It’s a Friday night in March. Mike Massotto, the 58-year-old CEO of a dental consulting company, is waiting for his guests to arrive. Laid out on a table in an Allentown, NJ, hotel conference room are 15 meticulously crafted gift bags. There are drinks, some food, and at the center of it all is Massotto, a walking stick of dynamite known to high-stakes players as “The Mouth.” Tonight, he hosts his eponymous draft.
“When I tell you this, you’ll find it shocking. Some people don’t like me,” jokes Massotto, a man whose larger-than-life personality and love for high-stakes games has caused a Grand Canyon-sized gap between his lovers and haters in the high-stakes fantasy world.
“I didn’t go into it with that intention,” said Massotto when asked about becoming a high-stakes fantasy baseball personality. “Like almost everybody, I got started in fantasy baseball in a home league. I’d always look at the fantasy baseball magazines; the National Fantasy Baseball Championship used to have one. They would show the winners with the big checks — you know — the gigantic cardboard checks. I saw a guy standing there, a guy from Jersey, and I thought to myself, ‘Look at this doofus. If he can look like this and win this kind of money, I can do it, too.'”
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That led Massotto to try his hand at high-stakes leagues, specifically the NFBC Main Event. He traveled to New York City to draft live, walking into a massive room where roughly eight high-stakes drafts would be held. Who winds up in Massotto’s first Main Event, as fate would have it? That doofus from the magazine, Scott Fleming. The two became close friends, and naturally, Fleming became an original member of the Mike the Mouth (MTM) Ultimate League. He’s also the reigning back-to-back-to-back champion.
When the NFBC started online drafts, “The Mouth” was born. Non-stop posting, smack talk, and bragging about his teams in the draft chats and message boards garnered Massotto’s reputation as the “guy who just won’t shut up.” Between the online and live drafts, Massotto would message leaguemates when they were on the clock to pick faster. In doing so, he developed relationships with many fantasy baseball fanatics across the country. Some even joined the MTM Ultimate.
The entry fee is $5,000, and the prizes for coming in the top three places in the league are as large as Massotto’s personality: $40,000 for first, $20,000 for runner-up, and $7,500 for third. Yet, at the root of the MTM Ultimate League, you’ll find the same elements that make people fall in love with fantasy sports in the first place. The camaraderie, the competition, the inside jokes, the stories of triumph and heartbreak — these are at the core of why we care so deeply about a silly game.
But Massotto is steadfast in preserving one dying element of the game: the live draft experience. And he takes it to the extreme. The experience Massotto has turned his draft into reads like a list you’d hear Stefon from Saturday Night Live rattle off. Custom jerseys, a steak dinner after-party, draft order decided by “Iron Balls,” and celebrity draft hosts — a group that includes Lisa Ann, Davana Medina, and Adam Ronis.
The allure of high stakes leagues is obviously the money — if you win an affair hosted by the NFBC, you stand to collect a six-figure paycheck. But if you talk to veterans of the drafts, another theme emerges — these people all really like each other. Even the ones who “hate” you will still give you hugs and ask how your family is doing. And a large part of that is because of the “live” element.
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As league hosting services advanced technologically, it became easier to do drafts and auctions from the warmth of your own home. Instead of traveling to sit at a table with your friends and spend hours picking a team, drinking and generally being bon vivants, you could roam around your house on your laptop and pop into the chat room at your leisure. But nothing compares to the live drafts and the camaraderie it engenders. And Massotto not only knows this, he does everything in his power to keep it alive, including spending money on all the extras and inviting 14 people he may barely know into his house.
Most leagues have memorable stories and traditions. But not every league has a cast of characters that includes a billionaire, an ice cream man, and a “mad scientist” who shows up to draft with a bag of apples and a bottle of warm orange soda.
Even COVID-19 couldn’t couldn’t stop them. The onset of the pandemic coincided with fantasy baseball draft season (mid-March 2020), and the NFBC canceled all live drafts in New York City and Las Vegas. That didn’t keep the MTM Ultimate League from drafting live. Masked up and determined, they traveled to NYC anyway, where league member David Einhorn opened his Manhattan offices. The draft was held in a Greenlight Financial conference room, which Einhorn catered.
There are plenty of draft day elements of the MTM Ultimate League that you’ll see at any live draft across the country. The energy is high, the music is loud. Laptops, iPads, and papers are strewn across the tables, reflecting the preparation done for draft day. There are snacks, the league trophy is perched where everyone can see, and bittersweet stories are swapped about just-missed titles and late-season at-bats.
Name placards sit next to small plastic buckets packed with a slew of baseball-themed goodies: packs of cards, Cracker Jacks, Big League Chew, and sunflower seeds. The Stanley Cup-esque trophy that travels with the league champion is engraved with the names of champions past.
The invitation-only league has an annual waiting list, with returning members getting the first right of refusal. Four of the original league members remain. Each new league member gets initiated with a custom league jersey, black with “Ultimate New York” in gold-on-black lettering on the front. Only those members from that first season, in 2012, have the original: a white jersey with “New York Metropolitan Fantasy Baseball League Inaugural Season” on the front and their name — and team name — on the back.
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Instead of fantasy managers knowing their draft position before draft day, to allow time to strategize, Massotto created the “Iron Balls” method for determining the draft order. When your name is randomly selected, you can choose your draft slot (known as Kentucky Derby Selection). He thought it would be fun if everyone learned their position five minutes before the draft.
“If you’re that good, you can get your draft slot right on the spot, sit down, and go from there,” he says.
Some unique personalities have participated in the league over the years. Professional Gamblers. Billionaires. The ice cream man brought ice cream sandwiches to give out to everybody. And the “Mad Scientist” (who was actually a retired plumber, according to Massotto) made quite the impression his first year in the league.
“He comes in last minute, his hair’s all over the place, and he proceeds to sit down next to me,” says Massotto. “He’s got a bag of apples, a bottle of generic orange soda, and tons of paper flying out of a book with scribblings all over them. He may have been an axe murderer.”
And then there’s the “Curse of Scott” conjured up by Massotto himself. Before the 2021 draft started, Massotto approached celebrity draft facilitator Adam Ronis to help with a joke. The plan was that no matter whose ball was selected first in the “Iron Balls” draft order, Ronis would call Scott’s name (Scott was known for complaining that he had a bad draft pick every year). Ronis obliged, calling Scott’s name, quickly correcting himself, and saying the proper name. Massotto now says that joke was a mistake at the level of messing with Jobu’s rum. Scott won his first championship that season and has won every season since.
One celebrity draft facilitator once announced that, “there are a lot of (expletive) weirdos in this room.” It was meant as a compliment.
The league traditionally ventures into Manhattan around midnight for post-draft festivities, trading barbs and comparing teams over a steak dinner, cigars, and maybe a drink or two. This year, however, that was changed to a catered affair in a slightly more intimate atmosphere — the 2024 version was held at “The Godfather Estate,” otherwise known as the Massatto residence, just a few minutes from the hotel. The participants hung out and talking over the draft boards until the wee hours of the night.
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“I couldn’t get them to leave,” said Massatto, “But that’s what it’s all about, you know? It’s memorable. They’ll tell you it’s the best draft the NFBC has to offer. And that’s what makes it great. You’re competing with some of the greatest players in the world, but they’re also some of the best people you’ll ever want to meet. Obviously, winning the money is great, but the experience is what makes it worth every minute of the effort.”
(All photos via Mike The Mouth)
