by Catherine Hedgecock LIVIN' IN A FANTASY LEAGUE Published March 31, 1997 Other Columns by Catherine Hedgecock	John Benson gets paid to do what millions of sports fans do for free: watch lots of baseball games and talk about them for hours. Benson is an avid fan who combined business acumen and an easy writing style to form the premiere publishing firm for fantasy baseball leagues. Fantasy league competitors snap up his books and ring up his 900-number for tips throughout the season. Not bad for a favorite past-time. If you haven't heard of fantasy baseball, you're not out in left field. It is a quiet but widespread hobby enjoyed by some five million people all over the country. No, they don't dress up in famous players' uniforms (well, maybe some do) and swagger out to a "Field of Dreams." They form leagues, play "general manager," and "draft" teams made up of professional players from all the big league teams. During the season, each player's statistics count toward the performance of the fantasy team. And, as in baseball, the most points win. In some leagues the stakes are a few hundred dollars, in some several thousand. Many people play just for fun. Benson, 46, grew up watching the Yankees and the Dodgers play in New York. He later participated in fantasy leagues, sometimes called rotisserie leagues after the New York restaurant where the first fantasy players met to draw up rules. Over the years, Benson said, he always "was very competitive, did very well." With an MBA and extensive financial management experience with several Connecticut firms, Benson knew how to crunch the numbers on his players. He learned to find little-known, steady players — who often out-played the big-name stars — and draft them with little competition. Despite his success at fantasy ball, Benson never planned to make a living from baseball. "Everyone who did that starved," he says. "I really didn't think it was realistic as a business." A father of three, Benson was happy to work in the upper echelons of corporate finance and marketing, watching baseball and writing freelance columns on the side. But, in 1989, Benson's employer, Emery Air Freight, wanted to transfer him to California. He preferred to stay in Connecticut, so he left Emery and hired out as a business consultant. Meanwhile, he was writing more and more baseball, for Baseball Weekly, the USA Today baseball tabloid, and other specialty publications.
Despite his success, Benson never planned to make a living from baseball.	About the same time, a small publisher was unable to publish a couple of highly-regarded baseball books. Benson gathered the contributors and put together a book himself. "We gave advice on how to pick a good rotisserie league team. It was a genuinely innovative, insightful book that elevated the game by making it serious." The book sold well enough to attract the attention of another publisher. It continued to sell out each season, and within two years Benson was publishing them himself on a larger scale. He now has seven titles, including The A to Z Player Guide and Future Stars. Still based in Wilton, Connecticut, Benson now employs one person full-time, and writers around the country contribute to his books. Ironically, his busiest time of year is the off-season, because the books must be on shelves well before opening day in April. Fantasy baseball fans start planning their teams in February and March to prepare for their drafts in early April. As his books drew attention, fans started calling non-stop to ask Benson about their players. In 1990, he fielded more than 6,000 calls about baseball and answered about 20,000 questions. It was just too much to keep up with, so he turned his phone number into a 900 line, charging $2 a minute to talk baseball. The phone kept ringing, and Benson's move into his new field was complete. "That's when I knew I had a viable business," he says.
Check out this TriTeca column by Michelle Chihara to learn more about fantasy sports on the Internet.	There has been one casualty in all this — going out to the ball game. He's so busy sizing up players, quizzing coaches, and eyeing his own competition that he can't sit back and enjoy the game. "You have to work very hard to make a living. So many people want to do this. There are lots of energetic, talented people in this business." But last year Benson went to Puerto Rico in January just to watch some games for fun. It was worth the trip. "I haven't been able to watch many games for pleasure. I'm trying to change that." Catherine Hedgecock is a freelance writer and editor in Berkeley, California. She has written for USA Today, Knight Ridder newspapers, GNN, and other publications. She has won first place investigative reporting awards from California Newspaper Publishers Association, Gannett newspapers, and Best of the West. Ms. Hedgecock is currently writing a mystery novel. © 1997 Catherine Hedgecock, all rights reserved.