Maybe it's just me, but have you noticed that fantasy baseball has been getting a -- pardon the pun -- major-league push this year?

Even my company -- Fox Sports Radio -- has a promotion with CBS Sportsline to promote their fantasy baseball product. It is the first time I have seen or participated in such a promotion for the originating sport of all this fantasy madness.

You have also no doubt seen the hilarious ESPN commercials for their fantasy baseball product, where a tattoo-armed John Kruk and a mulleted Peter Gammons rock out to lyrics like "Why not pick up A-Roddy?!"

It's all good, but I wonder if such fantasy providers aren't barking up an empty tree. Fantasy baseball always was and always will be a tough sell. The season is long. The moves you need to make are constant. And there's just too many damn guys named Jose to keep track of.

In essence, all the things that make fantasy football such a smash hit, get struck out faster than Rob Deer in the middle of a dead-of-summer hitting slump.

Fantasy football enjoys the limited need for drafting lots of players at every position. Unless you are in the 1% of fantasy football players whose league mandates drafting free safeties, it's pretty easy to snag a few running backs, wide receivers and quarterbacks.

Baseball requires a tedious effort to balance your roster, and to value each position correctly. A good offensive catcher is far more difficult to find than a good hitting outfielder. So how much is he worth?

Fantasy football has games once a week, and you can enjoy bragging rights as soon as late Sunday afternoon over that jackass in accounting who was running his mouth at you all week.

Baseball is a long slog through the summer, with no instant gratification -- or even medium gratification. You are a collector of stats, a harvester of numbers, constantly poring over the fine print to see ways in which you can boost production.

Fantasy football has the gut wrenching element of fantasy "coaching" decisions you must live and die with. Will a team stack the box to keep your stud running back from getting any points? How bad is that wide receiver's hamstring injury? Which QB is bound to have a hot week, based on the matchup or just a dumb hunch?

Baseball is devoid of such weekly drama. When a player gets hurt, he's out for days or weeks at a time and there's not much breath-holding about precisely when he'll return. Plus, almost every guy on your fantasy baseball team is going to play. It's just a matter of how many hits he'll register on a given night.

Fantasy football is a relatively short sprint of 14 weeks during the fall and early winter. It occurs when summer vacations are over and school has begun for the kids. Staying focused on the task at hand is a relative breeze.

Baseball is like you have a second job. Even real GMs don't work as hard as some fantasy owners, because they don't make nearly as many in-season trades. Plus, the season is so long, it spans almost three-quarters of the year. While you are with the kids at Disney World, how will you know that somebody just dropped Jose Vidro, the second baseman you were angling for all year?

In all, I understand that fantasy sports operators see baseball as a potentially huge growth area if they can promote, entice, and retain enough new players. The hobby has certainly exploded from the original days of "Rotisserie" baseball, spawned by a handful of baseball uber-geeks and writers in a New York chicken joint.

Plus, there are growing on-line games for fantasy basketball, hockey, golf, NASCAR, bowling, fishing and even wrestling.

The king remains fantasy football however, and I don't see that changing anytime soon, no matter how many funny commercials they make with Peter Gammons dressed up like a rock guitarist.