On Deck...

A custom-made card of mine for Cobb.

I have quite a few articles coming out soon, some updates on some projects in the near future...

• 2013 Boys of Summer World Series - I will have the conclusion coming up inside the next 48 hours. It's hard to believe the first season is now over, as we have enjoyed a short off-season and prepare for the upcoming season's draft that will take place on November 1st. We added three new owners, and we are now 16 members strong -- excited about the new blood in the league.

• 1903 World Series - The Series between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Boston Americans will continue in the next couple days. I had plenty going on with the BoS Playoffs (above) that it took a momentarily break. The defending World Champs find themselves down 3-1 against Boston, this is the Pirates third consecutive World Series. The World Series project is a APBA Baseball for Windows project. I bought APBA's new World Series disks package when it was on sale -- a lot of fun!

• Mid-West Winter League - The new season started, my Traverse City Tigers found themselves staying put for the most part in the off-season. The team won the A.L. West last season, and got ousted 4-1 in the American League Championship to the eventual World Champion - Chicago Machine. My team ended up making only one deal in the off-season, and that was Tim Raines for Harold Baines, a one-for-one deal that helps both ball clubs. Baines came from the National League where his value has sank due to his declining fielding (strictly a DH for most part), while Raines is slowing down, and doesn't have the OPS (On Base + Slugging) that Baines still has in the tank.

• Mid-West Baseball League - My Traverse City Crusaders (52-110) ended up with one of the worst records in the entire league. Earlier this month, we ended up winning the rights to the #1 overall pick in the league's draft lottery. The Crusaders also have two other 1st Round Draft Picks in the 2015 MWBL Draft. I will also be doing a recap on my current roster, and looking back at my first season's transactions (which were a plenty).

• The Crazy 48's League - I have now played 24 games each for the 48 teams in this league, I have decided I will play one more regular 4-game series, and then I will have each team play their division rivals for 4 games each (24 total games), in which all 48 teams will end with 48 games each. I was going to do 162 games each, but that was long before I joined a couple of BBW leagues, running my own BBW league, and trying to keep my blog all running. It was an ambitious project, and I was on pace to complete it by my 40th birthday, but since last November I completely hit a wall, and have played a couple since for each team. There will be 6 teams from each league moving on to the playoffs, 4 division winners & 2 wild cards from each league (12 total). A bit of NFL style to the playoff rounds, top 2 seeds of each league get a first-round bye.

• The ALTERNATE MLB Project - This is a new project that I plan to launch, and something that I have thought about often, and it's a alternate world of the MLB -- what if the Mariners and Blue Jays were the last of the expansion teams? What if we had a world without the Marlins, Rockies, D-Backs & Rays? What if there was no wildcards? What if we had the good ol' League Championship series (featuring only the division champs of only TWO divisions)? The good ol' days, if you ask me. The league will start off with 1993, the Marlins & Rockies never exist, yet Gary Sheffield, Andres Galarraga, Dante Bichette, and Benito Santiago have to play somewhere -- they will be dispersed in a draft order of free agency of sorts, worst team of 1992 gets best player. Dodgers you are on the clock...