About Me

I know “bios” are usually a third person kind of tale, but for this site, in its early stages, I’m going to use this opportunity to introduce myself and this site to you personally.

My name is Howard Bender and I am addicted to fantasy sports. Baseball and football really, but an addiction nonetheless. My fantaticism started off with fantasy baseball back in the mid-90’s when several of us that played in a weekly poker game were introduced to a fantasy league by one of the guys’ father who had been doing it long before the internet made it a world wide obsession.

The league was 17 teams with 25 man starting rosters and a 10 player bench; 2 guys at each position with 6 OF and 9 P, mixed standard roto 5×5 keeper league. The rules for picking up free agents were a little unconventional (after the first week of May, there were no more pickups from the FA pool — the only way to alter your roster was via trading), so you really needed to know your stuff like who your September call-ups were going to be by the time Spring Training was over. It was pretty intense stuff. Serious bragging rights came with a victory, but it was also fairly high stakes. Obviously it piqued the curiosity of the little gambler inside of me as well as intrigued the baseball nut lurking within.

I won’t lie to you. It was a rough rookie season for me. Roughly half the teams in the league were already seasoned fantasy vets and the rest of us were left to sink or swim…or get eaten by the sharks. While I did a fair amount of “research” and knew the players, there were still nuances of the game we played that I hadn’t learned. I’m still kicking myself for dropping that staistics class in college. But, I learned…eventually…the hard way. Bad trades, poor free agent pickups, no depth towards the end of the season and I cruised my way into 10th place with a mediocre arsenal of keepers for the following season.

But I was hooked. I was looking at baseball through new eyes again. I began to really study the game; bringing back a passion that I hadn’t felt since I was a little kid. I watched player movement a lot closer, managerial decisions, organizational tactics, batting orders, situational hitting and pitching, you name it. Every game became fun to watch, not just those of my beloved New York Yankees. And once I felt my knowledge of the current game was sufficient, I began to incorporate some of my old math skills and began analyzing baseball statistics a little closer with the hopes improving my drafting decisions for the upcoming season.

Needless to say, with a pair of championships and numerous “money finishes”, I found success. But, more importantly, I learned more and more with each passing year. You try different strategies, play different hunches, alter your projections formulas, whatever. You’re constantly fine-tuning your skills.

But with that success and the energy charge I was getting out of doing this, I also found myself wanting to share what I’ve learned. The number of people playing the game now compared to the numbers a decade ago are staggering. But with those masses of fantasy newbs, came a sea of sharks just licking their chops; recruiting unsuspecting owners to make a yearly “fantasy donation”. I wanted to help those newbs. I wanted to teach them, so that they didn’t have to learn the hard way like I did. There’s nothing like hearing about how the know-it-all of the league whined like a baby when some rookie beat him out for first place. I wanted to be the guy behind the guy.

So I started writing a weekly advice column on AddictFantasySports.com and began my career as a fantasy sports writer. Along with my weekly column, I also began to write on Blogspot under the title of RotoBuzz and continuously offered, advice, analysis and opinion. The response from you, the public, was solid and through several emails, I learned that I was a big part of several fantasy championships. I wanted to do even more.

I soon moved on to purchasing my own domain – RotoBuzz.com – and in 2005 launched a more extensive version of my blog which also included updated fantasy player rankings, cheat sheets and a variety of other useful tools for both pre-draft and in-season work.  My readership grew even more, I was invited to join my first experts league, and have now seemingly become a respected memeber of the fantasy sports writing community.

In an effort to increase my readership even further and to broaden my exposure on the ever-cluttered internet, I have taken the next step in the blog evolutionary process.  I have said goodbye to the name RotoBuzz and have re-launched the site under the title of The Fantasy Baseball Buzz.  It’s still me.  It’s still the same first class advice and personal attention on which I have built my foundation.  It’s just a new name and, hopefully, a better look and feel for you. 

Please feel free to fill the comments sections ( I constantly go back through them and add stuff, by the way), ask questions, email me, whatever. I’m here to help you. I am in tune with the same information everyone else receives, but what I want to do is help you and your team on a more personal level.

And while I’m still just “blogging” technically, site improvements will come throughout the year as I offer more and more insights and analysis.

Here’s to years of fantasy success and I’ll see you all in the money each year!!!