The History of Fantasy Sports w/ Larry Schechter

Larry Schechter has a new book detailing the history of fantasy sports and it’s attendant industry. He and Jeff Erickson will discuss the book, how he’s in second place in AL Tout Wars despite slow starts from Corey Seager and Cedric Mullins, and check in on his other leagues

00:00 – The History of Fantasy Sports
03:00 – 18 Months of Research
04:20 – First Tabletop Games in 1800’s
05:20 – Difference between fantasy & Strat-O-Matic / APBA
08:00 – Paring Down to Make the Book
09:30 – FSTA / FSGA
13:00 – Founders of Rotisserie
19:00 – Early Reviews
22:30 – Early different formats
25:00 – Variations of the game
30:00 – Larry’s personal background – CDM
31:45 – Transitioning to LABR/Tout
34:30 – Mixed Leagues
35:40 – Football dwarfs baseball
37:30 – Role of the leagues / players’ associations
39:00 – AL ToutWars this year
42:30 – NFBC Main Events
43:20 – Corbin Carroll

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you want to learn more about the history of our fantasy sports industry who better learn from one of the all-time Champions person who’s written a book about how to win at Fantasy Baseball as well now he has written a book about the history of fantasy sports he’s Larry sheer and he joins me next on the Roa wire Fantasy Baseball podcast [Music] hey everybody Welcome to the rootwire fantasy baseball podcast brought to you by our good friends from so rare and from prize picks Jeff Ericson here and I’m here with our good friend Larry sheer who has a new book out called the history of fantasy sports Larry welcome how are you I’m good how are you Jeff doing well doing well uh wish my to war team was a little bit better but other than that I’m doing pretty well uh but I’m fascinated to read your book because I spend a good amount of time with you and I know Peter shanki spent a lot of time with you discussing a lot about our our knowledge of the history of the industry and the and the hobby not just the the industry but the hobby itself too and I like that you did this is like the most comprehensive history of our of our game yeah this this is the first it’s not I I I wouldn’t say it’s the most comprehensive I would say it’s the first comprehensive history that that was my my goal was to write the entire history how did we go from some ideas people had years ago for games to where we are now where we’ve got millions and millions of people playing dozens and dozens of different games all over the world and we got you know websites and podcasts and analysts and Sirius XM radio and everything that we have now it’s like how how did this happen and I’ve been playing since about 1990 and since I’ve been in C Wars in labor I know a lot of the people like you that have been involved in some of this this growth but even then I mean I had really no idea and right when I you know so it’s the this book is the first ever telling of what happened and it covers from the very beginning you know things like tabletop games that were played in the 1800s through like apaa and stratomatic uh then the creation of fantasy football the creation of fantasy baseball I’ve got like 22 chapters about this different stuff uh there’s there’s a a chapter about you know stat Services news Services high stakes Games first Publications radio TV fantasy sports worldwide you know everything is covered and when I started when I started it I had no idea what I was getting into I mean I thought this was something I could talk to 30 people and knock it out in a few months or something and I was had no idea it was it was just a crazy amount of work spent 18 months of research I did um about a hundred interviews people like you mentioned you Peter shanki you know Greg ambrosus Rick wolf Dan oant um Mike Levy the guy who started sports line I mean I talked to lots and lots of people at length a lot of Zoom interviews massive amount of research online and um I’m incredibly proud of what I’ve got because as I was doing it I would find out things and I would go like oh my God this is amazing you know and I would learn something and that would send me down four more radicales that I had to investigate and early on I realized I could write this kind of like writing the facts and figures of what happened when and who did what and that would tell the whole story but it would also be like a very boring research paper so what I realized is what would be good is to write to include that but write the stories of the people that were involved of course that sounds like a a perfect path to take so I I want to go back you said it started in the late 1800s this is well well not fantasy sports but kind of like like the first tabletop games where you’d have like a a board with like a spinner and You’ like like flip flick a penny with your finger into this this hole or whatever and and like this this bat on a spring would hit it and it would the the it was it was like a like a ball would fall into a hole like you know single double triple out that sort of thing and then you know from there you had like tatako Ellis Allstar baseball was a board game that was really popular oh yeah and and then you and then you got into like stratum APPA first and then stratomatic came about and when I started the book you know I knew that some people consider like aen stratomatic precursors or fantasy for me I didn’t really think you know consider them precursors so much because those are they’re based on you know their board games they’re based on past season statistics they’re really quite different than the Fantasy games that we play but you know when I started to research it you know I thought well yeah there’s a difference but they really were precursors in a in a in a big way and it’s really amazing like there people that have been playing automatic and APPA in leagues for years and years and I thought you know maybe I just have a couple of paragraphs of mentioning them it turned out to be like most of a chapter and one of the most amazing stories that I Came Upon was about an app that has been in uh they’ve been together for like you know 45 years or something like that and there’s a guy that after being in the league for 34 years had ALS and when he got ALS he thought he’d have to quit the lead his wife told him look if you want to keep playing I’ll do whatever I need to do so you can play so she started playing with him she would she would roll the dice and and he’d kind of you know whisper what to do and a couple years later he was at the point where he really only way he could communicate some kind of computer hookup where he would move his eye his eyes or something like that and in this condition uh his 39th year in the league he came from two runs behind in the bottom of Extra Innings to win this first ever after 39 years championship in this that’s amazing it is amazing like I I read that oh my God and you I would and in my book I I tell a story I also have a showed the link to their website where you can actually see an article that was written in the local newspaper about and I just kept coming up upon you know one story after another was like this is just there’s stuff that’s interesting inspirational humorous um you know and a few things like this a guy with the ALS you know bring a teer to your eye and the book so the book is called the history of fantasy sports the subtitle is and the stories of the people that made it happen because that’s really the key right you know makes it something that you know it makes it so good and I mean I think it’s a great book anybody listening to this podcast is obviously very interested in fantasy sports and anybody who likes fantasy sports is going to love the book and I’m not trying to sound arrogant like I wrote something great because I didn’t make this all up it’s just the information that I was able to get from researching and interviewing people is what’s what’s great and I compiled it all how difficult all was it to pair down all the wonderful stories that you came across uh it was hard you know I mean think about you know try to think of what you had for lunch yesterday you know that can be hard enough but then you know I’m I’m asking people about stuff that happened 20 30 40 years ago um and I’m also trying to get information it was it was difficult and you know there was conflicting information you know sometimes I felt like I was um like an an investigator I felt like you know some sometimes I would watch my zoom videos back with people and I would feel like I look like a an attorney conducting a deposition I’m like well Jeff you just said this yesterday but in an article 20 years ago you wrote the opposite what’s you know were you lying now or you lying then you know it’s kind of like it was hard in some cases finding out the truth and there’s there’s some things I heard where I thought like oh my god wow this is really amazing I got to put this in the book and then I would find out it actually wasn’t true yeah and the thing is sometimes it’s a question of are our memories faulty or in other times it’s like this was your interpretation of what happened versus what other people interpreted versus what actually happened there there could be many versions of someone’s truth it’s a lot of that and then there’s also a little bit I think of you know in certain situations people were trying to embellish a story to make it sound better but like one one thing the this is kind of like a very minor detail but the when you know there’s a chapter about the fsta fantasy sports trade Association which is now the fantasy sports and gaming Association right so that chapter tells the whole story of how that came about and the very first FST board meeting uh was in Tampa and just trying to find out who was who was actually the first board members that was very difficult some people said there were 10 board members on the regional board some said there were 12 um most of the people there it was very easy to to figure out who were there but the last couple of people um it was difficult to figure out okay who was on the first board right and you know that’s that’s something that’s not like a really big deal and and not like of great interest you know people aren’t going to read the book and go like oh my God I’m fascinated to know who you these 12 people were on the board um but it’s a detail I wanted to get get correct because it’s also a history book trying to document everything right and for for example Christina schellart who used to work with the sporting news she was one of those original board members and John zesi who used to be with ultimate fantasy sports was also an Regional Board member and you know when I inter I interviewed John zeleski about his business and also about the fsta and I I at that time I was still trying to pin down the last couple of board members and I mentioned Christina shellhart and he said like oh no know there were no women there you know but actually she was there you know so it’s just a kind of thing where you know 25 years ago you don’t you don’t remember stuff like that but um zeleski did tell me one one story I like at that the very first board meeting um there were 12 people there uh and they got they they got together like a long you know lawyer lawyer likee conference table and zeleski is sitting at one end and a guy from EA EA Sports is sitting at the other end and before the meeting started they look at each other and they start laughing out loud and the without saying a word they just look at each other start laughing out loud and you know couple of the other people there were like but what’s so funny and simultaneously zeleski and the other guys simultaneously say we’re at a board meeting for fantasy sports that’s so funny like who Whoever thought we’d be at a board meeting for fantasy sports and you know that thought comes to mind at various points in my career it’s like I can’t believe I’m doing this for a living uh and that you know I’ve been doing it for 25 years it’s the crazy thing I know John or I knew John I haven’t I haven’t been in touch with John zesi in probably 10 years but I remember at one point he came up with an idea for a DFS contest you know he he could have been he was in on the ground floor I along with others you know they’re trying to launch DFS companies and his didn’t quite take off like others but you know it was one of those things like if if only he had gotten the critical mass instead of like DraftKings or FanDuel it’s kind of funny like he you know you know you could see how the industry might have evolved a little bit differently there yeah there there are a few other you know stories like that too people who you know kind of just missed it yep um or you know if they if you know if they had known how big fantasy was going to get they would have been Ved more at the beginning sure well I mean just look at the founders of rotisserie baseball um it’s been well documented that you know they didn’t profit a whole lot out of and basically at all about founding rotisserie Sports uh that this thing took off and you know people while some people remember like Oak especially um in fact we saw Uncle Ted in the chat remember Dan um but you know it’s they they didn’t really ride this wave like a lot of other people did well they no they they didn’t they made very little money um uh Dan oing estimates they they each each made maybe 10 or 15,000 but you know the problem the problem was um they tried to copy WR it but it’s you know there’s nothing you can really you can really trademark um it’s easy to copy all you got to do is change the name so they they trademark the name with history baseball but people quickly figured out all you got to do Chang the name and you don’t have to use their trademark and you don’t have to pay them anything and so that that’s why it became Fantasy Baseball because people just changed the name so they wouldn’t have to you know pay those guys anything for the name yeah that’s right um and there is a whole uh you know then one point John Benson bought the original rules and then you know tried to enforce his copyright on that and all that Ron Chandler documents that pretty well in his book too yeah yeah and uh know one thing I’ll say about oint is there you know um there’s a perception um among some people or a lot of people that Dan oakin magically came up with this idea for his game on a plane ride from Connecticut to Texas and that’s not at all true okay tell me more well you know it it goes back to uh his his college days there was a a professor uh when he went to I think it was Michigan um and his Professor played like a very primitive game um of fantasy there like very very easy primitive and that’s where he first kind of got the idea and and then or heard about it um and he wasn’t interest he was not really interested in playing that game at the time but it kind of it developed over years and he played Strat IC there’s you know there’s a lot of connection with people who play stratomatic right and he he kind of developed the idea over several years um and so when he got on that planing ride to Texas he actually had already developed the whole the whole concept okay so yeah I I love how like the you know there’s the whole like the legend and how it conflicts a little bit with reality and that’s probably true in a lot of different stories yeah yeah and I actually somewhere somewhere during the process you know when I was researching all this and after I had kind of learned the whole story about about Oaken what actually happened um I picked up a copy of my first book winning Fantasy Baseball which was written 10 years ago um I don’t remember why but for some reason I picked it up and I I read a little bit of it and in at the beginning I like I basically acknowledged oint for creating this game on a like on a plane ride or something it’s like I really like oh 10 years ago when I wrote this first book I I thought that that that Legend was true right and you assumed that was fact and then you dig in a little bit more and then you find out more details and flush it out it’s kind of funny how that always seems to work that way um there are a lot of different ways to play Fantasy Baseball one of them is so rare and they’re one of our sponsors right now have you ever dreamed of stepping into the shoes of a general manager welcome to srare MLB a groundbreaking fantasy baseball game where you call the shots take charge and make your managerial Mark by collecting officially licensed digital player cards of your favorite MLB Stars these aren’t just any cards they’re your ticket to compete for over 1 million in total cash rewards and other amazing prizes imagine winning VIP trips to the MLB uh 2024 All-Star game or getting your hands on signed merchandise from top and midle be players here’s how it works use your cars to set your 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get 50% off your first pro cards up to $50 it’s your passion rewarded uh big thanks to our friends at sare for joining us on the r wire baseball podcast uh I’ll post that link in the in the chat as well if people are interested in checking that all out um I am here though however with Larry sheer uh and Larry’s book uh the history of fantasy sports is now out Larry how what’s the best way to get a hold of your book uh it’s on Amazon and Barnes & Noble uh paperback and ebook it’ll be available elsewhere later but for now you can get at Amazon Barnes & Noble if you just go on there and search history of fantasy sports you’ll find it all right very good you’ll also see more of a description table contents you get editorial reviews and the the first customer reviews awesome uh and H how is how has it been the response so far uh response so far has been great I mean there’s only um you know there’s like I think four reviews so far I mean it just launched a week ago there’s four reviews so far on Amazon and they’re all great and the editorial reviews that I got are great you know like one of them is from Paul Charan oh yeah and he know Charan he was the president of the fsta from 2009 to 2020 and he SP in the industry his entire life and you know he he he said like you know a lot of the stuff that he read he had never heard before and it was like very enlightening you know this is a guy who’s been the industry his whole life and um yeah I could read you some some reviews but I guess just really good very good I’m glad to hear um baseball isn’t the only fantasy sport fantasy football actually is a a a sport that actually in some forms has been going I think since the 50s and 60s right yeah well football fantasy football started in about it was 62 or 63 and you know like oaken’s Fantasy Baseball was I believe it was 79 if I remember correct L I wish I had like a better memory because you know I actually I’ve made myself the world’s leading expert on the history of fantasy sports yeah like no nobody but me knows all this stuff now people that read the book are going to be a close second um but yeah football started first and then baseball um and there’s there’s now I mean there’s everything you know you know there’s like 30 40 50 fantasy sports you even got like fantasy wakeboarding fantasy um idod you know you got like everything um now there were a lot of people playing kind of primitive versions of fantasy baseball before Dan oin started his game um what what what set oin apart is two things I oin the game oin came up with which is really still what like the the modern we still play basically the auction format that came up with um his game was much more complex and involved than what other people were doing that’s the one thing that set it apart the second thing that really set it apart is oant and the oant was a a writer and the people that he got into the first League were all in like the publishing industry somehow so they spread the word you know they started getting articles published in the new yorktimes times and elsewhere and so and their game spread the word and everybody started to learn about it whereas you had a whole bunch of other people playing you know kind of primitive versions but it was just like a group of guys on their own and you know nobody was hearing about it so the game their game wasn’t spreading okay yeah you know there there’s some some interesting formats that people were playing um Lenny Melnick we you know a lot of people knowen milick famous you know radio and TV guy Legend in fantasy when he was I think it like seven years old he played a game against he had he had like another seven-year-old friend that friend’s dad and Lenny played a game for a penny of point where they chose a few players and had a few few categories like you know the most home runs or whatever like a penny a point um nice Brian Brian Matthews uh most people don’t know who Brian and Carol Matthews are but they were very instrumental in history of fantasy sports they started CDM along with Charlie weager and um but Brian you know years ago before he ever started CDM his his first Rook history league um they used actual money for bidding a lot of people a lot of people would use you know the $260 auction budget and they a lot of people use real money to put in for a price pool but Matthews League they had no limit for the bidding you could spend as much real money as you wanted to and one year a guy bought Ricky Henderson for $2,000 oh my goodness yeah so this league they paid they had the prize money was split for the top four finishers and so some years the the people who finish like second third or fourth might win more than the guy who finished first based on how much money they spent at the auction okay now and now here’s one you’re going to like on the other hand there were some people that wanted to use real money but they didn’t have very much money they couldn’t even afford the $260 so their auction they use $15 money yeah that’s your league that’s why I that’s your leag right yeah so you so at the end of the auction the Jeff Ericson league would have instead of like dollar days they would have penny days the last guys would go for a penny yeah that was the pet that’s the way Peter shanki uh uh when we he started the league in College uh and I maybe joined two or three years in and they and we we still to this day it’s called amaki is the name of the league and it’s Al only it’s 4×4 except we grandfather the Brewers in so it’s 4×4 Al only with the Brewers we have a $15 budget and we bid on dime increments but you can spend like all of your budget on like you know 13 players if you want or you could spend your reserves use you know people could do you know you didn’t have to like have exactly 23 players with those $15 so it’s it’s interesting we still do that format to this day yeah still $15 yep yep so we have so I have to run that every year I kind of have to run that translation in my mind like okay what’s a dollar player worth okay yeah okay this is worth it still and all that and yeah much hilarity ensues but uh We’ve resisted the that some pushes to change it I think some people want to go to the 260 format other people like no no this is what we’ve always done so uh it’s it’s pretty funny yeah there was there was one League where some some people you know they use certain categories and they they drafted they they would each draft an entire team like they would they would each have like eight like something like three guys and they we used to have like eight major league baseball teams and they’ get their stats for different categories and the thing with those guys is they took teams it never occurred to them to take individual players yeah yeah and you Emil Emil kadlick who’s another like Fantasy legend he’s he uh started a huge magazine business and he’s he was one of the co-founders of the the world championship of fantasy football EML has been in a league for years and years and years with some friends and it’s basically just like touchdowns you know like you get you get points for touchdowns and like every couple of years EML would to suggest to them like you know maybe let’s add some yardage or something else and these guys would be like points Point per reception what the hell is that we don’t need to change anything we got the best league ever yeah I know it’s it’s funny how that that it works that way um I had uh when the news came out about Emil battling his health issues I had Bob Harris on because he started to GoFundMe to help that right yep and Emil is really big into the history fan F football and so he his website’s dedicated to a lot of like interviewing people that have in the you know Founders in the fantasy football Community it’s so it’s so some really good stuff there you should search it out people should search it out check it out some really good stuff there yeah know I I you know that’s that’s in my bibliography my bibliography has got like 400 entries or so I bet yeah and you know so yeah I I did read stuff that’s on nal’s site and what I what I would do is like the top like you know how how did Fantasy Football get created and other topics I mean I just read like one article after another after another to the point where I would just be reading you know 97% of the information I’d be reading for like the 20th time but every so often somebody would say something new that I hadn’t heard before and then there’s another Rabbit Hole yep yeah well wasn’t even in that case it wasn’t even another rap hole just like a little added information so you know I think my my chap you know my one chapter on the origins of fantasy football has got like everything written or said about it combined into one comprehensive this is what happened very cool very cool we’re going to talk more about Larry’s personal history in fantasy sports and fantasy baseball but first quick note from our friends at 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number one daily fantasy sports app download the app today and use code Roto pod for a first deposit match up to $100 that’s promo code r o p o for a first deposit match up to $100 pick more pick less it’s that easy at priz piic um big thanks to prize picks for their sponsorship also we’re on the bluewire network here are their ads real quick all right thank you for your Indulgence there on everything uh I’m here with Larry Sher he has a new book the history of fantasy sports you can check it out on Amazon wherever you book buy books online um he also wrote winning Fantasy Baseball about 10 years ago too and that’s uh kind of a a gateway to this next part of the conversation Larry because I first got introduced to you uh hearing about you doing so well in the CDD CDM Diamond challenge winning multiple years in fact I think consecutive years right um it wasn’t consecutive it was 2002 and 2005 okay gotcha is that your first exposure to Fantasy Baseball any or any form of fantasy baseball no my my first exposure was about 1990 roughly um I lived in b at the time and I was just driving somewhere one day and I heard uh an ad on the radio for something called World of Sports okay that sounded very interesting and that was a guy running a fantas you know Fantasy Baseball league and I joined it and it was the the draft was done on a conference call back then okay um yeah and uh I played that for I think it was a year or two and then they went out of business and I discovered this in in the U either in the USA Today or the sporting news I forget which um I I discovered the CDM Diamond challenge so C CDM was the second you know my my second game that I played and I played that for years and then um when I won when I won the 2005 overall Diamond challenge that’s when they had set up a deal where the winner of the diamond challenge got to be in labor okay so that’s how I got into labor in 2006 because of that right and you did very well pretty quickly in labor and inout as well um Al tout Wars I’ve played with you for I guess now I guess what 20 years almost now pretty CL something like that yeah I remember when I got when I I actually I WR I wrote this in my in Wayne FY baseball I wrote this that um when I was invited into tout Wars I I was invited something like a something like a week or 10 days before the auction they invited me to join H Wars in in the mixed auction Le and I had never played a mixed auction and I only had like a week before the auction so I really didn’t know what I was going to do but you know if you get invited to T Wars you’re not going to say no so I said sure I’ll join and um I had a week to figure out how a mixed option works and and I yeah yeah and that’s kind of like that that reminds me like some of the stories in in in my my new book you know I just mention quickly you know there were people that did the same kind of thing like for example C speaking of CDM CDM had a baseball game and they were planning on and they were about to launch a basketball game and they were trying to get us a big sponsorship and they had a meeting with the sporting news and they pitched the sporting news to sponsor the baseball game and the basketball game and the sporting news the bill cpaz news he decided I I I would like to do this but if I’m going to do it I want to do it for all four sports that we have annual magazine so not only baseball basketball but football and hockey and CDM the guys at CDM having you know no plans to do hockey or football and having not started it they’re like oh sure we can do that we’ll do that you know you know and then they had to figure out how to do that you know it’s like there’s like several stories like that where people got this opportunity and even they had no plans to do it like oh sure we’ll do that yeah of course like oh sure we’ll cover hockey oh sure you know you know that’s funny you know yeah we’ll cut we’ll we’ll have a DFS product we didn’t you know in without having you know and you you really kind of you know our background was in traditional fantasy sports oh sure we’ll add this we’ll add that you know right right it’s funny like like for that matter oh sure I’ll do a radio show I have no Communications background I’ll but we’ve got a contract to do it so here we go we’ll do that um there’s so many things that it’s funny how this industry how this sport this hobby has evolved I mean the fact that we’re doing this right now doing a live stream uh this is now common place but you know it’s this is nothing I envisioned when we started RotoWire way back in the day no well I mean back then I mean you you wouldn’t even Envision doing a live stream for anything let alone right you know fantasy sports exactly exactly right um yeah you mentioned that your first uh tout experience was the mixed auction league and it’s funny because when you know for the longest time rotisseri was always about Al only NL only mixed you know mixed leagues were this this weird animal that everybody looked down on and now they’re by far the most common place sure I mean you get you know for one thing you get better players you know you don’t have to worry about you know who’s the backup second baseman on the Phillies or you know who’s some you know some catcher you know who can be my second catcher that’s crappy but not too crappy um you know so that I think that’s one thing that’s appealing about the mix leagues is you get better players and also you can you can take somebody you got more teams to choose from um yeah when uh we started out Fantasy Baseball dwarfed fantasy football you know you know yeah especially from an industry standpoint there were a lot of fantasy baseball companies very few fantasy football companies that been turned on its head and then some um that you know it’s football is an order is orders of magnitude bigger than baseball uncle Ted asked the question how do we grow Fantasy Baseball like fantasy football has I think it’s a good question I I don’t know the answer to it I don’t know if it’s possible point now the the answer is it’s not gonna happen yeah I mean foot football’s always gonna be I me football took over baseball a long time ago and it’s just it’s always going to be that way um football it’s just it’s just more popular and it’s it’s um a little bit easier to play football you know baseball’s a long grind every day for six months if you you know if you’re playing season long um but um you know I mean baseball’s still very popular lots of people play it um but yeah it’s it’s it’s never gonna it’s never going to start growing like that again I think there’s a lot of factors there too I mean every single football game is televised um you know it’s one a week you have the yeah I think structurally it’s a lot easier for those who are trying it out um it’s not as imposing whereas Fantasy Baseball oh my gosh 162 games oh my gosh there’s you know how many players are we drafting you know if yeah um I I think all these things kind of contribute to that I also think the game itself I love baseball you love baseball I’m never goingon to stop loving baseball but I you know football is more accessible just as a sport let alone a fantasy sport yeah it’s just yeah I mean there’s just yeah it’s just that’s just the way it is yeah and I think Uncle Ted’s follow-up comment is correct too he says I feel the NFL does a much better job of promoting fantasy than MLB does by far I’d agree with that um and there’s a lot of history on that too about the role that the leagues have played and either growing and or suppressing fantasy sports yeah one of the one of the you know dozens of people I interviewed is Clay Walker who used to be the the head of the NFL players Association and he was he was like ahead of his time realizing that fantasy was actually good for the NFL good for the other professional leagues when when the the leagues and the players associations were mostly totally against Tennesse they thought it was ruining the game they thought it was gambling you know all this other stuff they U you know Clay was a out of his time realizing you know that more people the people who play Fantasy are watching more games on TV they’re buying more merchandise they’re buying the TV Packages Etc yeah absolutely and I mean there was a phase there where the players associations for both football and baseball were trying to force companies to buy licenses to be able to just to talk about fantasy sports um and they tried to restrict who could do it and tried to limit it to the big companies I mean we went through a pretty tough phase in the uh early 2000s on that right well that’s why I didn’t get into this earlier but when I mentioned Brian and Carol Matthews are like two incredibly important people yeah in history um it’s because you CDM is the company that sued Major League Baseball about the licensing rights issue because ma Major League Baseball Advanced media was going to shut what shut them down yeah and they sued them and thank God they won um and that I mean if if they had lost the case that would have really really damaged the whole industry we wouldn’t be where we are now exactly let’s talk about uh this season in t Wars uh you know you and I are playing together in Al T Wars as always uh you’re in second place right now I’m somewhere below second place’ll say that some somewhere somewhere below second and above 13th yes uh exactly depends kind of varies on the dayto day but uh right you know you’re doing well despite slow starts to Seager uh to Cedric Mullin for instance there I knew you were a little bit unhappy if I recall coming out of the auction that you were you had a tough time getting the players at the prices you wanted is that accurate well um I think it just it was overall it was pretty good but the at the end I I blew it a little bit with the money I wasted some money at the end okay um yeah and then you know it’s like I’m in second place if you ask me why I’m in second place I really don’t even know I like there’s been some good some good things and some bad things I mean you Cory Seager had a slow start uh Josh low and Von Grom uh both got hurt after I had you know I I bought them at tout Wars at full price and then they got hurt after that both missed like four or five weeks um i’ I’ve had a couple of good things I took I took a shot on Tommy fam at the on Reserve at the draft and F fam signed with the Al and he’s playing full-time for the white socks so that that was a good thing um and uh I got Justin berlander for $3 which as of now turned out to be a really good thing uh but it’s a long it’s a long season yeah it is I you know and the thing is I I find it’s so hard to roster enough hitting um I felt like I tried to do a better job of that this year spent uh 200 of my 260 Budget on hitting and then I look at the standings and I’m still very middling in the offensive categories there and some of that is just I you gotta get the right players too some of it yeah but it’s it’s it’s really frustrating that I tried to get better hitting this year I try to focus on that and I still look at my roster and well I made some mistakes like I’m the guy that bought Jackson holiday and that’s not working out so far I’m gonna have to wait a while on that one there but I guess there there there’s there’s a t I guess I have to figure out is there a takea away from that or is it I just get the wrong player did I do something wrong structurally well for me you know I’ve always said it’s about the the value you know my in winning Fantasy Baseball that’s the biggest thing I stressed and so right if you spend $200 on hitting uh what you know whether you spend $200 on hitting or50 on hitting or whatever you got to get more than your money’s worth you know if you spend $200 on hitting and you and you’re getting $190 worth of actual value you’re losing $10 so it’s really it’s about getting getting the players at a at a good price indeed uh and I think that that that’s that’s always a good takeaway and you know it’s yeah you which means you have to start off with a good set of projections you have to start off with a good set of uh and how how to Value those players and that’s a whole another Rabbit Hole of a conversation here right yeah yeah you got to have a value system right exactly uh let’s how how are your nfbc teams doing I know you’re in at least a couple of Main Events I’m in um I’m in three main events okay two of them are just horrendous uh they’re like something like 700 overall or something one of them had Spencer Strider a number one pick ouch um the other one had Corbin Carroll as a number one pick and a whole lot of other things have not gone gone well um I’m still managing those teams but you know they’re not going to do anything uh now my third team is doing good my third team is about a 100 overall um and it’s like in second place in the league so that that that team is the one I’m really focused on that team also had Corbin Carroll as my first pick but they’re doing okay despite that what’s your theory on Carol why he’s struggling so much I don’t really know the only the only Ray of Hope that I have is last year he also struggled for a month in the middle of the year he had a horrible month um you know and if he if he had started out like that last year instead of having in the middle of the Season you know he probably would have been sent down or something right so I I don’t really have a theory I’m just hoping it snaps out of it obviously I’ve kind of speculated on the shoulder before and I think that might be part of it but yet he’s still playing every day so almost every day so obviously the Diamondbacks don’t think it’s bad enough to keep him out but uh it’s it’s still frustrating to see him unable to get out of the block so far yeah I have yeah I have heard about the shoulder I I did not hear about that when I drafted him I heard about that afterwards maybe maybe I heard from you I don’t remember yeah oh well and it’s one of those things where it’s like it’s hasn’t been like officially from the team or anything like that too so they’ve been largely silent on that issue as is often the case you know and that’s the thing It’s tricky to find out good information sometimes and you know you only as you’re sometimes you’re only as good as the information they allow us to find out and of course yeah so it goes now I will throw in I’m in I’m in first place in labor okay so that that’s good so I got I got five teams this only five teams this year I got labor CC um I cut back a little bit on my teams I also I really streamlined my draft preparation this year because I was so busy getting the book finished yeah that like you know I even I even thought about like well maybe I just shouldn’t play this year but you know that that wasn’t that wasn’t going to happen yeah I was just gonna say I it’s such a time time time induc I’m trying to think it just such yeah timeconsuming that’s what I was going for there yeah um such a process there writing the book I can only imagine and just the prep work we usually do is time consuming as well oh yeah yeah um yeah I remember remember uh a friend of mine when I I met him uh years ago God this must be 15 years ago or something I met this guy became friends and he asked me like you know what do I do for fun or whatever and I said well I I play golf and I play fantasy sports and he said like oh my God those are the two most timec consuming Hobbies I know of you do both of them I do and I do as well um I’m I’m Avid but mediocre golf um and yeah it just that’s the thing about it’s it can’t you know you can’t play a short round you can’t just go H I’ll play for an hour today no it just that you can go to the driving range I suppose but I want and I also don’t want to work on golf I just want to play golf that’s part of my problem that’s why I never improve but right yeah yeah but there you go well um I know you got a busy schedule you are promoting this book everywhere tell everybody again how they can get a get a hold of your book go to go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble and search history of fantasy sports and it’ll show up it’s available in paperback and ebook very good and I really I really strongly urge everybody to get it because I’m serious you if you like fantasy sports which you obviously do or you would not be listening to this podcast um you will love the book I promise I promise you you’re gonna love this book I know it’s easier for people to say that it’s a musty but in this case I me it really is nothing nothing like this exists nothing like this has ever been done before which is why I wanted to do it I can’t wait to read it I’m looking forward to it Larry thank you so much for joining me today good luck on the book thank you Larry Sher everybody uh go check that out and of course you can follow him on Twitter at Larry Sher as well thanks everybody for listening thanks to so rare thanks to uh prize picks for their sponsorship if you enjoy this podcast please hit that like button please subscribe and give us feedback we appreciate it all we do read it all um and also when you while at it go ahead and check out the site as well rotowire.com pod is our free look behind the pay walls you can check that all out check out the history of fantasy sports by Larry Sher thank you so much for listening take care