Fantasy sports have been around for so long, and are now so prevalent, that it's hard to remember a time when they weren't woven into the fabric of sports fandom. These days some 30 million people participate in at least one fantasy sport, bolstering an industry that's estimated to be worth as much as $4 billion annually. In 2010, fantasy sports don't just honor their real-life inspirations, they help to keep them afloat, creating crucial (read: financial) bonds between fans and these games in an era when the multitude of alternate programming (more leagues, more teams, more TV shows, more websites, more pastimes, etc.) and the transient effect of free agency make it harder than ever to form a lasting, obsessive relationship with a hometown team. But this is a relatively new phenomenon. Prior to 1980, fantasy sports didn't exist. And if it's hard to imagine a time when fantasy sports weren't played, it's harder still—almost impossible—to imagine a time when fantasy sports weren't even conceived. Like the wheel, the drum or the corndog, the fantasy sports model is one of those things that, once born, seems entirely self-evident; like electricity it was always there to be found. And yet even against a landscape of stats-based board games, the fantasy sports model wasn't evident, indeed wasn't found, until Dan Okrent had his moment of divine and dorky inspiration some 30 years ago.
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