Baseball Courts Fantasy Crowd

Author Tony Horwitz didn't let something like being on the other side of the world stop him from fantasy baseball.

"My wife's from Australia, and we've lived there for long periods of time, so I've drafted my players twice from Sydney, where because of the time difference, I have to call at 3 a.m. and hang on the phone till 8 a.m. or so (noon to 5 p.m. EST)," says Horwitz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.

"Luckily, a fantasy draft is a bit like a poker game: it generates so much adrenaline that you can stay awake, no matter what the hour. That being said, I can't shout as much as I normally would because I don't want to wake up my family. Also, the phone bill is painful."

Fantasy baseball, also called rotisserie baseball, is the ideal hobby for people who not only live and breathe America's pastime, but also believe they can run a baseball team better than the professionals.

"It's their chance to put their money where their mouth is," says ESPN broadcaster Steve Phillips, a former Mets general manager who has played fantasy ball for two years. The game "captures a small element of a general manager's job."

Batter Up

Fantasy baseball isn't easy, and the makeup and play of individual leagues can vary enormously. Many of these variables are established by league commissioners, who also oversee the rules for their specific league.

First, participants pick their squad -- generally around 25 players, roughly the size of a real team -- from among the more than 1,000 major league baseball players. Then they set their lineups, where there are again endless variables to consider, such as how particular batters fare against particular pitchers.

Points are awarded based on the individual performance of each ballplayer in areas such as homeruns, strikeouts, batting average and ERA (earned run average). Some leagues pick their winners based on who has the most points at the end of the season. Others have their players compete head-to-head every week.

Hobbyists need to know what's going on with every team. Properly analyzing players often requires them to consider detailed statistics including OBP (on-base percentage), which is calculated by dividing a batter's total number of hits, bases on balls and times hit by pitch by the total number of at bats, bases on balls, times hit by pitch and sacrifice flies. For pitchers, there's WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched), which measures how effective they are against particular batters.

Some enthusiasts play in the same league for years with their friends. More casual fans often join a league by signing up through an Internet service such as Yahoo!(YHOO), ESPN.com or CBS SportsLine.

Even dedicated baseball fans can get carried away.

"I retired in 1995, after four straight championships, for two reasons: we were facing drafting 'replacement players' during the strike, and we'd succumbed to the tertiary syphilis of rotisserie-ball: We had begun to conduct an annual amateur draft of high school and college players," jokes MSNBC broadcaster Keith Olbermann, a former sportscaster.

To watch Jonathan Berr's video take of this column, click here.