We live in a world where there is a Wikpedia page, documentary, or ‘oral history’ article that will give you the 101 history on just about every subject.
Granted, these histories are not 100% comprehensive or accurate – see the phrase ‘history is told by the victors’ and the works of Howard Zinn and Oliver Stone – but at least there is something.
The history of fantasy sports, though, has been shrouded in mystery. I co-own a fantasy site and, as of a couple months ago, did not know much about the pre-Internet fantasy sports industry aside from the origin story about Daniel Okrent and friends starting a league and naming it after the NYC restaurant La Rotisserie Française that they often frequented. I only know that story because I bought one of those yearly Fantasy Baseball books back before I hit puberty when a story like that could stick in your forever brain.
My first introduction to the history of fantasy sports came this preseason courtesy of Ron Shandler’s ‘Fantasy Expert’ (my Twitter review is here). This is a first-person story of him building his Baseball Forecaster + BaseballHQ.com + First Pitch businesses but there was plenty of fantasy baseball industry origin story and history within its pages (especially in regards to LABR and Tout Wars – the two long-standing industry leagues in which Grey and I participate)
Before I had a chance to mentally emerge from that rabbit hole, I learned Larry Schechter (who wrote Winning Fantasy Baseball about a decade ago) had undertaken a book chronicling the history of fantasy sports. So much so that he actually named it the History of Fantasy Sports. Unlike Ron, Larry didn’t have a horse in the race. He is/was just a great multi-sports fantasy player and fan of the game. So this book provides more breadth on the history of fantasy sports – especially on the fantasy football side.
It is a fascinating, well-researched history and a rather breezy read (given Larry is not a professional writer). From both my content creator and fantasy player’s perspective, it really drills home to me how much easier everything is now compared to the days of print publishing, 1-900 numbers, and faxing. While Razzball started just a little too late to get covered by Larry’s (or Ron’s) history , I do not think Grey and I were built for the analog world. So maybe it’s fitting we aren’t in the printed books. (Perhaps add us to the e-books?)
