THE OLDEST FANTASY BASEBALL LEAGUE BEGINS ITS NEW SEASON. I have posted most years about when the oldest rotisserie baseball league begins its new season. Here is one of those posts that describes the league. I always enjoy the comments from other leagues that are many years old. Some of them also compiled statistics and standings from box scores in the early days.
One of the charms of the league for me is the old-fashioned technology. Nowadays, computers record each selection of a player instantaneously. The participants can be connected only by the internet. Daily standings for the teams are available.
We still meet with most most of the participants in the same location. There is a display board on which each player drafted is recorded by marker. The biggest change is, I think, that the standings are available in real time. Back in the day the standings in our league were provided only one or two times a year.
I believe the live draft has value above and beyond nostalgia and the social benefit of seeing people in person. Online drafts–through ESPN, CBS, Yahoo, etc.–all come with their own player lists. As a result, all of the players are looking at the same rankings, and even if you have your own that differ from what the application has recommended, it absolutely has an effect on whom you can expect to be drafted and when.
As a result, the live draft winds up with more distinct player valuations from the different owners.