A few clicks of the mouse can make you the manager of a top-notch baseball team. You choose the players, and they have no say in the matter.
Sound like a fantasy? That's because it is.
It doesn't mean you can't make a little money or gain a little pride through fantasy baseball though.
The basics are nothing more than creating your perfect team by choosing any Major League Baseball players. The simplicity stops there.
There are auctions, local teams, auto drafts, trades, disabled lists and other fantasy baseball terms that make something simple into a complex world of its own.
"With things like ESPN, Yahoo and other online sites, you can pick your own environment," said Michael Miller, director of information systems support for Auburn University and fantasy baseball veteran.
Whether you want to involve National and American League players or stick with one or the other, that is up to which fantasy baseball league you join.
Although fantasy baseball has been around since the '80s, the Internet has paved the way for an increase its popularity.
Websites like ESPN.com offer fantasy baseball owners to create their teams for free. This allows for owning more than just one team.
The Internet also helps make choosing players easier.
"A lot of information that is out there for free, but you sort of got to search a little bit to find it," Miller said. "I usually get a baseball season subscription to an online service that's 20 bucks for the year, and all that information I'm looking for is right in one place."
Statistical information is something else fantasy baseball team owners look at closely.
"In this day and age with the Internet, it's so easy to at least have statistics," Miller said.
Statistical features help owners, such as batter verses pitcher, which lets someone see how many times a batter has faced a pitcher and what their statistics are against him.
"You just click on the link and, look, David Ortiz for Boston has batted 20 times against this guy in his career, and he's got one hit," Miller said. "That may help me decide, well maybe I'll leave David Ortiz on the bench."
Miller said the fun of fantasy leagues comes from the unexpected. You can wake up the next morning and find out Ortiz hit two homeruns.
In some leagues, owners do not play just for fun. Some local leagues gamble, just because of their confidence in their teams.
"Basically everybody just puts $50 in, and at the end of the year, the first place team gets $250, the second place team gets $150 and then $100 and then $50, said Bill Cameron, University employee and fantasy team owner. "So, we pretty much pay it back for four spots."
Other fantasy baseball owners take it extremely seriously and lose more than $50 during the season.
"There are people who will literally go to spring training," Miller said. "They'll go to cities in Florida. Number one because they love baseball, but also with the idea of scouting players on their own."
The fantasy baseball phenomenon has also reached Auburn University students.
Cody Carpenter, junior in mechanical engineering, said he used to participate in fantasy baseball because he was a big baseball fan.
"It's hard to find people that keep up with the sport, so it's fun to get with a group that everybody's following every game," Carpenter said.
Fantasy baseball can get time consuming and leave certain owners with less money, but owners say they still thoroughly enjoy it.
"It's allowed me to sort of stay involved with team that you normally wouldn't follow," Cameron said. "One of the things that's always sort of been fun is to try to get players on as many different teams as possible so that every ball game sort of means something."
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