What’s In A Roto-Name?
From 1989 through 2000, I was really into the fantasy baseball thing. I ran a league and played in others. Most seasons, I played in two leagues. Actually, in 1997, I played in three pretty intense leagues. That was a bit of a mistake. But, I gave the “game” up after 2000 – and sans a friend talking me into joining his ESPN league back in 2007, where I lost interest and bagged the season three-quarters through – I’ve never really had the “bug” big enough to do it again.
Nonetheless, all the recent buzz about the Fantasyland movie has brought cause for me to reflect on my roto-days.
Fantasy baseball is a huge deal. As the movie tells us: It’s an $800 million dollar a year industry in which 34.5 million people have played. And, it costs U.S. companies an estimated $435 million per week in lost productivity. Daniel Okrent and his buddies really started something with this thing – and it’s too bad they were never able to cash in on it.
Back to the movie, I especially liked the part about how Jed Latkin called his team the Jedi Knights. I’ve always been interested in the stories behind rotisserie team names – at least in the cool ones.
Last night, an online buddy brought up the topic and it got me thinking back to the teams that I “owned” back in the day…here they are:
Whoopie Wizards
Wolf Hoppers
Wily Lambs
Zebu Gurus
Xanadu Dragons
Mmm…rotisserie
Keep in mind that, when I played, it was before league stats were online in real time. These were the days where you got a hardcopy weekly report with your results, the standings, etc. And, since rotisserie reports always listed team rosters alphabetically, I always tried to come up with names towards the back end letter-wise, so I could find my team page quicker.
The Whoopie Wizards was in honor of the Unknown Comic, who Chuck Barris used to call the Wizard of Whoopie.
The Wolf Hoppers was in honor of DeWolf Hopper – the guy that made Casey famous.
The Zebu Gurus was in honor of Phil Rizzuto (a Zebu Guru is a Holy Cow!) – - I even won a name contest in USA Today Baseball Weekly, when it existed in that format, with that one.
Mmm..rotisserie bucked the alpha thing, but, “Homer” is still da man.
Wily Lambs, well, this is a reach – - – the rotisseire league that I ran from 1989-2000 was called the “Bogus American Baseball Association” or “BABA” for short. When we had meetings, as a joke, we would start of with a round of “Baaaa, Baaaaa.” So, when I joined another league, I wanted to honor the “sheep.”
Lastly, Xanadu Dragons, well, I always liked the concept of the “Dragon” – - and, I figured every team needs to come from a hometown, and the “letter” thing factored in, well, Xanadu just seemed like a natch.
How about you? Do you play fantasy baseball? What’s the name of your team – and the story behind that name?
I’m heavily addicted to fantasy sports, especially baseball. I only create 2-3 teams a year to make sure I don;t spread myself out too thin, but I take part in an ESPN mock baseball draft daily. Rotos, auctions, head to heads…I love them all. I think i’m at the point where i’d like to join a keeper league, if anybody is interested.
As for team names, they change every year for me. They’re most likely a pop culture or TV show reference. For Scrubs fans, one of my team’s names this year is Dr. Splotchy and for Community fans, another team name is Senor Chang.
I’ve been in a keeper league for almost 10 years now, and for the past four my team’s name has been “Tenacious B.”
I no longer play any other fantasy sports other than baseball…mainly because baseball has become my obsession over the past 5+ years.
I usually own as many as 10 teams a year so the majority of them are named from movie or TV show references (Friday, The Big Lebowski, Family Guy, and other faves tend to be the favorites).
Then, of course, there’s my one and only consistent team name. I use this name every year in my main fantasy league: Fenway Arsonist.
How about league names? I’m trying to remember all of mine now, without much luck.
There was the Bogus American Baseball Association. (BABA)
And, there was the Manhattan Brewery League. (MBL)
And, there was the United States Rotisserie League. (USRL)
And, there was the Arthur Young Rotisserie League. (AYRL)
The rest, I cannot remember…
Ok fantasy goers. If you had first overall pick in your league this year, who do you take?
YankCrank wrote:
Albert Pujols, no doubt.
@ MJ Recanati: Clemens, A-Rod, Pujols…you really love the juicers, don’t ya. J/K!
Steve Lombardi wrote:
I suppose I do. Personally, PED’s and PED use in baseball doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I think back to what Mike Schmidt said and I agree wholeheartedly: if I had been a ballplayer during this most recent era, I, too, would’ve used PED’s.
@ MJ Recanati:
I’ll respectfully disagree on Pujols.
Pujols offers a ton of value and would not be a bad choice, but i’ll go with Hanley. He offers top production in every category across the board (Pujols falls short on steals), at a position that isn’t deep in fantasy value (SS), and the dropoff at 1b production from Pujols to the Howards/Adrian Gonzalez’ that I can pick up in round 2 isn’t steep at all. The dropoff from Hanley to the next tier of shortstops is a little wider.
But I think we can agree there’s no wrong answer and it all depends on the owner, you can’t go wrong with either.