the first Rotisserie League book came out in March 1984, and we bought the book and formed our still-existing league a couple of weeks later.
that said, I believe there was an Inside Sports - a would-be rival to Sports Illustrated that I subscribed to - article on Rotisserie Baseball in 1982. the first league auction itself was 1980, iirc, at a Manhattan restaurant with that name.
also, the philosophy of the original book indeed was basically "it's all about the auction."
you could make trades, though those tended to be infrequent. you only got 3 waiver moves of crappy players all season - and you could only claim bums waived by other teams. if you had a player hit the DL, you could replace him - but when the original player returned, you had to waive one or the other, unless you happened to have another opening at that time. no benches - there wasn't even a farmhand draft yet. lose a player to AL? too bad.
Last edited by Howie M; 02-29-2020 at 08:34 PM.
NL 12-team 5x5 auction keeper. no bench, limited 'free' moves #oldschool
our owners have a combined 292 years of experience in this 36-year-old league that is being cryogenically frozen until spring 2021.
a redraft, no-transaction "race to the finish" served as our 2020 entertainment
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