The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Christmas in April. That would be the consensus opinion of the thirty-or-so men who gathered in a Studio lot in Studio City last Sunday regarding the occasion, the annual Showbiz League Rotisserie Auction. This was my 16th consecutive year in this rabid-fan exercise that, if it hasn't swept the nation, has gotten big enough to convince Major Legue Baseball to share in some of the ancillary profits. Hey, somebody has to pay for all the drug testing.

Rotisserie, or Fantasy baseball, like its analagous football and basketball versions (not hockey, at least not this year), is great for the participants, but stupefyingly weird and tedious for the uninitiated. I decided to pursue a fantasy team in the late '80s when the team I rooted for, the Yankees, were still wading in the sewers of the American League. So why not get a new team to support? This kind of logic offended many purists, my brother for instance, though eventually he caved in and is now in his eighth or ninth year in his fantasy league. (Point of information, "Rotisserie" comes from the Manhattan restaurant "La Rotisserie," where in the early '80s the first fantasy league was created).

So starting at 9 A.M. on Sunday, representatives of the fifteen rotisserie "franchises" gathered around a large rectangular conference table to purchase, via auction, twenty-one players from all the major league rosters, to populate their fantasy teams. The trick is to spend the allotted $260 wisely enough to amass the most strength at all the positions, including pitchers, so that their accumulated statistics at the end of the year will surpass those of the other teams. This requires not only clever budgeting and bluffing skills, but acquiring considerable knowledge about all the players in the majors. The month preceding the event involves increasingly intense cramming and research regarding injuries, line-up changes, and rumors gleaned from the Rotisserie columns on the Internet, now a fairly major cottage industry. If nothing else, this renders us all very knowledgeable baseball fans. And if none of this sounds legitimate to my few readers still rolling their eyes, let me add that our league's draft was once featured on the NBC Nightly News. Yes, I did a cameo for Tom Brokaw.

It's hard to convey the gleeful anticipation that precedes the event, as well as the fun of the competitive camaraderie. My rotisserie partner, who will be amused that I will be referring to him pseudonymously as Kevin, shares an excellent working relationship with me, and after all these years our teamwork is not only smooth but the envy of other teams. Our team--The Bronx Cheers--has been successful enough for me to name this blog after it. We've won the league twice, more than any other active team, each time collecting a grand each. Our good finishes often result from clever trading and lack of injuries, but the auction is a competition in itself, and we like to leave the lot feeling optimistic, along with the exhaustion.

This year's auction was a very congenial affair, boosted by a comic element introduced by one of the teams' owners, who changed its name to "Jesus." So when the auctioneer was collecting bids he would often announce that a player "goes to Jesus," etc. That team's owner was also very vocal in editorializing about other team's choices, so we all got to say "Jesus loves me," or "what would Jesus do?" at one time or another. Kind of perfect for the Church of Baseball.

Using a disciplined approach and not overspending for too many marquee players, I believe Kevin and I have formulated a pretty good squad, emphasizing speed and batting efficiency. We bought a few celebrated stars like Derek Jeter and David Ortiz, but I have two Red Sox and one Yankee, which shows how objective I have to be. Now my sympathies will be split as I root for the Red Sox sluggers to produce (hopefully their pitchers will suck). But for the first few hours after I returned home, totally drained from the intensity of the auction, the last thing I wanted to hear was any baseball news. I have six months to absorb those statistics.

As the baseball season's first week concluded, we found ourselves in fifth place, a spot cushy enough to allay any early concerns about questionable position players and pitchers. Of course that won't (and hasn't) stopped Kevin from already contacting me about possible replacements. And so it will go. We are the Boys of Summer.