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LABR
LABR was the first high-profile fantasy sports experts league of its kind. Formed by John Hunt, the fantasy baseball columnist for USA Today Baseball Weekly, the league was first formed in 1994 and featured such celebrities as Peter Gammons, Keith Olbermann and Bill James. LABR stands for League of Alternative Baseball Reality and was given that nickname and the pronunciation ("labor") by Olbermann as a play on words with the labor strike in baseball at that time. Hunt ran the league and published the results of the LABR league in the ''Baseball Weekly''s (now ''USA Today Sports Weekly'') fantasy baseball preview issue each March from 1994 through 2006. He opted not to return for the 2007 league and was replaced with in-house staff. The dollar values players were sold for in the fantasy league are used as a benchmark for readers in their own fantasy drafts. The LABR has lost its early status as the premier experts' league, as in 1997 a rival fantasy baseball experts league, Tout Wars ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Keith Olbermann
Keith Theodore Olbermann (; born January 27, 1959) is an American sports and political commentator and writer. Olbermann spent the first 20 years of his career in sports journalism. He was a sports correspondent for CNN and for local TV and radio stations in the 1980s, winning the ''Best Sportscaster'' award from the California Associated Press three times. He co-hosted ESPN's ''SportsCenter'' from 1992 to 1997. From 1998 to 2001 he was a producer and anchor for Fox Sports Net and a host for Fox Sports' coverage of Major League Baseball. From March 2003 to January 2011 Olbermann hosted the weeknight political commentary program ''Countdown with Keith Olbermann'' on MSNBC. He received attention for his pointed criticism of right-wing and conservative politicians and public figures. Although he has frequently been described as a "liberal," he has tried to resist being labelled politically, stating, "I'm not a liberal. I'm an American." From 2011 to March 30, 2012, he was the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ron Shandler
In 1986, Ron Shandler began publishing the ''Baseball Forecaster'', an annual publication focused on applying sabermetrics to fantasy baseball, and later foundeBaseball HQ a website with the same focus. Shandler has an MBA from Hofstra University. Shandler is seen as a revolutionary thinker in both sabermetrics and fantasy baseball. Among his innovations in fantasy baseball are: *LIMA Plan - Which stands for Low Investment Mound Aces, is a draft strategy for traditional 4x4 Rotisserie leagues. LIMA is named after pitcher José Lima, who was exemplified by the strategy. The strategy includes spending a maximum of $60 out of your $260 budget on pitching. No more than $30 on saves. Have your pitchers use as few innings as your league rules allow. Look to buy pitchers with strong strikeout-to-walk ratios, high strikeout per inning ratios and low home run per inning ratios. Spend the rest of your budget on hitting. * Strand Rate - The percentage of baserunners a pitcher allows who fail ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fantasy Sports
A fantasy sport (also known less commonly as rotisserie or roto) is a game, often played using the Internet, where participants assemble imaginary or virtual teams composed of proxies of real players of a professional sport. These teams compete based on the statistical performance of those players in actual games. This performance is converted into points that are compiled and totaled according to a roster selected by each fantasy team's manager. These point systems can be simple enough to be manually calculated by a "league commissioner" who coordinates and manages the overall league, or points can be compiled and calculated using computers tracking actual results of the professional sport. In fantasy sports, as in real sports team owners draft, trade, and cut (drop) players. History Early simulations The history of fantasy games can be traced to the 19th century. The tabletop game ''Sebring Parlor Base Ball'', introduced in 1866, allowed participants to simulate games by propel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tout Wars
Tout Wars is the most high-profile fantasy baseball experts league and was the focus of the 2006 best-selling book ''Fantasyland''. It was created in 1997 by Ron Shandler who was fed up with the lack of promotion USA Today gave its annual LABR fantasy baseball experts league. The drafts are conducted each year in late March shortly before the MLB Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ... season and include a 12 team AL-only league, a 13-team NL-only league and a 12-team mixed league (added in 2005). Tout Wars was featured as the subject of a 2010 documentary called "Fantasyland" based on the book. See also Tout Wars2010 Mixed League Review References {{reflist Tout Wars Baseball culture ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baseball Weekly
''USA Today Sports Weekly'' is an American sports newsmagazine owned by the Gannett Company. A spin-off publication to Gannett's flagship newspaper ''USA Today'', it focuses on coverage of baseball news from Major League Baseball (MLB), Minor League Baseball and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) from spring to early fall, as well as football coverage from the National Football League (NFL) during the fall and winter months. The magazine also features statistics for each covered league and interviews with players and staff members. Sharing production facilities with its parent publication at Gannett's corporate headquarters in McLean, Virginia, ''Sports Weekly'' is printed on newsprint and distributed throughout the United States and Canada. The magazine is regularly published on Wednesdays, though special editions that preview major events (such as the World Series and the Super Bowl) or cover fantasy sports are released several times per year, typically on news ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Gammons
Peter Gammons (born April 9, 1945) is an American sportswriter Sports journalism is a form of writing that reports on matters pertaining to sporting topics and competitions. Sports journalism started in the early 1800s when it was targeted to the social elite and transitioned into an integral part of the n ..., media personality, and musician. He is a recipient of the J. G. Taylor Spink Award for outstanding baseball writing, given by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Early life Gammons was born in Boston and raised in Groton, Massachusetts, where he graduated from Groton School. After graduating from Groton in 1965, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was a member of St. Anthony Hall. He worked for the university's student-run newspaper, ''The Daily Tar Heel,'' and the student-run radio station, WXYC. Career Print After graduating in 1969, he began his journalism career at ''The Boston Globe.'' Gammons was a featured write ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bill James
George William James (born October 5, 1949) is an American baseball writer, historian, and statistician whose work has been widely influential. Since 1977, James has written more than two dozen books devoted to baseball history and statistics. His approach, which he termed sabermetrics in reference to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), scientifically analyzes and studies baseball, often through the use of statistical data, in an attempt to determine why teams win and lose. In 2006, ''Time'' named him in the ''Time'' 100 as one of the most influential people in the world. In 2003, James was hired as senior advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox and worked for the team for 17 years during which they won four World Series championships. Early life James was born in Holton, Kansas; his mother died in 1954 when he was five. His father was a janitor and a handyman. After four years at the University of Kansas (KU) residing at Stephenson Scholarship H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1994 Major League Baseball Strike
File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson Mandela casts his vote in the 1994 South African general election, in which he was elected South Africa's first President of South Africa, president, and which effectively brought Apartheid to an end; NAFTA, which was signed in 1992, comes into effect in Canada, the United States, and Mexico; The first passenger rail service to utilize the newly-opened Channel tunnel; The 1994 FIFA World Cup is held in the United States; Skull, Skulls from the Rwandan genocide, in which over half a million Tutsi people were massacred by Hutu, Hutus., 300x300px, thumb rect 0 0 200 200 1994 Winter Olympics rect 200 0 400 200 1994 Northridge earthquake, Northridge earthquake rect 400 0 600 200 Sinking of the MS Estonia rect 0 200 300 40 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2020 Major League Baseball Season
The 2020 Major League Baseball season began on July 23 and ended on September 27 with only 60 games amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The full 162-game regular season was planned to begin on March 26, but the pandemic caused Major League Baseball (MLB) to announce on March 12 that the remainder of spring training was canceled and that the start of the regular season would be delayed by at least two weeks. On March 16, MLB announced that the season would be postponed indefinitely, following recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to restrict events of more than 50 people. This was the first time that MLB games had been put on hold since the 2001 season, when the season was paused for over a week after the September 11 attacks. Spring training resumed on July 1 and was rebranded as "Summer Camp". On July 3, the All-Star Game was canceled because of the delay to the regular season. Dodger Stadium, which was set to host the game, went on to host the 2022 All- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified in an outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019. Attempts to contain it there failed, allowing the virus to spread to other areas of Asia and later worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on 30 January 2020, and a pandemic on 11 March 2020. As of , the pandemic had caused more than cases and confirmed deaths, making it one of the deadliest in history. COVID-19 symptoms range from undetectable to deadly, but most commonly include fever, dry cough, and fatigue. Severe illness is more likely in elderly patients and those with certain underlying medical conditions. COVID-19 transmits when people breathe in air contaminated by droplets and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baseball Culture
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding team, called the pitcher, throws a ball that a player on the batting team, called the batter, tries to hit with a bat. The objective of the offensive team (batting team) is to hit the ball into the field of play, away from the other team's players, allowing its players to run the bases, having them advance counter-clockwise around four bases to score what are called " runs". The objective of the defensive team (referred to as the fielding team) is to prevent batters from becoming runners, and to prevent runners' advance around the bases. A run is scored when a runner legally advances around the bases in order and touches home plate (the place where the player started as a batter). The principal objective of the batting team is to have a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
