Fantasy sports leagues put armchair quarterbacks in the game

Every morning in homes, offices, shops and factories across the country, there are guys more worried about the batting average of Atlanta Braves outfielder Chipper Jones than the Dow Jones average.

They scan the Internet for information about waiver transactions involving obscure placekickers, relief pitchers and point guards. They keep tabs on the weather in Green Bay and Tampa Bay, San Francisco and St. Louis. They pore over game statistics like Hassidic scholars reading the Torah, looking for small nuggets of data that will lead to wisdom.

Is this some kind of cult•

That's an arguable point.

They are fantasy, or rotisserie, sports players. Predominately male, they set up leagues, draft teams and hope the players they select will accumulate statistics in categories that range from home runs and touchdowns to assists and blocked shots. Referred to once by Pirates catcher Jason Kendall as "rotisserie-league geeks," fantasy sports players are part of one of the fastest-growing diversions in the United States.

The Fantasy Sports Trade Association, a nonprofit organization that serves as an advocacy group, estimates that about 15 million people play a fantasy version of football, baseball, hockey, basketball — or even NASCAR — based on statistics accumulated by actual players and teams.

"Seven or eight years ago, when we first contemplated this business, fantasy sports players were about as common to find and about as socially desirable to be as somebody who went to a 'Star Trek' convention," says Geoff Reiss, a senior vice president for ESPN's Internet services. "They were kind of in the same realm of sort of weird, freaky geeks. And I can say that because I was one of them. … But seven or eight years later, this has become an absolutely mainstream way of expressing your interest in sports."

FANTASY EVOLUTION

Mike Binder is not a baseball fan, but he is a fan of fantasy baseball.

In the past few years, he's won two televisions, two home theater systems, a DVD player, a leather jacket, countless T-shirts and other prizes playing fantasy baseball on Internet sites.

Binder's secret• It's just a matter of knowing what to look for, he says.

"I was a pretty good mathematician in college," says Binder, 38, of Greenfield, "and I took some stats classes. But batting and pitching matchups in baseball, if you take the time to look at them, you're going to do well."

That means knowing things only a baseball scout or manager would know — tidbits such as slugger Glenallen Hill's high batting average against former Pirates pitcher Terry Mulholland. It also means time alloted for studying statistics and doing research. During baseball season, Binder estimates he can spend between four and six hours per day tracking down information online and watching games.

For some, however, the wealth of information provided on the Internet and in fantasy-related publications have made fantasy sports something less than they used to be.

"There's way too much information now," says Rod Schwartz, 40, of Morningside, who has been playing fantasy sports since 1984. "It's been dummied down. You used to have to fight to get West Coast box scores and minor league reports. Now, it's hard to find sleepers because sources like Baseball Weekly and Football Weekly have everything in there."

"It's always still fun," Schwartz says, "but it's made the playing field more even."

The Internet is the biggest reason for the growth of fantasy sports. When www.espn.com launched its fantasy games in 1995, Reiss expected hardcore players to embrace the new feature.

What he didn't anticipate was people signing up who had never played fantasy sports before.

"They suddenly found them to be incredibly fun and easy and accessible," Reiss says. "That's really been what's driven the whole phenomenon. The Internet didn't convert a bunch of analog fantasy players. It opened the door to millions of people who never played these games before."

And millions of dollars for sites such as ESPN's.

FANTASY WINDFALL

According FSTA board member and vice president James Serra, fantasy sports-related businesses raked in $25 million last year.

What's the money being spent on• Everything from fees for playing for Internet fantasy games that offer cash and other prizes, to tip sheets and newsletters. Some Web sites host private leagues that pay to have statistics calculated for them.

But $25 million may just be the tip of the fantasy iceberg. Most private leagues charge a fee to enter, ranging from $20 to, occasionally, thousands. Some of the money pays for Web sites that keep statistics for the leagues. Like office pools that appear come Super Bowl time, most of the money is put into a pot and given to the best performers at the end of the season.

According to Serra, most professional leagues initially were wary of being linked with fantasy sports for fear it would be considered gambling.

"We've had lawyers talk to them about all the sites and what they do," says Serra, who lives near Houston and runs two fantasy-related Web sites. "But since fantasy sports is a game of skill, and not considered a game of chance, it's not considered betting on games."

What professional leagues also found is that Kendall's so-called "geeks" brought new interest to the games. Subscription rates for broadcast services such as the NFL's Sunday Ticket, which enables fans to watch every football game on any given Sunday, have skyrocketed because of interest in fantasy games.

And fantasy players are drawn to games they normally would have no interest in.

"If a game comes on with the Arizona Cardinals, and you have two guys on the team, you're definitely going to watch it," Schwartz says.

"(Fantasy sports are) really good when the Steelers are having a bad year," says Dennis "Moose" Reft, 35, of Carrick. "Then you have something to keep you interested in the games."

A few years ago, ESPN changed the format of its broadcasts because a larger segment of its audience was determined to be interested in fantasy sports. Every Sportscenter broadcast now includes detailed graphics featuring statistics from football, baseball, basketball and hockey games.

"I think that, for a long time, people treated the fantasy audience as a kind of segregated, different group of sports fans," Reiss says. "But in reality, a lot of the information that kind of drives the fantasy games is stuff that any non-fantasy player would find interesting."

Although ESPN doesn't disclose numbers for competitive reasons, Reiss admits a lot of the traffic on www.espn.com is fantasy-related.

"We've been getting 3 million people a day visiting our site, 5 (million) to 6 million times a day," he says. "A significant chunk of that traffic is spent both by people playing games on our environment, but also by people coming to the site looking for the opportunity to learn about fantasy games they'd conceivably be playing elsewhere."

FANTASY HISTORY

Fantasy sports were not invented in any of the likely places — a college campus, a computer lab or a sports fanatic's game room — but on an airplane. On a flight from New York to Texas, writer Daniel Okrent scribbled down a few rules and showed them to friends at an Austin, Texas, barbecue joint.

That group wasn't interested, but a short time later in New York, Okrent showed his scheme to another group of friends during a lunch meeting at La Rotisserie Francaise. Thus, the name "rotisserie" baseball; the first league was in conjunction with the 1980 baseball season.

Since then, every sport imaginable has been adapted for fantasy games. ESPN sponsors leagues for all the major sports, and some others — auto racing, soccer and fishing — not statistically driven, still have found audiences.

Fantasy sports also have been adapted to matters not associated with sports. One site, www.fantasycourt.com, asks players to predict the outcome of Supreme Court cases. And Serra says he's seen a fantasy game based on the death penalty, in which participants try to guess which condemned prisoner is going to be executed next.

Most players opt for more traditional fantasy games. According the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, football is the most popular game, with twice as many participants as baseball. Baseball, in turn, has twice as many players as basketball and hockey, the next most popular fantasy games.

The best fantasy game is a matter of choice. Schwartz says he tends to lean toward football because games are played once per week, and there's less work involved. Binder likes the ongoing calculation of statistics inherent in baseball.

There are certain lines, however, some fantasy players won't cross. Despite the competitive nature of fantasy leagues, many players are loyal to the hometown teams.

"I will not start anyone who plays against the Steelers," says Reft, "unless it is a playoff game. But for the first 10 weeks of the season, the Steelers come first.

Others, however, are more cutthroat in their approach.

"If I start (Cleveland quarterback) Tim Couch, I'm rooting for Tim Couch," Binder says "The Steelers can lose as far as I care."

Binder then comes clean. He grew up in Allentown in the eastern part of the state. His favorite team is the Philadelphia Eagles, and his favorite player Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb. Would he root against them?

"You still have to throw your allegiance out the window," he insists. "You definitely lose if you don't. You have to play with your mind, not play with your heart."

FANTASY ISLAND

There are certain days that diehard sports fans cherish: