They Are Out of Everybody Else’s League

The other morning, a guy in my office took a look at the paper, then suddenly looked up with the sort of wild gleam in his eye that hasn’t been seen since that kid in the movies found E.T. in his garage.

“All riiight!” the guy yelled. “Three more hits for Tommy Herr!”

Now, some people might react this way when they read that their IBM stock has shot up three points, and some people might react this way when they read that the baseball strike has been settled, and some people might react this way when they discover a magazine that does not have Madonna on the cover.

But three hits for Tommy Herr? That does not usually make anyone’s day, except maybe Mrs. Herr and any little Herrs there might be at home. Even the rest of the St. Louis Cardinals do not get terribly giddy when their second baseman gets three hits, although they obviously prefer it to when he gets no hits.

The guy in my office, though, was happy as a clam, assuming clams are still enjoying themselves these days. He was happy enough to start singing the old Beatles song, “And I Love Herr.” I thought at any minute he might send the infielder a congratulatory telegram.

And the thing is, I knew the feeling.

We suffer from the same addiction: Box-score junkie. We scan the small type on the sports page every morning because our mental health hangs in the balance. In my particular case, if Don Mattingly does not get a hit or if Paul Molitor does not play at all, I have to go out and take a long walk and maybe kick a dog or something.

The way you get hooked on this stuff is to let somebody talk you into joining a league. Some people call it a Fantasy League. Some call it a Rotisserie League, inspired by a bunch of people who used to hold their league meetings at a New York restaurant called La Rotisserie Francaise and later wrote a book about it. The May edition of Games Magazine called it Shadow Baseball. As for my fellow sickos and me, we just call it Private Baseball.

What we do is draft a team of real-life major league baseball players, trade them, waive them, wave them goodby, the whole works, and keep track of their statistics week to week. Some leagues draft by position. Some leagues, like ours, limit you to 15-man rosters and require you to submit eight-man lineups each week, which means that you have to keep tabs on who’s hot and who’s hurt, the way a real manager must do.

Players get points for performance. In Private Baseball, for example, a guy gets three points for a home run, one point for any other sort of hit, seven points for a pitching victory and four for a save. Premier relief pitchers, who can get wins and saves, are worth their weight in gold, which is why, to some of us, Dan Quisenberry has become a god.

The Rotisserie gang from Manhattan claimed in its book that Bob Sklar, a film historian and University of Michigan professor, should be credited or blamed for the whole thing. He inspired the whole thing. It was in 1980 that the Rotisserie League owners--most of them writers and editors--borrowed some of Sklar’s ideas and began their magnificent obsession.

Much of the fun is in naming your team. In the Rotisserie League, Harry Stein’s team is the Stein Brenners, Daniel Okrent’s team the Okrent Fenokees. In the Detroit-based Private Baseball league to which I belong, sports writer Gene Guidi’s team is the Guidi Sarduccis. My co-owner, Judy Rose, and I just call our team Broadway Downey Rose.

In Los Angeles, the guy in my office belongs to a league, and when he picked up Tommy Herr in the spring, he never dreamed the guy would have the kind of season he is having. It’s a bonus, like going to a hockey game and having a really great fight break out.

Injuries to players can do more than just ruin one’s day. In his Games article, writer Michael Betzold said that on the morning after his wedding, he read that Mike Marshall of the Dodgers needed surgery, and it nearly ruined his honeymoon. Such was his depression. The news this week about Molitor’s sprained ankle hit me in the face as hard as Marvin Hagler could.

I also own Mattingly, George Brett, Tony Gwynn, Keith Hernandez, Pete Rose, Nelson Simmons, Tom Seaver, Roger Clemens (who has been disappointing), Gary Lavelle (who has betrayed me) and Jose DeLeon (who I don’t even want to discuss), plus my acquisitions from the midsummer supplementary draft, Jeff Lahti (who I may name my first child after), Ken Dayley and Mariano Duncan. I consider these people, as they say on the soap opera, all my children.

At the draft, one guy’s turn came up and he said: “Jose Canseco.” Few people had heard of this name. Personally, I thought that was a brand of tequila. “He’s in the minors with the A’s,” the guy said. “He’s going to be great.”

We are sick. Please help us.