That's right, fantasy baseball turns 25 this weekend, and its birth place, of course, is New York.

"Rotisserie" baseball has long since been replaced by "fantasy" baseball, but it was originally named after "La Rotisserie Francaise," the NYC eatery where then-Sports Illustrated scribe Daniel Okrent met with other bushy-haired nerds who adopted the game plan.

Unlike my fantasies — which don't include Jeff Kent's porn 'stache — Okrent & Co. dreamt of playing baseball GMs, drafting and trading players who might someday inject enough 'roids to hit 70+ home runs, while concocting such ratios as WHIP (Walks + Hits Per Innings Pitched) and HBB (Hot Broads Banged, of which Derek Jeter and Barry Zito are the all-time leaders).

ESPN The Magazine, whose executive editor, Steve Wulf, was an original member of the Rotisserie clan, recently did a feature on the 25th anniversary, but I can't find it online. So you'll have to pay the $1.99 annual rate for 26 issues of the print version.

Of course, the greatest piece ever written on fantasy sports was done by me, when I recalled The Luckiest Fantasy Sports Seasons Ever in both baseball and football. If you had 'em (Brady Anderson, 1996), you were buying lottery tickets with their uniform numbers. If you didn't (Kurt Warner, 1999), you were pulling your hair out.

Rotisserie Baseball Links:

• USA Today: At 25, A Hobby That Enthralls Millions

• The Honolulu Advertiser: Everyone Can Play It

• USA Today's Fantasy Baseball Stats/Coverage