For The Champion In The Rotisserie League, Joy Is A Yoo-hoo Shampoo

Nobody spends more time on the league than the Iron Horse. He rises at 6:30 each morning during the season to update his arcane charts. As league secretary, he records all transactions. His own administrative assistant at Columbia, the faithful, lovely and talented Sandra Krempasky, has always done our weekly stats—unfortunately, she's being replaced by a computer this season.

Waggoner and Gethers also own franchises in the officially authorized AL version of the Rotisserie League, called the Junior Circuit: the Waggoner Wheels and the Gethers Ye Rosebuds. Their joys and despairs are naturally doubled.

Joy is owning Jeff Leonard, opening the newspaper to the Giants' box score and reading: LEONARD LF, 5 1 4 5. Despair is owning Doug (The Fidrych) Bird, scanning the Red Sox box and seeing: BIRD L, 1-2 2? 8 11 11 2 1.

"Juan Bonilla, eight dollars."

The voice was familiar. Oh, it was mine. What possessed me to say that? Why would I spend eight bucks on a slow second baseman with no power and a less-than-average average? Why did I make Bruce Sutter, at $47, the most expensive player in league history? Why, for that matter, did I pay $28 for Dave Parker, $12 for Tom Seaver, $10 for Pete Rose, $6 for Dane Iorg? Why? Because I liked them.

That's why the Wulfgang finished seventh for the second year in a row. It's all my fault. I won't point the finger of blame at players like Tony Scott. I pick too many players with my heart, and I should have realized by now that there is no room for sentiment in this game.

I write for this magazine, and baseball is my beat. I hang around ballplayers so much that my hobbies are hunting and fishing. I can't help but find out useful things about certain players, but it doesn't seem to help. If a player was nice to me once, I go out of my way to draft him, even if I suspect his fastball is gone or the curveball is his weakness. I wasn't always that way, though.

Which is why, in my very first year in the Rotisserie League, I won it all. Mine is a story that I think is worth passing on to future generations of Rotisserians. One day, a week before the second annual draft, Okrent came to me and asked if I would take over the last-place franchise, theretofore known as the Guinzburg Burghers. Touched, I said O.K. Left with only a thimbleful of talent, I fashioned a draft strategy that combined wisdom with foresight, over to brilliance, double play! The short season also helped.

My fellow owners thought I'd won because I'd acquired inside information on the job, but I was very lucky. I made it up to them by so scrambling my team that I may be mired in the second division for years to come. I also have a team in the Junior Circuit, the Stevie Wunders, and I did the same thing there—my club went from first to seventh.

The money that first year was sweet, but what was better was gaining a dozen friends in one fell swoop. When the original Rotisserie League was assembled, many of the owners were total strangers to one another. I don't mean to get mushy here, but solid friendships were formed out of knowing Biff Pocoroba's vital statistics. Without exception, the members are nice people. Nice and crazy, but nice.