BUTLER TWP — Fantasy sports run across the calendar these days.

There’s football in the fall, basketball and hockey in winter, baseball in spring and summer.

Fantasy sumo wrestling?

It’s always in season.

Butler Township resident Bill Yost knows. He’s heavily involved in the game.

“A friend of mine stumbled across it on the Internet,” said Yost, 43. “He sent me an e-mail telling me about it.

“All I remember are the words in that message: ‘Why not try this?’ Well, we did.”

That was seven years ago. While Yost’s friend, Kevin English of Ellwood City, no longer is involved, Yost has become a serious player in this international competition.

He was as high as ninth in the world fantasy sumo standings, which include 160 players, before suffering through a 3-12 stretch recently.

“That plummeted me to 22nd,” he said, glumly. “It was one of the worst weeks I’ve ever had.”

Sumo wrestling takes place over a two-week stretch every two months. A Bench Basho, the lineup of sumo matches, is presented to the fantasy players. The player submits his lineup, or banzuke, of five rikishis (wrestlers) he or she believes will win that day, assigning four points to his No. 1 rikishi, three points to two rikishis, two points to the other two.

If your selected rikishi wins his match, you are awarded the assigned points.

The next five rikishis the player selects are his “bench.” The bench rikishi with the most points is awarded a win for the day.

Matches change daily during the two-week period of competition. Some players change their lineups daily, others do not.

“It’s like any fantasy sport. You do your share of research on the athletes and structure your lineup,” Yost said. “I just seemed to develop a knack for it, but a lot of luck is involved.

“Your guys have to stay healthy. If a rikishi is really injured, he should retire from the Basho. Then you make another selection.”

Yost said there are fantasy players in the league from Australia, Germany, Denmark, Canada, Japan and the United States.

“They come from all over the world. It’s fun matching wits with them,” he said.

There are five divisions in fantasy sumo. New players start out in the lowest division and climb the ladder to the upper divisions as they succeed.

Yost has been competing in the upper divisions for the past three years.

“It took me four years to get up that high and I’ve been able to stay there,” he said.

Sumo is not Yost’s lone fantasy sports venture. He participates in baseball, football, hockey and NASCAR leagues as well.

“Football is the only sport I haven’t won my league in,” he said.

“What’s nice about sumo is that it’s only two weeks every two months. You don’t have to devote a ton of time to it.”

Visit benchsumo.net for information on fantasy sumo wrestling.