A Few Quick Changes to the Tourney

The 2008 Rays will be the lone representative of Florida in the tournament.

So when I ordered the Greatest Teams of the Past, Vol.2 and a couple other side teams, it turns out that APBA no longer sells the 1969 Atlanta Braves, so I had to make some quick adjustments to the rankings and brackets. It took me a little bit to come up with a replacement for the Braves, the choices were from my complete season sets of 2007 & 2008, and out of four teams: the 2007 Colorado Rockies, 2007 Boston Red Sox, 2008 Tampa Bay Rays & 2008 Philadelphia Phillies. Even though the 2007 Boston Red Sox and 2008 Philadelphia Phillies seem like better choices (plus they both won the World Series), I felt that Boston (who has 4 teams, 3 Red Sox/1 Braves) and Philadelphia (who has 4 teams, 3 Phillies/ 1 Athletics) had enough teams representing, so I went with the Tampa Bay Rays of 2008, due to the fact that there are no representatives from the state of Florida.

APBA still has not made a Florida Marlins team for their Greatest Teams of the Past volumes, I feel if they do put together a set that the 1997 Florida Marlins would be produced.

So the changes brought a new matchup to the Ruth Bracket, instead of the 1998 Houston Astros and the 1999 Arizona Diamondbacks going head to head, I have the Arizona Diamondbacks (#8) vs. 1941 Brooklyn Dodgers (#9) instead. This was the first Dodgers team to win a pennant in 21 years for the franchise, and would be the start of their great Brooklyn run, with vets Joe Medwick, Billy Herman & Dixie Walker. The team also had a young Pee Wee Reese, and was paced by a career year for starting pitcher Whit Wyatt (22-10, 2.34 ERA) and other 22-game winner Kirby Higbe.