Fans Choose the Starting Lineup!

The Ultimate Fantasy Team

By mark

If you didn't read it, you wouldn't believe it. The Schaumburg Flyers, a minor league baseball team in suburban Chicago has decided to let the wisdom of crowds determine its fate for the second half of the season. It will turn over to the fans decisions such as the lineup, fielding positions and pitching roster, in a project called Fan Club: Reality Baseball.

The team, which plays in the independent Northern League, will will be embarking on the project with an alliance between the production company LivePlanet and Microsoft's MSN web site. The idea is not entirely new to baseball either, as Bill Veeck, promoter extraordinaier and the owner of the White Sox, the Browns and the Indians at times in his career once had fans vote during Grandstand Managers Day at a St.Louis Browns game. The fans voted on the lineup and every major decision in the game. The Browns won too, one of their only 52 wins that year.