Actually, fantasy baseball is a hobby practiced by 2 million to 4 million obsessive Americans (including this reporter and several others at NEWSWEEK). Each year around this time, fantasy-baseball zealots gather to pretend they are baseball owners and “draft” their own teams composed of major-league players. For the rest of the season, these teams compete, based on how the real ballplayers perform. Participants put up cash at the beginning-$60 in the OTS league-and at the end of the year the teams with the best records win some money: $308 for first place in the OTS league. (When my editors suggested I write this piece, my first reaction was, “I can’t-I have to prepare for my draft!” But I found the time.) (Editor’s note: good choice.)
Leave it to Washington bureaucrats to turn something innocuous into a federal case. Soon after that first meeting, top OTS officials launched a massive yearlong investigation. Officials seized hundreds of pages of E-mail and computer files to search for evidence. OTS cops found incriminating comments such as, “Carlton Fisk: less playing time; shoe inserts” and “Dale Murphy: knees drained.” OTS attorneys Guest and Randy Thomas interrogated about two dozen employees who played in or knew about the league.
After two and a half months of nearly full-time investigation, they reprimanded eight participants and suspended paralegal Peter Hull and senior manager David Sjogren for 30 days without pay for operating the leagues. A few of the accused were able to cut deals to get their records cleared by performing “community service” in the form of giving to a charity. But Sjogren and Hull could only get their suspensions reduced to 14 days, and spent the next nine months fighting to restore their good names, not to mention their lost pay.
Eventually, the top brass had to concede that fantasy baseball was not really a significant gambling enterprise. But just as the Feds got bootlegger Al Capone on tax charges, the OTS investigators shifted strategy and charged Sjogren and Hull with extensive “unauthorized use of government computers.” This infuriated Sjogren, who had often worked overtime without pay. He began fingering other OTS officials who, he claims, either played fantasy baseball themselves-including the former chief counsel-or otherwise used their computers to play different games.
In October, Sjogren’s immediate boss, Diana Garmus, decided it was time to ease the tension in the locker room. She proposed a settlement: if Sjogren agreed not to play fantasy baseball on government premises and give $60 to a charity, the agency would give him back his two weeks’ pay. “Your fantasy sports activity … did not harm your work performance which has been and remains outstanding,” Garmus wrote. The investigators wouldn’t play hall. They promptly “nullified” the settlement and initiated yet another investigation-this time against Garmus for failing to follow “the procedures detailed in OTS Directive No. 1703.”
And so as this baseball season started-without an OTS league-the agency is still considering whether to punish the supervisors for not punishing the fantasy-baseball owners. Sjogren is preparing to bring his case to federal court and Hull soon goes before an agency arbitrator. Guest and other agency officials declined to comment, referring instead to a letter from OTS’s William Durbin to a D.C. legal publication. “OTS is overwhelmingly staffed with people who are dedicated to … serving the public interest,” he wrote. “Not only do they not spend their time at work on frivolous pursuits, they have no interest in doing so.”
Alex (Moose) Patton, author of “Patton’s Predictions,” may be the best Rotisserie League player in the land. He specializes in picking stars on the rise. His tips for 1994:
Still in the minors, but look for Chicago to make him an ace.
Rookie will become cult figure tattooing balls around the Skydome.
Don’t be scared because he’s 35 and on the Red Sox. His legs are only 25.
An all star on Nautilus, but his big bat days are over.
His “secret pitch” could turn mediocre minor leaguer into major stopper.
The Braves didn’t hold on to Ron Gant because Ryan is ready.
With Delino De Shields off to the Dodgers, Lansing will cut loose.
Still wields a mean bat, but overweight slugger won’t last the season.
