MLB notebook for July 13thWritten by John Onan
Don’t look now, but here comes old reliables’ (The Yankees and The Braves). In New York, after all talk of Torre and coaching staff being on hot seat, and team needing to makes this move or that one (this is an all star lineup already, right?), it is now becoming a two team race again in AL East. It’ll come down to Yankees and Boston Red Sox, like it always does. In Atlanta, Braves limped into break, losing their last two vs. Milwaukee. But, help is on way. Look for Tim Hudson and Mike Hampton to be back in fold by end of month. I’ve gotta favor Braves if they get into a “heads up” with Washington in September. Well, in case you guys didn’t know before, David Wells is STILL a jerk. Anyone who compares a guy holding a TV camera within a ten foot vicinity of a Major League ballplayer to sexual assault of a woman is badly out of bounds. Kenny Rogers was no victim in this case, glad he decided to apologize. Hopefully, he will get anger management help he needs.
| | Fantasy Sports: A Popular HobbyWritten by Jeff Oreilly
A Fantasy Sport is a game where a person builds a team comprised of individual players of a professional sport. These team "owners" compete against others based on individual professional's real statistics. Simple versions of this convert statistics into points earned by each team, then determine outcome. Other more complicated versions create a computer model of game by inputting statistics of each player generated by their professional sport. Examples of fantasy sports are Fantasy Football, Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Hockey, etc.Fantasy Football is played by football fans who assemble a team of real NFL players with their real statistics. These teams join a league of from 8-12 teams, then compete throughout a regular season. Often these leagues even have playoffs at end of season. A typical roster is made up of 2 quarterbacks, 3 running backs, 5 wide receivers, 2 tight ends, 2 placekickers, and 2 defenses. Points are scored similar to real football, with extra points added for running or passing for many yards at a time, and points subtracted for turnovers. Fantasy Baseball has a very similar format to Fantasy Football, with players who manage baseball teams made up of real life baseball players. It is earliest form of Fantasy Sports, with origins in a form called "tabletop baseball". This form of Fantasy Baseball was made up from customized baseball cards with stats from recent seasons. Players then made up fantasy teams from these cards and played imaginary baseball games against each other. Tabletop baseball evolved into a form called Rotisserie Leage Baseball, where stats were taken from current season and events such as injuries were counted into game. Methods of choosing players for a team include an auction, where players pay for which professionals they want, or a round-robin draft until teams are filled.
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