The Winning Potential of a Brilliant Mind
Rotisserie (or fantasy) baseball is a game in which individuals “draft” real ballplayers into imaginary teams, keep track of statistics on the players’ performance, and win or lose depending on how well these statistics add up at season’s end. (It usually contains a gambling component.)
From the few references to fantasy baseball in the Littleton coverage, we know the following: Dylan Klebold, a Red Sox fan, played in Columbine High’s Rotisserie baseball league. He took part recently in a Rotisserie baseball draft party.
Apparently he was quite a skillful player. On the day he shot up his high school, Klebold’s team, the Border Hoppers, was leading its division.
“He was awesome,” classmate Chris Hooker told USA Today. “He was so awesome we thought he ought to manage a team in real life.”
[Conspiracy of Silence – Slate]
Not even Bud Selig, who has presided over some bizarre situations on his watch, can match the crisis facing Chad Laughlin, commissioner of his fantasy baseball league.
The Columbine Fantasy Baseball League.
You know what happened in Columbine. You might not know that Dylan Klebold, one of the accused shooters in the high school massacre, was the owner of the Border Hoppers team in the Columbine Fantasy Baseball League, which consists of teams owned by Klebold’s fellow students.
Klebold and Laughlin had been friends since third grade. They used to play baseball at the park and trade baseball cards. When Klebold heard three years ago that Laughlin was running a fantasy league, Klebold joined up.
Nobody can ask Klebold what fantasy baseball meant to him, but Laughlin has an idea.
“The owner of the Salty Squirts team (Tim Kastle) was inside (the school) and Dylan could have shot him, but he didn’t pull the trigger,” Laughlin said during an on-line interview. “He let who he liked go.
“Maybe it’s too much of a stretch to conclude that Kastle is alive today because he played fantasy baseball with Klebold, but that’s what Laughlin thinks.
Laughlin also decided the Columbine Fantasy Baseball League would carry on after the tragedy.
“We are continuing it on the basis that it keeps the owners’ minds off of all of this,” he said. “It is a good way to get away and forget about everything else. All the owners agreed on that.
“Klebold, said Laughlin, knew his baseball.
"He was first in his division, most points in the league,” Laughlin said. “I never really hung out with Dylan outside of school during high school, but every day during video class I’d talk with him about baseball for 30 minutes or so. He was an active owner.
"If it’s hard to picture this fantasy team owner as a mass murderer, well, it’s even harder for Laughlin to comprehend.
"I never felt threatened by him, I was never afraid,” he said. “I just looked at him as a friend. Not a great friend, but more than an acquaintance. No one knew anything about this tragedy coming – no signs, no warnings, no one to point fingers at. I know that Dylan’s parents didn’t know or they would have done something. I used to spend the night at his house a lot, so I know them fairly well.
"Like everyone else in Littleton, Laughlin is tired of the investigators and media vans and the steady stream of people who pass the school memorial.
"It’s sadly almost a tourist attraction,” he said. “Maybe by the end of the month, things will be almost normal again.
"Whatever normal is, to a community that has gone through the unthinkable. For Laughlin, normal includes fantasy baseball.
"I really want to keep the league going, not because it’s famous or anything, but it’s become a tradition. For years to come. Owners will go off to college, but by it being online they can still be in it. And I want to make the site better, but it takes a lot of time. I haven’t had much of that lately. In fact, right now I’ve got to get to school.”
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Columbine Fantasy League Will Carry On
By Ken Gurnick
5/12/99
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