Steve Wulf, a member of the Original Rotisserie League, takes you on a two-part tour of Fantasy land. Coming Monday: Inside the Original League's 22nd annual draft.

We had an idea. And we had no idea.

The first Rotisserie League started in 1980 as an alouette, a lark hatched in a French restaurant (La Rotisserie) by some New York literary and academic types who loved baseball. I joined the next year, taking over a last-place team, and won the strike-shortened season. For which I got a nice check and the traditional Yoo-Hoo shower.

Since then, we have watched the game grow exponentially squared. A cottage industry of guidebooks and websites was created. There are Rotisserie drafts in the situation room of the White House. There is a fantasy league Hall of Fame. Actual major leaguers play Rotisserie baseball. A few months ago, I was in London and saw a taxi carrying an advertisement for Fantasy Football.

None of us ever made any real money off the concept, but that was never the point. We got into it to test our acumen as baseball fans, and we've stayed in it because we love crawling into box scores every morning. The Yoo-Hoo showers were phased out around the time the "Jews for DeJesus" jokes got tired, and the actual drafts are now about as much fun as an audit. Still, we walk into the draft room the first Saturday in April, and pardon the mixed metaphor, the butterflies dance like so many Tim Wakefield knucklers in our slightly larger breadbaskets.

I have won only once since 1981 in the original league, and just a couple of times in the American League formed at Sports Illustrated in the early '80s when I was there. I've stayed in that one, even though I now work at ESPN The Magazine, because the other owners keep it nice and light and very close to the original Rotisserie spirit.

We in the original league have been doing this for so long that there will actually be major leaguers this season who were born after the first draft in April of 1980. We routinely draft the sons of fathers we once drafted. Collectively, we have fathered close to a full roster of children since the inaugural auction. So, yes, we are into our second generation.

In fact, I'm sorry/delighted to say, my two sons now take part. Last week, John, 11, and I spent a few days in Florida to 1) take in a few games and 2) find out what happened to Butch Huskey. Butch is his favorite player, and in the past I have spent a little too much money to keep him in the Rotisserie family. Two days before we were going to see him in Winter Haven with the Indians, he was released. We went to the game there anyway, and a few of the beat writers explained to John that Butch had not looked particularly good this spring, especially when he failed to touch home on a sacrifice fly. Sad to think Butch's next stop may be Japan, but John understood that it may be time to move on.

In Dunedin, we sat next to a nice couple from Illinois whose son had been the high school catcher for Chris Michalak, a Blue Jays lefty trying to make the club after perservering for years in the minors. Michalak threw six shutout innings against the Pirates and not only made the club, but secured the fifth spot in the rotation.

So before the AL draft the other night, John said, "Dad, don't forget to get Chris Michalak." My older son, Bo, 14, also circled the players he wanted and left me instructions to come home with Melvin Mora.

The draft was at the Sports Illustrated Building on West 50th Street -- behind enemy lines, so to speak, but among old friends. I started out well enough, nabbing Manny for $38 early, before the cork was out of the spending bottle, and picking up Wickman and Kohlmeier as closers to supplement LaTroy Hawkins. Spent a little too much on Cameron, but I was desperate for speed. Stole Luis Rivas for $2. Lost out on Mora, who was way overpriced at $17. In deference to Bo, I did pick up an earlier fave of his, Ken Caminiti, for what could be a bargain $8.

But my starting pitching after Tim Hudson is Sidney Ponson, Ismael Valdes, Hideo Nomo. Despite Hideo's no-no last night, I'm already wincing.

And oh, yeah, I picked up Chris Michalak. The other owners whispered. "Who?" and I could hardly blame them, because he's not in the Baseball Guide, the Red Book or even the Baseball America Prospect Handbook. And while I would love to see him win 20, I don't expect any miracles.

But he not only made the majors, he made a Rotisserie draft. Scratch that. He made our Rotisserie draft.

Next: Inside the Original League's 22nd annual draft. Can the Wulfgang improve on last year's lackluster finish?

Steve Wulf is executive editor of ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at steve.wulf@espnmag.com.