A PARTIAL MVRL HISTORY

In 1980, Dan Okrent in a Manhattan restaurant came up with the idea of fantasy baseball. He called his invention Rotissserie after the restaurant that gave birth to the idea. In 1985 or so, I purchased a copy of the Official Rules for playing Rotisserie Baseball. I perused it, skimming it mostly and thought it neat but complicated and put it back on the shelf. Sometime around 1989 or so, Scott picked up the book, scoured over it, formed a league of high school chums (notice there's no p there, but I purposely used that word for one member of the original owners group who will not be identified, ok, you got it out of me-- Scott Pfiffer) and began play in 1990.

There were certainly some kinks along the way. One owner traded players for money. Real cash. Another named his team after a prophylactic, several members over the years stunk. There were some Ryan Piphers. Translation--owners who were on fire for the league. Did all the pre-preps, bought all the fantasy mags, talked a good game, and disappeared for the season after three weeks or so. Ryan's a great guy, but he'd tell you, that's what he'd do.
(Pfiffer's cool, too, for a Mets fan.

Baseball stats were kept by different owners taking turns using the Sporting News. And it took a long time. Alex Wellmaker was a long time stat guy although many people would share. Ryan Pietsch came to our rescue once when somebody got behind. It took hours to sort out. Another time, I kept stats but for some reason gave them over to Derek. Someone asked Derek if I had cheated, maybe because I had won the year before. Derek's response, "I hate to say it, but yes." The other owner was surprised. Derek continued, "He cheated himself out of some points that he should have had."

I'm not sure of the years that football, NBA basketball, then college basketball were added, but for awhile we went year round, although it should be noted that we never went NBA and college at the same time.

Plaques were purchased for the purpose of keeping track of previous winners. They proudly hung in my basement and at draft they were scrutinized by more than one owner. In the mid- 1990's, Ryan Pietsch purchased five inch trophies for the winners. (At least I think they were that size; it's been since 1999 that I received one.) The plaques are still in Scott's basement although I don't think they're current.

Man we have had hours of fun, and as Derek notes, stress over the years. New owners come and go, but the MVRL survives because of its uniqueness.

(Other owners and fellow bloggers: please feel free to add any info to this thumbnail sketch, including past winners, a list of all the owners, records, all the team names. I think it would make for a great read.)