Who invented fantasy baseball

As the group turned into a cult figure in the history of fantasy sports, the men seemed to withdraw from the spotlight. Both Okrent and Waggoner were among the first people ever elected into the Fantasy Sports Hall of Fame in Orlando, Florida, and neither of them attended the induction ceremony.

Waggoner says that the way fantasy sports took off without the Rotisserie group doesn't make him bitter. At the same time, fantasy sports is a distant part of Waggoner's past. He hasn't played in a league in about 20 years as other conflicts and opportunities came up. One impressive feat of the Rotisserie League baseball is that it brought many accomplished young professionals together -- and, in several cases, helped them collaborate and further one another's careers.

Thanks to his involvement, and meeting Rotisserie member and then-Esquire editor Lee Eisenberg, Waggoner got out of academia and began writing. What followed was a long career as a journalist, capstoned by his run as the founding editor of ESPN the Magazine.

Okrent served as an editor for a number of magazines, wrote a handful of books, and later served as the public editor for The New York Times. Okrent more recently collaborated on a theater production with Gethers, the novelists who was Waggoner's co-owner. Bruce McCall, an artist often featured on covers of The New Yorker, played one season -- although, Waggoner teases, he wasn't very good at it.

So no, Waggoner doesn't have a bad view of his history with fantasy baseball. The game remains a fun chapter in his life -- but one that, for him, had to be left behind. It transformed my life. Petersburg, July For more work by this photographer, check out RayWhitehouse. To learn more about his project, read this feature on ThePostGame. By: Jonathan Crowl -.

And, in , they were a part of the first fantasy baseball league. News Corp is a global, diversified media and information services company focused on creating and distributing authoritative and engaging content and other products and services. Dow Jones. By Nando Di Fino. To Read the Full Story. Subscribe Sign In. Continue reading your article with a WSJ membership.

Resume Subscription We are delighted that you'd like to resume your subscription. They held the first draft in April Traditional fantasy leagues allowed people to pick entirely new teams each year. The creation of Dynasty Leagues sometimes known as Keeper Leagues took the game to new heights. Now, owners can decide how much of a team to turn over and how much to keep, all with an eye on staying under a salary cap. A game such as Diamond Mind allows players to pick baseball teams from any era.

The realistic play includes ballparks tailored for every team from every year. When players from different eras face one another, statistics are adjusted for the era in which they played. This type of engrossing, in-depth detail has made the game more popular than ever.

The number of fantasy players for all sports has risen from , in to more than 59 million currently. Baseball continues to be one of the most popular of fantasy sports, with millions forming leagues online every year. Play Classic Fantasy Baseball.

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