March 13, 2002

Some friends pestered me today until I forked over $9.95, created a team and joined their league. It's an incredible game -- you have $80 million to spend on any player from any year. Each player's salary depends on his performance that year, and it's presumably weighted so players from different eras can compete with each other. For my team, I blew through $28 million getting five pitchers during their best seasons: Hoyt Wilhelm, Charlie Hough, Luis Tiant, Dennis Eckersley and Arthur Rhodes. I spent around the same on five great position players on their best seasons: Rod Carew, Johnny Bench, Buck Weaver, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and Jeff Burroughs. Because of this spending spree, I had to make some insane sacrifices to fill out my bench, which will be important when players start showing fatigue. I got 2001 Deion Sanders for $200,000 and Willie Mays in the final year of his career -- the one that's widely considered a black mark on his legacy. I also put Gary Pettis in my starting lineup. After you choose your players, you must pick a home stadium to play in, set up your rotation and your starting lineup versus righthanders and lefthanders. There are other things you can tinker with as the season goes on, such as basepath aggressiveness, whether to bring closers in before the ninth, and the like. Teams play three games each day once the season begins, and each generates a full box score and a recap of each batter. It looks like the most promising new waste of time since rotisserie sports were introduced.

posted by rcade at 10:35 PM on March 13, 2002