I have been in a "Fantasy" baseball League with the same core group of guys since 1985. In the early days it was referred to as Rotisserie Baseball in honor of the group of guys in NY who either invented or popularized the concept. It was also called Roto Baseball. The term Rotisserie was derived from the name of the restaurant where the guys met on a weekly basis to do stats. An article on the guys and their League in NY papers went viral and copy cat leagues sprang up everywhere
That was in the days before the internet was what it is today, and so almost all Leagues were tied to the reporting of stats in the USA Today, which had more comprehensive box scores than other publications and publised comprehensive stats by team for both the National and American Leagues each week. My guess is that the reliance on such stats was a subscription boon to that paper in the 80s. Today almost all Leagues are tied to one of several subscription companies that cater to such Leagues in multiple sports and handle all stats and record keeping once you give them your League rules and players on each team
Our League membership has been fairly stable but we have had a few new folks come and go over time. It has been my experience that no matter how much of an expert a person is on baseball in general or the statistics of current players, they do horrible in their first couple of years in adjusting to how to draft a winning combination of players under the rules of any particular League
In the late 80s and early 90s there were news articles about how much money such Leagues were costing employers due to lost productivity at work with people consumed by attention to their team, and the use of company phones, faxes and copy machines to further League business. In the early days stats were done manually, usually on a weekiy basis and the stats then compiled and disseminated. It was time consuming and required honest participants and or double checking of stats for accuracy .
With the automation today I find the process less satisfactory due to the diminished interaction among the participants, but it is certainly less time consuming
You could substitute a large syringe for the sword on the card
