Local Rotisserie League Hopes For Home Run Derby

Date: Fri 29-Mar-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: KIMH

Illustration: I

Quick Words:

Home-Run-Derby

Full Text:

Local Rotisserie League Hopes For Home Run Derby

If you want to know the truth, as a Rotisserie player, I don't much care who

(the guy) plays for, as long as it's for me. In that respect, real baseball

has become just like Rotisserie baseball. The players keep moving around from

one team to another, but as long as they stay in the league, what do I care?

- Peter Golenbock

How To Win At Rotisserie Baseball 1996

BY KIM J. HARMON

It's a hundred or so miles and a lot of years (16, to be exact) removed from

La Rotisserie Francaise - a now-defunct French restaurant in New York where a

half dozen baseball fans supposedly hatched the first-ever armchair league for

statistical nuts - but Home Run Derby is carrying on the tradition.

Back in 1980, the first Rotisserie League (which later became synonymous with

Fantasy League) was formed by six fans who wanted to draft real players for

their imaginary teams and then watch as each of those imaginary teams - on the

strength of their players' performances - raced for the pennant.

Home Run Derby - conceived, created, and molded by Tom Wyatt, now the sports

editor of The Newtown Bee - does not harbor the pure obsession with statistics

that most Rotisserie Leagues do. The driving force of the HRD is, of course,

the tater, dinger, round-tripper, four-bagger . . . or, in the words of an

ESPN talking head - the quadrangular.

In clearer words, though . . . the home run.

A dozen or more owners (owners being a label slapped to the foreheads of the

attorneys, accountants, journalists, teachers, and business entrepreneurs)

have gathered somewhere in Newtown for the last five years to show everything

they know or don't know about baseball while trying to pick a team that will

jack more home runs that any other.

" The Home Run Derby is a great thing the baseball fan who doesn't have the

time or the patience to keep track of all those statistics the regular

Rotisserie Leagues keep, " said Wyatt. " Home runs are the only statistic kept

and, let's face it, it's the most exciting part of the game. "

Wyatt ran a football pool since his high school days - back in the early '80s

when Rotisserie was first starting - with his friends Rich Colbert, Pat

Farrell, Chris Henn and Rob Rickwell. As Rotisserie became more popular, Wyatt

wanted to get into that, as well, but all the stat keeping was too complicated

and time consuming.

Then, Wyatt got a look at a Home Run Derby pool running in Endicott, New York.

His cousin, Jeremy, was one of the owners who, at a local bar, ponied up $50

to draft up to seven players for their own team.

" I took that pool, " said Wyatt, " modified it so that each team was required

to draft an entire team and fill all the positions in the field, and started

it up. "

Over the course of five years, it has transformed itself into its present form

- Home Run Derby '96.

The draft was held just last week at the home of Dan Winsett, a Newtown High

School physical education instructor. Some people teamed up with friends and

some flew solo, but 13 teams - drawing from a major and minor league pool of

close to 1,000 players - were drafted and set for the opening of the 1996

Major League Baseball season.

The first home run should be hit Sunday night, March 31, when the Seattle

Mariners take on the Chicago White Sox. Among the players swingin' the lumber

for an HRD owner will be Frank Thomas, Ken Griffey Jr., Robin Ventura, Danny

Tartabull, Jay Buhner, and Paul Sorrento.

Someone will take an early lead in HRD '96.

But six full months remain.

The Home Run Derby used to have a simple premise: draft whoever you can get

your hands on. But Wyatt tossed a new wrinkle into the mix for the 1996 draft

- a salary cap of $260. Each player was assessed a value (based on home runs

hit the previous year per 500 at-bats) and each owner was guided by the

premise that he had to draft at least 14 players and had to keep the total

salary at or below $260.

" Before, " said Wyatt, " an owner just went along and drafted the best player

available, but this year there was quite a bit of strategy involved. Owners

had to ask themselves if a player was overpriced or a bargain. A budget put an

interesting spin on the draft. "

Albert Belle of the Cleveland Indians, who hit 50 home runs in 1995, went for

$45 (the highest salary in the draft) . . . but not until the third pick. Ken

Griffey of the Seattle Mariners, who hit just 17 homers in an injury-shortened

year, went No. 1 for $40. Dante Bichette of the Colorado Rockies was No. 3 at

$36, while Mike Piazza of the Los Angeles Dodgers was No. 4 at $36. Matt

Williams rounded out the top 5, getting picked up for a price of $40.

With most of the high-priced talent gone in the early rounds of the 14-round

draft, owners quickly scoured their magazines, newspapers, and major league

baseball manuals looking for the hot prospect, the rookie with a great future,

the player supposedly back from the dead.

The reason? All rookies (remember, Mike Piazza was a rookie once, and so was

Mark McGwire, the guy who set a rookie record for homers), guys back from

Japan, and most second-year players went for a paltry $5.

The action didn't stop at the end of the 14th round, though, and didn't stop

even after everyone left for home. After the 14th round, with prices on

undrafted players slashed to rock-bottom prices, owners with money left under

the gap started gobbling up the low-end deals . . . guys like Kenny Lofton and

Eric Davis, Harold Baines and Bob Hamelin, Sandy Alomar and Charlie Hayes.

Like all Rotisserie Leagues, Home Run Derby allows for the trade and the 14th

round hadn't even finished when owners were haggling over trades. Just two

days after the draft, two deals had already been consummated and two free

agent signings had been made.

The owners were ready.

First pitch - Sunday, 9:05 pm, EST.

And the first homer?

9:06 pm?

La Rotisserie Francaise

The appeal of the Home Run Derby is its simplicity. Most Rotisserie Leagues

get so immersed into statistics that the leagues need stat services to compile

their weekly and monthly statistics - which range from the basic batting

average and earned run average, to the less mundane speed, power, and fielding

ratings and (for pitchers) won-lost ratio.

" The Derby can still have you scrambling to see the box scores every morning,

" said Wyatt, " just like other rotisserie leagues, but instead of spending an

hour figuring out your stats you can check on your whole team's performance

during your morning coffee break. "

But even in its most complex form, Rotisserie League baseball has achieved a

rabid following. In Baseball Weekly, the weekly newspaper devoted to baseball

and published by The USA Today, there are numerous ads promoting big bonanza

pools and dozens of ads offering stat services to Rotisserie Leagues across

the country.

Rotisserie Leagues, though, for all their popularity, have quite a few

detractors who classify its participants as geeks and see the whole mania as

one which is destroying the idea of watching baseball for pure enjoyment.

But John Benson, a statistics guru, said, in Benson's A to Z Baseball Player

Guide 1996, " The so-called Rotisserie phenomenon has revolutionized the way

America watches baseball and, in my opinion, very much for the better.

Baseball is show business and the object of the game off the field is to sell

tickets and video access and to maintain fan interest. Rotisserie has done

more for that purpose than any development since the television. And didn't

traditionalists say that television was going to ruin baseball? "

Millions of people across the country are into some form of Rotisserie League

baseball and many of those wouldn't be watching baseball at all, tuning in to

ESPN's Baseball Tonight or even watching late-night Sportscenter if they

weren't involved in some way.

And not only are fans' interest in their local teams get stronger, but

interest in other games - basically meaningless games - gets more acute

because off Rotisserie League baseball.

Because of Home Run Derby.

Like, a New York Yankee fan may be watching highlights in the next couple of

weeks and when first baseman Mo Vaughn of the hated Boston Red Sox jacks one

out onto the Massachusetts Turnpike, he will be watching with a little smile .

. . albeit, a traitorous smile.

Because Vaughan is his first baseman.

And that moon shot is one step closer to the prize.

The Home Run Derby title.

The First Round

These are the top 13 picks in the Home Run Derby '96 draft and the salaries of

those players. Based on the idea that salary equals number of projected home

runs for the year, are any of these guys overpriced? Are any of these guys a

bargain?

1) Ken Griffey $40

2) Dante Bichette $36

3) Albert Belle $45

4) Mike Piazza $36

5) Matt Williams $40

6) Barry Bonds $39

7) Frank Thomas $41

8) Tim Salmon $31

9) Jay Buhner $42

10) Sammy Sosa $31

11) Rafael Palmeiro $35

12) Mo Vaughn $35

13) Juan Gonzalez $38