or even ways of life, sports fans have ever seen? Okrent can be considered the father of fantasy baseball, an activity where one person can select real players to be “on their team” in an effort to beat the competition.
When Okrent started in 1979, he and a group of fellow sportswriters and publishers had to manually compile, monitor, and keep track of the stats in any given night, which probably included a lot of games to pay attention to. Then, they would have to pick which stats counted for their league, and write them down and compare everyone’s stats for the night to see who had the best score, thus having the best team. The person with the highest score won, but by no means was it an easy task for Okrent and the others.
In today’s technology-driven world, fantasy sports is no longer the laborious task it once was. With Internet’s high speeds and websites committed to just compiling stats, the popularity of the game has reached far beyond just America, and now, to the world. Popular websites like ESPN.com and Yahoo.com have separate divisions solely devoted to fantasy sports, which makes the accessibility of the sport that much easier. Toss in the fact that fantasy sports is free, and you have yourself an addictive phenomenon that has swept across the globe.
Any fantasy sport has complex rules, just like the actual game, as to how to score and eventually win. Basically, a person has to first select a group of real-time players in the game to make up his team. Once he has a team put together, he can then start to prioritize his players in terms of who he think he should play each night. Of course, you want the best players possible who you think are going to be the most productive. Once he has organized his team, he lets the games in real life happen. Once they are over, the results start coming in as to who did what, which is what his point total will be based off of.
About 10 or 12 people will be put in a league, which will be that person’s field of competition. The game lasts as long as the real-life season does, and some leagues will even have championship rounds when the real sport has its playoffs and post-season. There are two styles of play in these leagues: Rotisserie and Head-to-Head.
In a rotisserie league, the players compare their stats and the player with the best statistic gets 12 points, because of the amount of players there are in the league. The next best gets 11, and so on, and this happens for each statistic. These points are accumulated through a week of real-time play, so on Sunday the points are given out and the person with the highest number of total points wins for that week. The person with the highest number of total points at the end of the season is the league champion, who can brag about his victory during of the off-season.
In a head-to-head league, players are matched up with one other player in the league for a week. In a field of 10 statistics or so, the player who has the better statistic gets a point for each statistic he has that is better than the other person’s. The player with the highest amount of points wins the competition for the week and the total points that went towards winning and the number of stats he lost in are tallied in both of their overall records. For example, say a player beats another player in a week of competition 7-3. The whole 7-3 is kept on both of the player’s overall records. This happens each week, rotating the competition so that the player is able to play each player at least twice during the season. The player with the best overall record at the end of the season wins, and can do the same thing the rotisserie winner does.
With the Major League Baseball season just starting about a week ago, now is the time to get involved with a fantasy sports team. In an effort to guide you along in doing so, I will provide you with my top three tips to a successful season.
1 – Don’t always go for the big name players. Chances are they will either be not available or they will get injured during the season at some point. Now, that’s not to say don’t get any, but don’t make your whole team big names in the sport. Your team will fall apart.
2 – Branch out! Don’t get a bunch of players on the same team. If you do this, then on some nights when that team has an off day, you will be out of luck and scrambling to find players you can play that night. No one likes not having players available, so branch out. Just because that team is your favorite in real life does not mean you have to get everyone on that team. Get players from different team and different leagues. Trust me, it does wonders for your season.
3 - Be attentive and willing to let go. More than once during the season, one player will let go of a player he thought was not worth it. IF you feel like it’s a good move, get that player! Always be aware of who is available and who isn’t. Also, don’t become so attached to your players that you aren’t willing to let them go. If one player is dragging down your success cut him loose, plain and simple. You’ll save yourself a lot of trouble doing it.
Hopefully, now with a complete understanding and appreciation for fantasy sports, you can go out and dominate in your league. Just use those tips and your own good judgment and you should be fine. Just remember the biggest rule of all: HAVE FUN!
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