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

Lee Eisenberg said that. Nobody in the league wheels and deals like Eisenberg, who found himself left with $7 to spend on seven players going into last year's draft. You never know what you'll find in the bargain bin, though, and Smith turned out to be a blessing, with six wins, three saves, a fine ERA (2.49) over 155? innings and a good ratio (1.191). Of course, the Fur King has since traded Smith.

Eisenberg is a contributing editor at Esquire. He used to be the guy who escorted selected beauties for the "Esquire Goes On A Date With..." series. He once took Susan Sarandon to a Yankee game and struck out. He couldn't understand why she wouldn't want to be herded like a cow by surly Yankee Stadium guards, fed pork byproducts in a soggy bun and made to watch Oscar Gamble play rightfield.

Eisenberg wrote the book on trading. Well, actually he wrote the chapter on trading in the Rotisserie League book. In the chapter, he lists ten Cardinal Rules (Blue Jay Rules, if you have an American League league). We wonder which rules Eisenberg was applying when he swapped Ryne Sandberg, Greg Brock and Dave Anderson for Johnny Ray, Ray Knight and Dave Concepcion. The once-proud Furriers fell from first in '82 to fifth last year.

"Joe Price, one dollar."

Good for Cork, which is what his friends call Corlies Smith. Cork resigned before the start of this season, after finishing seventh, 10th, 10th and 10th. He's a respected book editor and a man of letters. Actually, he's a man of postcards—that is what he sent us as a reminder that we owed the league money.

Cork was almost as frenetic a trader as Eisenberg, and, indeed, he made some good deals in his time. But he invariably made one more trade, and so, in the course of one week last summer, he rid himself of both Darryl Strawberry, with whom he had grown impatient, and Price. We all know what Strawberry did, and Price helped the Goners finish second. Bad for Cork.

Fortunately for us, Smith has been elevated to Commissioner, superseding Okrent, who now becomes Former Commissioner-For-Life. Cork will continue to host our draft.

On the day Smith retired from the league, phone circuits all over the league lit up. His patient wife, Sheila C, explained it this way: "Cork loves baseball, and the league was a very nice hobby, certainly better than hanging out in bars and chasing women. But it just got too frustrating for him. If only he had won something. I like having you people come over, though. I feel as if we're running a speakeasy."

" Pedro Guerrero, forty-one dollars."

Sometimes a player is worth it. Harry Stein, mogul of the Stein Brenners, bought himself 32 homers, 103 RBIs, 23 stolen bases and a .298 average. He also had Dickie Thon, Jody Davis, Jose Cruz, Raines and Leonard on offense; and Jesse Orosco, Steve Bedrosian, Charlie Lea and Fernando Valenzuela on his pitching staff. Not only did he win the pennant, he won it with an unprecedented 77.5 points, finishing first in six of the eight categories. We're not telling how much he won.