Roto Leagues in 30th Year?

[Mithrandir]

Oh, that's right! Very cool.

We have kicked around that we have to be a story of interest to someone. Obviously not all of the original owners are still with us. We have 1 guy who is homeless (not kidding), one guy who has had 7 or 8 DUI's and has spent parts of his life in jail, another guy who still lives at home with his mom and has never had a job. Others have become doctors, engineers, profitable business owners, etc. It's funny how a group of people joined together as kids in 1985 wound up with such diverging lives 30 years later, but the league perceveres. Those of us still in these leagues ofter wonder if it's an interesting story or just interesting to us. To think how many leagues used to crunch the stats weekly by hand. How we all lived for the day the stats would come out on the Wednesday USA Today. Pre-internet. It's crazy to think about it...

Very interesting stuff..

I was the guy doing all the stats by hand for my league...

[TranaGreg]

In 1984, the original commissioner got busy running his semi-pro baseball team, so we only got standings about once a month - then every 6 weeks by midseason.
I was in 1st place as of mid-August, then didn't find out my fate until the end of the season. Fortunately, I remained in 1st place!

My only trade all season was Walt Terrell for Kent Tekulve, as I needed a few extra SV, I thought.

I've had Walt Terrell on my team.

[Judge Jude]

I've had Walt Terrell on my team.

My oldest player on that team was Graig Nettles, my 3B, who broke into the majors with the Twins in 1967 - when there were only 20 MLB teams. Also on that Twins team was Al Worthington, whose first MLB team was the New York Giants (!). Also on those 1953 Giants for a cup of coffee was Max Lanier, who had broken in with the Cardinals in 1938.

damn, I feel old!

[Erik]

To think how many leagues used to crunch the stats weekly by hand.

In the '80s and early '90s, the commish would do the stats by hand and FAX them to everyone. The league used H/IP and K-BB instead of WHIP and K because WHIP was a PITA to do by hand. We only changed it to the "standard" way two years ago. It made sense as only three people remained from the faxing days.

[Erik]

I've had Walt Terrell on my team.

I didn't start playing Roto until 1998, so I never owned Terrell, but I watched him pitch in the Cape Cod League in the late '70s or early '80s. So there's that.

[TranaGreg]

I didn't start playing Roto until 1998, so I never owned Terrell, but I watched him pitch in the Cape Cod League in the late '70s or early '80s. So there's that.

Oh what you missed. Walt Terrell & Erik Hanson. I think they introduced me to Tums.

re: stats, we used to get the Tuesday USA Today which had the weekly stats, & enter them into a custom Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet we had set up to crunch the stats (most of us were computer geeks & worked in IT depts back in the 80's) ... there was one workstation set up at the office so we had to use lunch hours or stay late to get to use it for personal stuff. Then since we all worked downtown we'd get together for lunch the next day & distribute them. It certainly did build a sense of commaradarie that doesn't exist today.

Compared to that, less than 30 years later it really is another renaissance period, the way information is available so broadly & so immediately. Fascinating time to be alive.

[Fielding Melish]

USA Today was a godsend. In 1984, the main source for weekly stats was The Sporting News, but they didn't start publishing them until late April/early May. The Sporting News arrived on Thursday or Friday each week, and the stats were only updated through the previous Thursday. I'd do the stats by hand on Thursday night, type up the standings, and give them to my dad to photocopy at work on Friday. He's bring the copies home Friday night and I'd stuff envelopes and mail them out.

Between the week's delay in getting the stats via The Sporting News, time to process and produce the standings, and mail delivery, by the time some owners got their standings delivered they were reflecting the status from a good 11-12 days prior. USA Today helped tremendously because the stats they published were only a couple days old, so it cut a chunk out of that delay, but with the processing time involved the standings were still far from current.

Quite a far cry from today when there's an uproar if our stat service doesn't have standings available the day after Opening Day - or updated live standings as games are being played for goodness sake!

[Fielding Melish]

damn, I feel old!

Here's another scary idea ... there are guys we drafted into our minor league systems who have since retired and now have sons playing in the major leagues. How many have owned both a father and a son over the course of their tenure as Roto owner? Off the top of my head I know I've owned both Eric Young Sr. and Jr. ... there may be others.

[TranaGreg]

One of the "makes you feel old" moments for me was when Terry Steinbach announced his retirement. I had first discovered him from a Baseball Digest (do those still exist?) that reported on his excellent minor league numbers (I still remember - 132 RBIs at AA in 1986) ... seemed like oh so long ago.

Of course, that's cause it was.

[Piney Boy]

from Wikipedia on Baseball Digest:

Baseball Digest is a baseball magazine resource, published in Evanston, Illinois by Grandstand Publishing, LLC. It is the oldest and longest-running baseball magazine in the United States.
It was created by Herbert F. Simons, a sportswriter for the Chicago Daily Times, in 1942. Simons first published the magazine in August 1942, and served as its editor-in-chief until 1963. In 1981, Joan Whaley was published as its first female contributor.
After publishing on a monthly schedule, it scaled back to eight and then later six times a year (Jan./Feb., Mar./Apr., May/June, Jul./Aug., Sep./Oct., Nov./Dec.)—with National and American League schedules, directories, and pre-season rosters—the magazine provides insights on Major League Baseball history and on current stars, often from one-on-one interviews. In June 2009, a letter to readers in the magazine advised that only six issues per year would be published.
In March 2012, Baseball Digest merged with professional scouting service ProScouting.^[1] This merger brought together Baseball Digest’s expertise in fan-level publishing with ProScouting’s depth of professional scouting experience just in time for Baseball Digest’s 70th Anniversry issue September 4, 2012. The relaunch included major changes to the magazine's format including being published in full-color for the first time, nearly double the editorial content including professional scouting reports by veteran MLB scouts, and a significant increase in newsstand availability.

I love reading these post about the early days. My league is around 14 years old now as we started around 1999 which was Yahoo's 2nd or 3rd year hosting its free service.

[bryanbutler]

we did our stats by hand the first year (1993), from Baseball Weekly. PITA.

in 1994, i found IBIC, which was a short-lived raw stats delivery company. i had the stats emailed to me, and wrote my own software (mostly awk and grep scripts) to do the stats, which were emailed out to the owners each week. i managed rosters by hand with folks emailing me changes, FAAB bids, etc. still kind of a PITA.

in 1995, IBIC went away, and i found TQStats for raw stats delivery. stats were still emailed out weekly, and i still managed rosters by hand via emails.

in 1996, i made my own website for our league. a sort of proto-ESPN/yahoo . i used that to distribute results (and also to manage our auction, rosters, and FAAB) throughout the year.

we switched to ESPN in 2007. we still have owners that want to go back to my website, mostly for the better FAAB (we had a very complex overbid system). but i just don't have the time.

[Flyman]

Lucky needs to get in here because he started an AL Only Ultra league (MARBLe) in the mid-90s (I think 1995, maybe), and I was an original owner and was still in college. I can't even remember how I found out about the league or got into it, LOL. Maybe Lucky would remember. I'm pretty sure the league is still going strong.

[Erik]

Here's another scary idea ... there are guys we drafted into our minor league systems who have since retired and now have sons playing in the major leagues. How many have owned both a father and a son over the course of their tenure as Roto owner? Off the top of my head I know I've owned both Eric Young Sr. and Jr. ... there may be others.

I've owned both Youngs as well. Also Tom Gordon and Dee Gordon.

[YourPalChrisMal]

Very interesting stuff..

I was the guy doing all the stats by hand for my league...

It was such a simplier time, but it makes me laugh. I remember every Wednesday going to the store to get the USA Today. Some weeks I'd crunch the numbers by hand. Other weeks one of the guys would come up to my house, I'd call out a name, he'd read the stats off the paper, and I'd type them into my Atari 800.

I remember jogging to the Wawa on Wednesday mornings for that USA Today every day, and being so disappointed when there were a bunch of west coast late games that wouldn't make the paper.

[YourPalChrisMal]

I'm sure many of you used All-Star Stats during the pre-internet days. Remember making all of your transactions using the 1-800 number with the 4-digit code for each player. I remember how much of a kick we got out of their many gross mispronunciations when you'd key in a number and it would say the player's name as confirmation.