Recreation Becomes a Vocation

Jack Pullman of Van Nuys would be the first to admit that he is living in fantasyland.

And making a living in the process.

Pullman is a devotee of what he calls fantasy football. There are other names for this unique and seemingly ever-growing form of recreation for the true sports nut. Perhaps you know it as a rotisserie league. One group calls its organization the Major Indoor Baseball League.

Whatever the sport, whatever the format, whether the participants are as well-known as New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, television personality Bryant Gumbel or author David Eisenhower (all active club owners), or a bunch of guys at the neighborhood bar, the fantasy leagues have taken hold.

Simply put, a group of guys, or gals, draft real-life players in baseball or football or basketball, then live and die with the real-life statistics of their players. Standings are based on various criteria. In baseball, for example, it might be five points for a home run. If Andre Dawson is on your team and he hits a home run, that is worth five points.

In football, a touchdown pass might be worth 10 points; in basketball, a rebound one point. The standings in most leagues are based on total points, although there are variations from this standard formula. Some leagues hold an auction at their draft with each player starting with the same amount of money with which to bankroll a team. Most leagues require an entry fee that is tossed into a pot and ultimately divided among the top finishers.

The real fanatics conduct leagues in all three sports, sometimes abandoning such obligations in life as wives, families and jobs.

Now, fantasy leagues have been around for more than a decade. They have been discussed over and over in the media. It’s just that Pullman has taken his fantasy one step beyond.

Fantasy football was once just a hobby for him. He became involved with his first league 12 years ago. And that was enough for awhile. He was married and a partner in an employment agency.

“At one point,” Pullman recalls, “my wife told me I was tossing and turning in my sleep while mumbling, ‘I’ve got to get a kicker, get a kicker.’ ”

Instead he got a divorce and sold his share of the business.

“I then decided,” Pullman says, “that was a good time to take a shot. I wanted to see if I could take my hobby and make a business out of it.”

So two years ago he started publishing a football fantasy magazine. And quickly it has expanded into a line of publications. There is a guide on how to set up a fantasy league ($5), a yearbook containing statistics and a player analysis in line with the fantasy concept for all 28 National Football League teams ($14), a preseason update issued a month into the exhibition season ($7) and a weekly update, including two playoff editions ($32). The entire package sells for $44.

In his first year, Pullman had 300 subscribers. Last year, the number had grown to 550. This season, he estimates he may have 1,000 customers.

“It’s become a year-round job,” he says. “People ask me what I do the rest of the year. What rest of the year? I’ve been working on this year’s material since February.”

In addition to all the publications, Pullman has set up the All Pro Telephone Network.

Only true aficionados will comprehend the importance of this, but let’s say San Francisco wide receiver Jerry Rice is on your roster (in which case you’ve probably won the league). And let’s say that Rice has pulled a hamstring and is listed as doubtful for the following Sunday’s game. Precisely what does that mean? Doubtful as in don’t look for him in the lineup. Or doubtful as in he’s in pain, but he’s still in the starting lineup.

It makes a big difference to the fantasy team owner who has to decide whether to put Rice in his lineup.

Most leagues require teams to have full rosters, but owners must designate which of their quarterbacks, running backs, receivers and kickers are to be activated each Sunday. The usual allowance is one QB, two running backs, two receivers and one kicker.

Nothing makes a fantasy league owner’s heart sink faster than turning on the tube Sunday and seeing a player he had activated standing on the sidelines in street clothes.

Never mind real life. How about my life?

“So many people call teams now to find out the condition of a player,” Pullman says, “that a lot of teams will ask you if you’re involved in fantasy football. If you say you are, they won’t tell you anything.

“So what we’ve done is to get scouts in every city, subscribers who know more about what’s going on in that city simply because they live there and are exposed to the local media. Because you live here, you know more about what the Rams and Raiders are doing than people who live elsewhere. Well, it’s the same in every city.

“So we’ve gotten enough people in every NFL city to agree to be on the list to form a network.”

During the season, it really gets crazy.

“I’ve had people call me from weddings, bar mitzvahs, even from the hospital while visiting a sick father,” Pullman says.