Culmination Pt.1 (The beginning of...)

Back in February 2013, I started this blog as an outlet to get away from the ugly world of everyday life, politics, and all of the other negative things that can bog you down. We all have a place where we can escape. Throughout my life, I either drew pictures or played APBA Baseball, a game that I was introduced to by my father as a kid. 

My old man and his friends were in a APBA league with probably close to 20 teams, give or take. I remember all the excitement that used to take place between him and his friends while knocking out series against one another. Lots of laughter, smiles, and conversation. I remember going pass the table with my eye level barely over the table, and noticed all the colored numbers on the cards with the names in bigger print. I didn't realize during the time that I would grow to love these cards. I believe part of the lure was that I saw how the game brought my dad and friends happiness, and that if it brings them happiness, it must be a really fun game. My dad worked his butt off at a factory that made parts for General Motors, working long and good hours, and APBA Baseball, along with some drinks, smoke and friends was the way for all of them to kick back their heals after a long work day or work week. Plus my dad would have the record player going, listening to the Rolling Stones, Talking Heads, Bowie, Elvis Costello, XTC, or whoever (you name it! My dad had 3,000 records, the best stuff).

I grew up as a 80's kid, 90's teen, and my love for baseball started probably with the 1984 Detroit Tigers and that magical season. The next season my dad would slowly start allowing us to collect baseball cards, starting with the beautiful design of those 1985 Topps Baseball Cards. The color scheme caught the eye, while I was getting more familiar with the team names and logos. 

Then came the 1986 MLB Postseason, one for the ages, and one that sealed the deal for me... I would forever breathe, sleep, and bleed baseball. I remember the Red Sox' Dave Henderson slamming the home run off California's Donnie Moore, the Mets-Astros series, and then of course, the amazing World Series that capped it all off. That's all that anyone could talk about on the playground was Mookie's grounder going past Buckner's old legs. The next season would be the year that I officially collected baseball cards in the 1987 Topps. 

Prior to my 15th birthday, we moved up north from Waterford, Michigan to Kingsley, Michigan (just south of Traverse City). New high school, a new town... small town. It was quite the culture shock to tell you the truth, and it was my sophomore high school year, during my 16th birthday, that I got my first APBA Baseball game (1991 APBA Baseball). What a sweet sixteenth indeed! The magic and joy of holding those cards, and going through all the envelopes, and knowing they are your very own.

With my love for the game, it only made sense to share this love for the game with my new friends. We had 6 people with 2 teams each, a twelve team league. They fell in love with the game as well. I saw how much happiness it brought my dad and his friends, and I wanted to experience the same with others. I continued to introduce the game to others while I served my country for the United States Navy. At my 'A' school in 1996, I introduced the game to a few of my shipmates. One of my good buddies Joe Mucha enjoyed the game so much, that we once tried to squeeze a game out right before uniform inspection, and let me tell you we cut it very close, we had to double-time it to get to formation, which resulted in some shin splints.

Once I got to Fort Gordon in 1997, I showed the game to a few new friends. They were all into computers and wondered if APBA made a computer game to make it simpler for us to run a league, while not having to do all the stats, and that's when I started playing APBA Baseball for Windows (BBW). We would start a Navy league that would run nearly 10 years until life took over, they all started having kids. I started diving back into the cards around 2004 (the APBA BATS 1 set), when I ended up being dumped in a relationship. With plenty of time on my hands I started a 64-game season with the 26 original MLB teams - the franchise's best players up to 1998.

I continued to play that season into the early days of my marriage (finishing the season sometime in 2008) with Becky. Becky has been a blessing, and I don't know where I would be without her. Not only she enjoys that I have a fun hobby in APBA Baseball, but she finds the dice-rolling soothing... Keeper!

By the way, I played the all-time franchises in the 4 division setup, with the Detroit Tigers catching the New York Yankees on the last day, forcing a tie-breaking game which Detroit won. The Oakland Athletics won the A.L. West, while the Chicago Cubs and San Francisco Giants came out of the National League. The Tigers swept Oakland, while the Cubs won in seven games. Then Detroit cooled off, getting swept by the Cubbies. 

Becky and I were married in October 2006, and like many young couples we had our financial struggles, to tell you the truth it has never been financially easy throughout our close-to-fourteen years. We would eventually declare bankruptcy, as we could not gain traction through the recession. We tried our best for five years trying to get our heads above water, which the lawyer would go on and tell us that we should have come to him like three years earlier. It was my pride and hard work that prevented us from going to him sooner, I don't like handouts, and I don't like asking for help... It's tough for me to do. 

There is a few things that you may want to know about me, things I take complete pride in and that's...

1) Working hard for a living.

2) I wear my heart on my sleeve, and always look out for others.

3) I never lie

And to be accused of any of these things really strikes me to the core, in the same manner that Back to the Future's Marty McFly hates being called Chicken. And if you wrong me in those areas, I hold serious grudges for significantly long periods of time.

It was the summer of 2012, I wasn't happy with my job at the time, and that year's election was starting to heat up. The wife and I just hopped into the car and drove around beautiful stretches around the Grand Traverse area, and just talked about things that was getting us down, the job, and questioning God's plan for us. We decided that I needed to look for a new job, while placing our faith in God. It was him that led us to each other, and there was no doubt about it. I will have to tell you that glorious story one of these days, and once I do, you too will have no doubt that it was God's will.

After a good drive, I went back home, and started thinking about APBA again (which faded in the recent years). I went onto Facebook and decided to do a search, and that's when I found Thomas Nelshoppen's 'The APBA Blog'. Another blog I fell in love with was, Kenneth Heard's 'Love, Life and APBA Baseball' I decided to walk away from my other blog, that was inspired by my love for Batman, which also was about politics, and the entertainment business. I decided to start a new blog named The Boys of Summer. Besides a couple posts here and there, I didn't truly start writing until February 2013. 

During that summer of 2012, I also found a Facebook Group -- The APBA Facebook Group. When I joined I was in the 700's for membership I believe, it has grown over 3,000 members since joining. I met friends right away, and started purchasing APBA cards again. As the year came to an end, I bought the Greatest Teams of the Past I & II (GTOP I & II) with the intention of buying GTOP III with tax money in early 2013, for a 64-team tournament project. I started the tournament, but shifted gears and made a 48-team project called the Crazy 48's, 8 divisions of 6-teams each. 

The blog started rolling in 2013, and by that summer, I realized friends from the APBA Facebook Group were really enjoying my project and blog. One of my earlier friends was one of the co-hosts of the upcoming Chicagoland Fall Tournament, and it was during that trip to Chicago, riding with Rich Zawadzki, that a whole new world was going to open up. To my surprise when we got there, I mentioned my name (while introducing ourselves to the others standing outside of the tourney) and three to four people right away, said "Shawn from The Boys of Summer?" 

"Why Yes"

Apparently my blog was more popular than I ever realized. I used pictures a lot to my blog pieces, so I do know that if someone connects to a picture they liked, that that can be counted as a hit. So I really didn't think much about the actual statistics to the site. In April 2013, I had my most for a month at that point with 793, which then doubled the next month. I would not dip below 1,000 the remainder of that year, with my blog ranging from 1,200 to its height of 1,646 hits. My post about that Chicagoland Tournament would qualify for 1,350 hits in a 1,585 hits month.

My tournament posts would go on to attract people more than the other posts, and are among my biggest posts all-time numbers. Almost half of my top 20 posts, are related to face-to-face tournaments. That is a lot of free advertising through the years. I often say that the Chicagoland Fall 2013 Tournament was the spark that generated the tournament explosion, and my friend Thomas from The APBA Blog even agreed on that point. At the time, I was modest about it, and for years to follow, but looking back we as writers contributed in a major way to these tournaments, and they would not have caught on like they did if it were not for our help. Jim's APBA Barn, another great blog, was also another major contributor to this big bang moment for tournaments as well, especially for the Twin Cities APBA Baseball Tournament.

For The Boys of Summer Blog, it would completely break out during 2016, with three months registering 2526, 3423 & 3774 hits, while I would be regularly recording 2,000 hit months throughout 2016, while regularly recording about 2,800+ from 2018 forward -- with a peak month of 4,196 hits in November 2019. 

The numbers don't reflect the time, dedication & heart that goes into these posts. I have done 885 posts up to this point (with just under 157,000 hits) and I can't tell you how many I started that didn't go anywhere, drafts that died before they ever seen the light of day. The most popular APBA Tournament post is GMABT IV: Nice Guys Finish First (Spatz & Zawadzki), a tournament piece that I done, which may not be among my best written, while I was not present at that tournament like most of my tournament pieces... 

but if you read them, you would have thought I was there, and that was the intention, I wanted these articles to be intimate like that. 

Here's a list of APBA Tournaments that I wrote about through the years...

(Click and read)

• Raise Your Glasses to the Glass City (GCABT-V)
• It's Tournament Season!
• Rolling Again in Michigan! (GMABT III Results)
• Rookies Shine at Chicagoland Fall Tourney
• Mosher's 1961 Yankees Wins Grand Rapids Tourney
• Smitten with APBA in the Mitten
• GMABT III - Divisions Announced!
• Say Yes to Greater Michigan (GMABT II)
• Fantasies Do Come True (Chicagoland Summer 2016)
• It's Always Sunny in APBAland (PA Hosts Two)
• Chicago World Series Fall 2015
• Brothers United ("The Spark") - Chicagoland 2013
• My Chicagoland 2013 Fall Results Game #4
• Another Success at Slippery Rock

I wrote these articles not because I was asked to, I wrote them on my free will, because I loved my APBA community and the friends that came with it. These articles are never easy, but they were written to inspire others that loved the game of APBA to give face-to-face tournaments a chance. At the time when these articles were written, the responses and appreciation for these articles seem to be have been genuine. 

Over time, I unfortunately would come to realize that people tend to only live in the moment, while they forget how much you supported them, going above and beyond with my big, delicate heart. It hurts sometimes when reflecting on the past, but I know it was once a fun time.

We are all human, we all make mistakes, and I am no different.

This concludes Part 1

A Brief Hold-Up

So sorry that I haven't wrote in awhile, lots going on.

First off, I am not overly thrilled with the changes that blogger.com has done. I couldn't even download pictures of our late cat Isabelle for my previous blog piece, which left me incredibly frustrated and a little deflated which prevented me to post for some time.

This is easily my worst year blogging on this site, which is fitting because its easily the worst year in all of our existences. So it's been much more difficult to write when the world keeps bogging us down. The wife and I have been a strong effort on all ends to communicate when one is down, and have been leaning on one another during this troubling time.

My mother is back in the hospital after she had to stay a full week last time. She was admitted the first time, the day after we had to put our Isabelle down. My mom got out since then, and on the day of her birthday, the 29th of August she was admitted once again. She has had really bad luck with her birthday, since it was her birthday four years ago that she had her second massive heart attack which after a few days of being in a coma, she fought back to be with us, and has not touched a cigarette since. 

Keep my mother in your thoughts and prayers.

I am sure that I am not the only one going through things these days, so I hope that my readers are hanging in there as well. My Culmination series, plus a post called 'The Incident' will be making their rounds eventually.

In a year that just won't end -- all I can say is hang in there, God bless!

Isabelle

 My wife and I were never able to have children, we tried and tried, and also understood that our odds were against us while she battled PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome), and I would later find out that there may have been reasons why I couldn't procreate as well. We are a great combination in everything else, but for procreation purposes it was never mean't to be. During the recession, I guess we could have explored adoption options or any medical procedures to better our chances to have children, but we had a lot of financial issues which eventually led to a bankruptcy.

As we got older, we realized if it was mean't to be, God would make that happen for us. It was God that led us to one another, and it was God that led Becky to Isabelle.

Isabelle was our daughter, and although she was not our human daughter, our little petite Bombay feline was our daughter none the less. Our whole world evolved around her, and she knew it. We spoiled her, and although she was not a needy cat, she did love attention and she really enjoyed it when all three of us were together. She was in our lives for quite some time. To put it in perspective on how long Izzy has been with us, she was in my wife Becky's life before I even was. Becky and I, will be celebrating our 14th Wedding Anniversary this October.

Bombays are for people that prefer dogs, that may be thinking of having a cat. They are dog-like in many aspects compared to most cats. Isabelle knew when we were going through some emotional situations and she would cater to our needs. She also played fetch, in which she would retrieve the ball, hair-tie, bread twisty, and even rolled-up socks in the same manner as an obedient dog. She was very vocal in letting us know what she wanted, and definitely knew the art of persuasion and when to beg. 

Isabelle had her routines. She was always at the door to greet her mom when she got home, in which she wanted Becky's shoulder. I would get home she would greet me at the door, walk away and go straight for the bathroom, where she would meet me at the bathroom sink for what Becky called 'Wet Pets', in which Isabelle would drink from the faucet that had a light stream constantly going, and I would pet her in which she would purr away. 

I would proceed to go take my shower, and once I was done she would then go to the now vacant bathtub in which Isabelle would play in the leftover water in the tub, drinking the water or while cleaning herself. We used to have a water bowl next to the sink, and when I would get ready for work (using the sink to shave), she would mimic me somewhat dipping her paw in the water while wiping her paw to her face. Becky would come in every time, "Our you having face time with Daddy?" 

After my morning showers after work, I would proceed to the kitchen to have a bowl of cereal, sit on the sofa, while watching the morning news. She would lay against my side, and sometimes impatiently would be demanding my cereal milk before I was done with it. Patience was definitely not one of her skill sets. Depending on the cereal she would drink it the milk, other times she would sniff it and then roll her nose while walking away as if I just publicly offended her or something.

To not confuse my readers, I work overnights, which means once I get off work between 6 a.m. to 6:30 a.m., I would head home, and then would go to bed usually between 8 am to 9 am, while sleeping until 3:30 to 4:30 or whatever. 

Some mornings after a shower and breakfast, sometimes while having breakfast, I would work on some APBA Baseball stats, blogging or some other database stuff. I would do this computer work until Isabelle would start crying for me to go to bed, because that's what she did with us, she called the shots or liked to think that she did. And from time to time, she would continue to do so, and I would be like "Give me 10 minutes" and she would walk away. The worst (or at least the worst for her) was when she gave up, and would already be curled up at the foot of my side of the bed, and I would come in set the white noise sound machine (I do night sounds) while slipping off my slippers -- all while Isabelle would be peaking with this look like "Are you seriously going to disrupt my sleep?" 

She would get up while I was getting comfortable in the bed, she would go to the box or snack on some cat food, and then she would come back to bed, in which was our go-to-sleep routine, she would eventually settle on my left hip. She slept on me, because her mom is the wiggle-worm. Isabelle slept on Becky if Becky was laying on her back. All three of us would have cuddle sessions in which Isabelle would lay on Becky while we both pet Isabelle while we just talked about everything under the sun. Isabelle really loved times like these, I wished that we did it more like the old days, at the end of her life.

Isabelle also hated it when Daddy left for work, she has at times laid across my work shoes or work jacket in an attempt to either stop me from going to work, or had her thinking that she could come with me. Sometimes while I am gathering up my things to head off for work, she would suddenly get in a playful mood, running around the apartment all bat-shit crazy "You don't want to go to work daddy, you want to stay here and play". As if it was that easy.

Sometimes I left for work, only to find a text message five minutes later from Becky "Someone's crying."

Sometimes she would lay on the ground, and do the cute roll-over beg, in which she is also saying 'please don't go' or 'I want something'. She did that when she wanted wet food, which she always had at almost 8 am on the dot, sometimes earlier, sometimes a bit later.... but most often then not, eight on the dot, which made us think she actually could read time. Daylights savings sometimes threw her off, but she usually adjusted pretty good to that.

She didn't interrupt my APBA games in the Kitty-delay matter that many cats have done to some of my other fellow APBA players. I think she knew better not to walk on the dinner table, we did allow her access to the bathroom counter, window sills, and the coffee table though. Right when I was always going to start logging stats on the computer though, she seemed to have a spider sense to delay that stat-keeping, with her suddenly wanting to be held in my lap. She also knew not to walk on my APBA cards, which was interesting because the cat my brother and I had, would safely walk around our baseball cards that we collected. I believe they knew how important those things were to us, and I believe Isabelle knew how much I loved my APBA Baseball.

Due to my schedule, I always stayed up overnights on my days off as well, to keep my body's sleep schedule regular. And due to that, sometimes Becky would sleep on the couch, while I played APBA games at the table, so that Isabelle could lay on her, while watching her daddy rolls sixty-sixes. My wife Becky by the way finds my dice-rolling soothing, maybe Isabelle did too.

Over the 14 years-and-half that Isabelle was in our lives. Isabelle has inspired my custom card company named Izzy Productions, while I also named my APBA team in the Boys of Summer APBA Baseball League, the Traverse City Panthers.

She was our world, and we unfortunately had to dim the lights in our world, a week ago from today. Last Thursday, August 6th at 9:30 am, we said goodbye to Isabelle. 

[I wanted to add pictures, but the new Blogger setup is having server problems & drawbacks]

Three-Part Culmination Series to Come

The upcoming three-part Culmination series is a group of the hardest pieces I have ever had to write. It's about my life with APBA Baseball, my Boys of Summer blog, the community and the friends that I have gained and lost through the years. The articles will be about the memories along the way, and all the heart, time & dedication that went into every single bit of it. The articles will be daring, raw & full of emotions, in which I had to dig deep, get things off my chest, regardless of the price.

I never cared for the APBA prestige, never cared for the APBA Hall of Fame. All I ever cared for was the APBA universe as a whole, and the people inside of it. It was a place that I could escape to, to get away from the ugly aspects of everyday life. Other people may be hungry for the accolades, I am not. These two disparities and the sad truth that even the darkness from outside of APBA has a tendency to invade what I once called my sanctuary.

A year ago from today, my wife starting getting sick with bronchitis to start off the month of August. We would come to find out she had a cancerous tumor that had to be removed. So much has happened since in the past year for everyone, and for many of us this year is uncharacteristically different from others, which means that people may uncharacteristically act or react to a whole great ordeal of things that come their way.

In the end, we are all human, and we all make mistakes.

Tournaments through the Years

The numbers don't reflect the time, dedication & heart that goes into these posts. I have done 885 posts up to this point (with just under 157,000 hits on the site) and I can't tell you how many I started that didn't go anywhere, drafts that died before they ever seen the light of day. 

The most popular APBA Tournament post is GMABT IV: Nice Guys Finish First (Spatz & Zawadzki), a tournament piece that I done, which may not be among my best written, while I was not present at that tournament like most of my tournament pieces... 

but if you read them, you would have thought I was there, and that was the intention, I wanted these articles to be intimate like that. 

Here's a list of APBA Tournaments that I wrote about through the years...

(Click and read)

• Raise Your Glasses to the Glass City (GCABT-V)
• It's Tournament Season!
• Rolling Again in Michigan! (GMABT III Results)
• Rookies Shine at Chicagoland Fall Tourney
• Mosher's 1961 Yankees Wins Grand Rapids Tourney
• Smitten with APBA in the Mitten
• GMABT III - Divisions Announced!
• Say Yes to Greater Michigan (GMABT II)
• Fantasies Do Come True (Chicagoland Summer 2016)
• It's Always Sunny in APBAland (PA Hosts Two)
• Chicago World Series Fall 2015
• Brothers United ("The Spark") - Chicagoland 2013
• My Chicagoland 2013 Fall Results Game #4
• Another Success at Slippery Rock
• Twin Thumbs Up for Twin Cities

I wrote these articles not because I was asked to, I wrote them on my free will, because I loved my APBA community and the friends that came with it. These articles are never easy, but they were written to inspire others that loved the game of APBA to give face-to-face tournaments a chance.

AGBA Eastern League Setup (Robinson Division)

We continue the APBA Galaxy Baseball Association's (AGBA) league breakdown, and continue with the Robinson Division (named after Jackie Robinson) in the Eastern League.

Originally: I used to use the Atlanta Generals uniforms from Out of the Park Baseball, but when the Generals and Philadelphia Veterans uniforms were too similar, I momentarily went with the Atlanta Pilots.

Then a year ago, I finally fell upon a really cool uniform set in the Atlanta Firebirds. The uniforms were love at first sight, while the name at first kind of threw me. Once I read the creator's reasons for the name, the logo and fonts chosen, it all made a world of sense. The rising phoenix became a symbol of post-Civil War Atlanta, after nearly the entire city burned to the ground. It was used all across the city through many outlets over time. The block A at the top of the Atlanta Firebirds logo, and also as the secondary logo, is the same font used for the old Negro League team named the Atlanta Black Crackers. Add these two elements, the rising phoenix, the 'A' to the mix of old school Braves uniforms from the 50's through 70's and you have these beauties...

Team Makeup: The team is represented by players from the 1968, 1993 & 2018 Atlanta Braves, which are loaded with current and upcoming talent. The Braves made the playoffs in 1969, while the 90's Braves were starting to arrive, plus the talented group in today's team. The Firebirds should be in AGBA World Championship hunt for the immediate future.

Early Predictions: Like I mentioned above, a championship contender. The team does have the big three in Greg Maddux, John Smoltz & Tom Glavine, while the team also has Phil Niekro. Keeping the big three together over time will definitely be a challenge, and definitely will be expensive. The Firebirds had to make necessary cuts which watched Steve Avery land with the New Orleans Pirates & Felipe Alou playing in the outfield for the San Diego Tigers.

On the Farm: The Firebirds may have the best group of talent in the minors in Chipper Jones, Javy Lopez, Dusty Baker, Ryan Klesko, Ralph Garr & Max Fried.

Interesting Fact: The Atlanta Firebirds color scheme are similar to other Atlanta sports teams in the Falcons, Hawks & Thrashers, while also continuing the bird theme.

Originally: The Brooklyn Mets was the New York Gothams at one point, while I also thought of going with the Gothams uniforms that sported the old New York Giants color scheme. The more recent Gothams theme was basically the typical New York Mets uniforms, with the word Gothams in the place of Mets. Then I fell onto the Brooklyn Mets uniforms that teamed the old Brooklyn Dodgers uniform look with the typical Mets look, and it created a very interesting hybrid.

Team Makeup: The team consists of 1968, 1993 & 2018 Mets. The team's backbone is the strong promising rotation in Jacob deGrom (A&C-KZ), Tom Seaver (A-YZ), Jerry Koosman (A-Y), Noah Syndergaard (B-YZ), Nolan Ryan (B-XYW) & Zack Wheeler (B-Y). The talent among the position players are definitely in flux considering the weak hitting of 1968, and the confusing direction of the 1993 & 2018 players.

Jeff Kent, Jeff McNeil, Michael Conforto & Brandon Nimmo seem to be the only players in the lineup with significant upside.

Early Predictions: Hard to say, the rotation definitely gives them a chance to win some ball games, but the lineup needs love & luck. The team most likely will fall somewhere between 3rd & 5th place. Atlanta is too good, while Carolina has a great blend of pitching and depth... Not to mention, getting by Philadelphia and Washington won't be easy as well. The team's future could be a slow burn, but if they hold onto all that pitching, eventually things will bounce the Mets' way.

On the Farm: Jeromy Burnitz, Bobby J. Jones, Ken Boswell, Mike Jorgensen & Jim McAndrew.

Interesting Fact: The MLB New York Mets built Citi Field, in which the outside of the stadium is reminiscent of Ebbet's Field. The Brooklyn Mets play at New Ebbets Field in this universe, while the New York Knights will play at Citi Field.

Team Makeup: The team originally consisted of 10 players from the 2018 Tampa Bay Rays, plus 10 various 1993 players & 10 various 1968 players. A well-balanced team with a strong bench, good rotation, and bullpen.

Early Prediction: Carolina should make a strong playoff push with its competitive roster, while Gates Brown's strong J-3 card should be fun to watch everyday.

On the Farm: Not much... Brandon Lowe, Jake Bauers, Greg Garcia & Adam Kolarek are about it, but they do have a lot of young talent on the main team in Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell, Willy Adames & Austin Meadows.

Team Makeup: It really should go without mentioning it, but the team name and look for the most part is from the fictional team from the movie, 'The Natural'. In this day and age of custom logos and uniform-making, the internet had no problems doing their versions of the famed uniformed looks. I will be using those uniforms for classic nights, not to mention a Roy Hobbs edition for an alternate home look. The other uniforms at the top were originals created from the Out of Park Baseball community, by OOTP Uniform guru TXRanger... I can't say enough about his uniforms and logos.

I was going to go with New York Titans, a name used for the old football teams, while the Knights were supposed to be the Los Angeles Knights (representing mostly Angels players), but I decided to go with the Guardians. I felt with having the Los Angeles Royals, that the Knights would make it to much of a renaissance thing in the same city, plus we also had the Monarchs possibility as well, which then came at the last minute for Kansas City. 

The team has 10 players from each of the three eras: 1968, 1993 & 2018.

Early Prediction: The Knights will likely be at the bottom or near it, but it will be very exciting to see Japanese stars Sadaharu Oh and Isao Harimoto playing together on the same team, like they did for the Yomiuri Giants from 1976-1979 at the tail-end of their Japanese baseball careers in real-life.

On the Farm: Nothing but a fringe prospect in IF-Domingo Cedeno.

Team Makeup: The Philadelphia Veterans could have been named numerous things from Freedom, Patriots or Liberty, but in the end it was the Vets, not for its name though. The choice was for the logo and the uniform sets that I found in the Out of the Park Baseball community. The team consists of Phillies for the most part from 1968, 1993 & 2018, while the team landed outfielder Nick Markakis in the waiver draft.

Early Prediction: The team has a chance to be very competitive with outside shot at the division title, but likely will be fighting Washington for 3rd place, behind the N.Y. Pigeons and Boston Colonials. The team is built on a lineup & solid bench that can get on base, while the starting pitching is pretty good as well. The bullpen, and some pitching projects are the team's biggest question marks.

On the Farm: Brewers fans may recognize the two names in Larry Hisle & Don Money, plus Philly also has relief prospect Seranthony Dominguez.

Team Makeup: There was plenty of options for the Washington franchise. I wanted to get away from the Senators and Nationals, while I had options for the Generals, Capitols, Sentinels and Warriors. In the end, I went with the Maroons for numerous reasons. I enjoyed the look of its uniforms, plus I always got a kick from Bugs Bunny saying "What a Maroon." -- So yeah, it plays off the word morons, because let's face it, I think we can agree that the city of Washington is unfortunately populated by many morons in the federal government. The teams consists of 1993 Montreal Expos & 2018 Washington Nationals, plus various players from 1968. 

Early Prediction: The Washington Maroons will likely be in the middle of the pack, competing for third place. The Maroons are a talented bunch that are competing in a tough & talented division... but anything is possible, that's why they play the game.

On the Farm: Victor Robles, Wil Cordero, Rondell White & Kirk Rueter lead the pack.

This concludes the Robinson Division of the Eastern League, coming soon will be a Central League breakdown of the Cobb Division.

Fighting Tigers' Early Picks from 2020 UAL Draft

The Traverse City Fighting Tigers played better at the wrong time to really knock itself out of the top three picks, but still had the 6th overall pick, and 6th pick in each round, plus two additional 2nd Round picks and one 5th Rd pick. There's a total of 9 rounds in the draft.

The Fighting Tigers landed the following...

• SS- Bo Bichette (TOR) - 6th overall, 1st Rd
• SP - Zac Gallen (ARZ) - 30th overall, 2nd Rd
• OF- Nick Senzel (CIN) - 31st overall, 2nd Rd
• RP- Nick Anderson (TB) - 41st overall, 2nd Rd
• 3B/1B - Yandy Diaz (TB) - 55th overall, 3rd Rd
• SP - Josh James (HOU) - 79th overall, 4th Rd

I needed a backup catcher who can fill in for at least 48 games, I almost drafted Austin Nola (C/3B/UT) instead of Diaz, and thought if he was picked that I could pick someone like a Jacob Stallings, but both were gone by the time I drafted Josh James.

A team offered me C-Russell Martin for one of my 5th round picks, so I made the trade in desperation of really needing a backup catcher, and the fact that my options in the draft were dropping off quickly.

Normally, I wouldn't trade a higher pick like a 5th round on Martin, probably more like a 7th round or lower pick, but I can't complain with the draft that I am already having.

Last season, I feel we landed the biggest steal in the draft by drafting starting pitcher Jack Flaherty 16th overall, and I am confident that I may have pulled another late diamond in Zac Gallen at 30th overall... Never would I have imagined getting either that late in either draft.

My SABR Story on Dave Machemer

Shining a Light on Dave Machemer

The game of baseball in many ways is like the vast universe around us. From a glance, you will notice the moon, the sun, bright and faint stars, and from time to time a planet or two. It is not until you explore the universe that you would completely understand how big the whole universe actually is, and how it all comes together & works together as one.

Baseball is the same, you have your obvious juggernauts in Babe Ruth, Willie Mays & Ty Cobb, and many others in the upper echelon of the sport. Then the next levels down of Hall of Fame players you have your players like Paul Molitor, Rod Carew, and Billy Williams. Then there is those hovering in the stratosphere that are just not good enough to make the Hall of Fame, or that should be in the Hall of Fame (depending on where you are in the debate) on guys like Dale Murphy, Dwight Evans, Don Mattingly, Keith Hernandez, Steve Garvey, Gil Hodges, Dave Parker and many others. Following those stars are players like Torii Hunter and Johnny Damon, durable veterans making huge impacts on their fan bases, putting together strong career numbers, with plenty of All-Star appearances, all while never sniffing any real consideration for the Hall of Fame.

My brother Chris and I, both enjoy playing a board game called APBA Baseball. The game is a baseball simulation tabletop game which each baseball player gets their own individual card, while their performance of the card depends a lot on how they actually performed in real life. The game also comes with boards for each on-base scenarios such as bases loaded or runners on 2nd & 3rd, while rolling the dice provide the outcomes of many variable scenarios. The game can be played face to face, or solitaire, which the latter is often the case.

We decided to start replaying the 1978 Major League Baseball season via the basic game version of APBA Baseball back on Easter 2019. We both live in different parts of Michigan, and thought it would be better done as a joint effort in which I would replay the American League games, while he played the National League, all solitaire. We would use the real starters from each game's box scores. He decided to do the actual starting lineups' batting orders, while I used the same starters but adjusted the lineups.

My reasoning for adjusting the batting order is that I needed to have that manager experience, while I could not see myself placing designated hitter Leroy Stanton as the Seattle Mariners' cleanup hitter for the first 30 games or so, when he had a horrible season (.182 BA & .514 OPS), so I batted him last. I definitely can see where Seattle manager Darrell Johnson was coming from, by placing Stanton cleanup, he was just coming off a good expansion season in which he batted .275 with 27 HR & 90 RBI (.852 OPS) for the M's, but for some reason Stanton was not able to come even close to repeating his 1977 season, while his lousy 1978 season would prove to be his last.

By playing this game, we would play guys that we obviously knew in Jim Rice and Ron Guidry, who both had amazing seasons in 1978, but we would also play guys that we would never have known about...

Enter the California Angels' Dave Machemer.

I was replaying a game from May 20th, 1978 between the visiting California Angels (21-14) at the Milwaukee Brewers (18-17). The Angels' star second baseman Bobby Grich was injured sliding into second base, while he would be replaced by Machemer for the remainder of the game. For Machemer, it was his alternate reality MLB debut, his real life debut would not actually happen for another month (June 21st).

Machemer would make his alt debut a memorable one during my 1978 A.L. Replay, by hitting a three-run home run (in his 2nd at-bat) off Milwaukee starting pitcher Bill Travers during the 5th inning. The home run gave California a 4-2 lead, which would prove to be pivotal in their victory that day. Interesting fact, in real life, Machemer would also hit a home run during his MLB debut, but he would accomplish that feat on his very first at-bat, a deep fly to left off Geoff Zahn of the Twins at Metropolitan Stadium. The home run would go on to be his only home run of his brief MLB playing career, while making him one of 118 players to hit a home run in his first career at-bat.

The unique connection between the two home runs happening on his debuts for my 1978 A.L. Replay and real life 1978, definitely peaked my interest in learning more about Machemer.

I noticed like myself, that he was from the state of Michigan. The Benton Harbor High School product, born in St. Joseph, played his college ball for the Central Michigan University Chippewas from 1971-1972. He would be selected by the Angels in the 4th Round of the 1972 MLB June Amateur Draft. Machemer would spend some time in the minors, making his name as a speedster who would go on to steal 246 bases during his minor league career. Machemer made his MLB debut at the age of 27, while going on to play two short stints in the majors during 1978 & 1979 for the California Angels, and my beloved Detroit Tigers. Machemer's stay in the majors was short-lived, in which he would wallow in the minors as a professional baseball player until the end of the 1982 season. Machemer played his final seasons in the Minnesota Twins' minor league system for the Toledo Mud Hens.

Machemer's life in the minors would become his full-time gig, as he would establish himself as a minor league manager, managing in 14 different locations, all different levels, while logging 1,640 career wins. He accomplished his 1,000th career win as manager of the Double-A Harrisburg Senators on August 22, 2003. He would go on to win two league championships, his first coming off his 2nd season as a manager, by managing the 1986 Stockton Ports to the title in the California League. The second league title came 22 years later, managing the rookie-level Arizona Giants during the 2008 Arizona Fall League. Dave would earn his only Manager of the Year title in between the titles, for his work with the 1996 El Paso Diablos in the Texas League.

In 2007, Machemer's minor league career started morphing from managing towards scouting, while working for the San Francisco Giants. The team sent him on the road for 3 months with advanced scout & former Minnesota Twins outfielder Tim Uhlaender, concentrating on areas such as athleticism, arm strength, bat speed, while submitting reports.

Machemer would go on to join the Baltimore Orioles' scouting staff in 2014, in which for his first three seasons, he reported solely on players who were drafted in the first two rounds, all while reporting to team scouting director Gary Rajsich. Machemer acknowledged that although the Orioles depended a lot on sabermetrics by using analysis and computers, that he still put heavy emphasis on his veteran experience, eyes & heart on what makes a ballplayer. Machemer continued his scouting for the Orioles, until he and 11 other team scouts & officials were relieved of their duties by rookie General Manager Mike Elias; Elias was part of the Houston Astros front office from 2011-2013 that overhauled that franchise, transforming that team into a World Series winner in 2017.

Machemer reflecting back on his lone home run, "I hit it good and right down the third base line. It ended up going into the stands for a home run, and I was so excited that I missed touching first base. The coach called me to come back and touch the bag, and I did and then circled the rest of the bases. The first person to pick me up and hug me as I returned to our dugout was Nolan Ryan.”

Make no bones about it, Machemer's professional career does not echo any of the names that I mentioned near the top, nor does it warrant the attention of a Mike Bordick, Danny Valencia or even a Don Kelly. It's all part of the beauty of baseball and what I love most about it, is that all little pieces play a part in this larger baseball universe, much in the same ways that a gas cloud, random comet, or an asteroid plays in the universe around us.

You might miss Dave Machemer with a mere glance, but if you look closer, you will find an interesting life built around Baseball.

Resources:

• Baseball Reference.com
• Wikipedia
• Axisa, Mike / CBS sports.com
• Krah, Steve / www.IndianaRBI.com 

AGBA Eastern League Setup (Ruth Division)

There were many questions on how I came up with the 36 teams, the geographical set up, and what the makeup of each team's rosters are.

The setup is as follows for the three leagues...

The evolution how all the team names came about was quite the process, some teams names changed a few times over.

Let's start with the Eastern League

Starting with the Ruth Division...

Originally: There was a debate whether the team would be known as the Baltimore Terrapins (the same name as the short-lived Federal League team) or the Baltimore Bombers. I decided near the end that I need a team with Red and Gold colors, and the Bombers bring that, plus I really love the logo.

Team Makeup: The majority of the players on the Bombers' AGBA team are Baltimore Orioles players from 1968, 1993 & 2018. The team is built on a strong rotation (which in this league there are plenty of strong rotations, thanks in particularly to 1968) which is led by Dave McNally, Ben McDonald, Jaime Moyer, Mike Mussina & Tom Phoebus. The team also has a stellar bullpen in Gregg Olson (A&C*-X), Moe Drabowski (A*-Y) & Eddie Watt (A*-X). The lineup has good pop, but lacks in average a bit. The team is one of the better fielding teams, highlighted by Brooks Robinson at third, Cal Ripken at shortstops -- two studs on the left side of the diamond who both will likely compete for a Galaxy Glove at the end of the year.

Early Prediction: The Boston Colonials & New York Pigeons are likely the two favorites in this division, putting Baltimore in 3rd or 4th place. The starting pitching has a chance to carry the club into a wild card situation.

On the Farm: Jeffrey Hammonds, Dave May & Merv Rettenmund.

Interesting Fact: The Baltimore Bombers was the proposed name for an NFL Expansion Team, which was rejected by the NFL.

Originally: The Boston Colonials were a slam-dunk choice, and one of the easiest choices for this entire project. I fell upon these uniforms on the Out of Park Baseball message board (at least the two uni's on the left, I designed the far right alternate uni), which are basically the normal Boston Red Sox uniforms with green thrown into the mix. The wordmarks are also in the same font as the Red Sox.

Team Makeup: Mostly Boston Red Sox players from 1968, 1993 & 2018, while having to shed payroll in trades. The team has traded J.D. Martinez, Frank Viola, Danny Darwin & George Scott while bringing in prospects (including Lourdes Gurriel, Jr) plus pitchers Robbie Ray, Archie Bradley & catcher Robinson Chrinos, which the team lacked a backstop (Carlton Fisk won't be on board until 1969, and that's only for a cup of coffee). The lineup is a beast with Carl Yastrzemski, Mookie Betts, Mo Vaughn, Reggie Smith, Andrew Benintendi, Xander Bogaerts & more...

Early Prediction: The lineup will be their calling card, it should give them a legit shot at the division title. The top three of the rotation in Chris Sale (A-KYZ), Ray Culp (B-X) & David Price (B-YZ) matches up well, while Aaron Sele, Roger Clemens and Robbie Ray will also get plenty of starts.

On the Farm: OF-Tony Conigliaro [NC], SS-Lourdes Gurriel, Jr & P-Tom Hall

Interesting Fact: I have used numerous Boston teams for APBA and Out of the Park, featuring names as such as the Shamrocks & Pilgrims. The Boston Colonials uniforms stemmed from a custom-made uniforms for the Boston Masons.

Originally: The Florida Rockets did have some competition in the Florida White Sox, but in the end I had to go with the NASA link to Florida, going with the Rockets. You may notice the Rockets' color scheme, very much similar to that of the Houston Astros. In fact, the guy that designed these uniforms, also had Florida Astros uniforms as well.

The White Sox had a cool Miami Hurricanes color scheme going, in fact, I also designed some of the uniforms to go with the creator's editions of the White Sox. I will have to show them off some time in a future blog piece.

Team Makeup: Two thirds of the team was Florida Marlins from 1993 & 2018, the other third (the 1968 portion of the roster) landed players such as Ken Harrelson, Bob Miller, Stan Williams, Jim Maloney, Lew Krausse Jr & Tommy Helms via the dispersal draft. The dispersal draft had overflow players from the 1968, 1993 & 2018 seasons to fill out remainder of rosters for teams such as the Rockets, that may not have had a 1968 MLB counterpart. The Rockets also landed Miguel Andujar, Sean Newcomb & Mark Carreon in the Waiver Draft.

Early Prediction: The pitching is a bunch of rag-tags, while the lineup should be fun to watch led by Gary Sheffield, J.T. Realmuto, Jeff Conine, Chuck Carr, to go along with Harrelson's outlier season of 35 home runs from 1968. The team though will likely be competing in the bottom-half of the division behind the likes of Boston, New York, Baltimore & Pittsburgh.

On the Farm: The team has future closer Robb Nen in the minors, but not much else.

Originally: The best option I had for the Montreal franchise was the Montreal Royals or Montreal Royaux, but the Western League already featured the Los Angeles Royals. So the best thing I had left was the Montreal Voyageurs. In this project, I am using no current MLB team names, while I have used some old school defunct names such as the Milwaukee Braves, and was going to use the Kansas City Athletics, but that was changed at the last minute (more on that in a later post). So the Expos down the road, could be likely.

Team Makeup: One of the 6 Dispersal teams, which expanded the league. The team has players from all different teams over 1968, 1993 & 2018. The team features Roy White, Matt Carpenter, Robinson Cano, Ken McMullen, Dansby Swanson, Mark Portugal & Pedro Astacio.

Early Prediction: Will likely be fighting the Florida Rockets in trying to stay out of the cellar.

Originally: I believe the three original New York franchises that I had at the beginning was the New York Titans, New York Knights and Brooklyn Gothams. The Titans and Knights both almost represented the MLB New York Yankees players.

A year or so ago, I fell upon a story in UniWatch, which featured a fictional team named the New York Pigeons. The team was featured in tri-state lottery commercial, which the team was playing. There was foam fingers, jackets, caps, fan gear... the directors went all out on it.

Due to the buzz that they were getting, I decided to make some uniforms of theirs for Out of the Park Baseball. When I started diving back into this project last spring, I decided that the Yankees should be lovable Pigeons, because if you are going to try and tolerate the Yankees, you may as well make them somewhat enjoyable, right?! LOL!

So enter the Pigeons...

Team Makeup: Loaded with players from the 1968, 1993 & 2018 New York Yankees. The team's pitching is stellar in both the rotation and the bullpen. Mel Stottlemyre Sr (A-Z), Jimmy Key (B-YZ), Stan Bahnsen (A-YZ), Fritz Peterson (B-ZZ) & CC Sabathia (B-Y) make up the rotation with Masahiro Tanaka and Sonny Gray in the wings if needed. The bullpen features Steve Hamilton (A*-XZ), Lee Smith (B*-XYZ), Chad Green (A*-XYZ) & Aroldis Chapman (A*-KXYW).

Early Predictions: The Pigeons along with the Boston Colonials should be the two favorites from the Ruth Division.

On the Farm: Gerald Williams, Jonathan Loaisiga, Greg Colbrunn, Domingo Guzman & Tony Solaita, with future arrivals of Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera & Jorge Posada on the horizon. 

Originally: The Pittsburgh Arsenal used to be my go-to in other APBA projects, I then bounced to another uniform set called the Pittsburgh Ironmen, that actually went away from the typical black and yellow Pittsburgh sports teams, and was using a Giants orange. The uniforms never grew on me, while eliminating the Ironmen name would save me trouble over time, on explaining "Yes, Pittsburgh is better known for their steel."

That's how the Arsenal came back into focus. Also the Arsenal will be using primary yellow compared to division rival New York Pigeons, who actually rely on mostly black and gray, with a splash of yellow. Most of the Pigeons' yellow comes with their Away-Commercial uniforms, while they wear black hats and helmets for both home and road games. The commercial uses more yellow than I intend for the Pigeons.

Pittsburgh in the original setup was in the Central League - Young Division, I jostled some teams around with Nashville going from Central-Young to the Central-Cobb division, while Twin Cities moved to Young Division. This also had a lot to do with the Canadian teams moving around and such, with the Toronto Reds playing in the Central League (Cobb Division), and the Montreal Voyageurs playing in this Ruth Division in the Eastern League.

Team Makeup: Loaded mostly with players from the 1968, 1993 & 2018 Pittsburgh Pirates. The team also took advantage of the Pigeons' salary cuts by acquiring SP-Luis Severino in the waiver draft, while the team also picked up 3B-Ken Caminiti.

Early Predictions: Pittsburgh has a strong rotation and plenty of talent, but not sure if its enough to hang with New York or Boston. Team likely has edge over Baltimore for 3rd place.

On the Farm: One of the better groups of prospects in Al Oliver, Richie Hebner, Dock Ellis, Freddie Patek & Kevin Newman.

The Genesis of AGBA

I want to say it was actually two Christmases ago when I first mentioned it to my brother Chris, and the original idea is now quite a difference from what it is now.

The great thing about APBA is that we let our imaginations run completely wild. We can replay historic seasons or playing seasons or teams that mattered most to us during our childhoods. We sometimes run leagues with other APBA owners, while we get to pretend to be General Managers drafting today's stars onto rosters, while scouting for the next big thing so you can get an edge on your division rival. I have pretty much done everything that I have imagined, but decided last Christmas to re-explore what I thought about the previous Christmas.

Originally, I started thinking about doing 20 teams franchises from 1967, while using 1992 & 2017 players, but from only those franchises, and from year-to-year they would have real life transactions from year-to-year. The other franchises would join in the same manner as they did, with 1969 & 1977 being the next years of expansion.

I mentioned it to my brother again, during Easter 2019 (the same time that we launched our 'Brothers In Dice: 1978 Replay').

He asked good questions, or some obvious questions that I completely overlooked...

Chris: "So what's going to happen to like the Mariners?"
Shawn (Me): "They'll join in 1977, and will be teamed up with 2002 & 2027"
Chris: "So... you won't ever get to Junior or Randy Johnson?"
Shawn: "Yeah, I mean this is a different universe and it will only have these players."

But I went home that night, and then I realized he was right, and then I started also thinking about the true transaction deal, and it really dawned on me how teams like the Detroit Tigers would be completely screwed -- Tigers went into the 70's rebuilding, they were lousy in the 1990's and are currently rebuilding as we speak, that is a lot of losing for quite some time in the foreseeable future. Plus I started thinking about the fact that the same franchises that have succeeded will be the same teams succeeding and thought what if I did all 30 franchises instead, and had certain ways of bringing in some of the home talent, while letting teams do any transactions.

At the same time, I was looking at the cool baseball logos and uniforms created in the Out of Park Baseball universe, and thought that I wanted to give these franchises in this dream project their own personas, identities. This is a universe that will be making its own sort of history, a universe that Barry and Bobby Bonds will be both playing at the same time, while at their peaks.

Originally 1967-1992-2017 was supposed to be the season to launch it, but I already owned a 1993 and 2018 set, and plus I would be closer to current players season, instead of playing close to 2-3 seasons behind the current stars. I was using the 2018 MLB Season cards for a mail-in league that I am part of, in the UAL, and did have to wait for that season to end (which ended this past, horrific March).

I bought the 1968 season, which I always wanted to own, and that's when the true evolution started to come together. At one point I realized a 30 team league, with the schedule that I wanted would be a complete nightmare, for a half-season league. I believe originally it was supposed to be 92-94 games (I can't remember what the original number was) for each of the 30 teams, than I decided 28 teams would make the schedule making much easier....

But then, I looked over the talent in the three sets, and realized there would be so much baseball talent sitting out of action. While digging through some old files, I started looking over one of my old league setups for a Out of the Park Baseball project, and realized that one of its 36-team setups could be doable in this APBA dream project. I came up with a 76-games each, which actually wasn't much different from the other setup with 90+ games & 30 teams. Plus 76 games is just short of 81 games, and it will be easy to glance at a card and realize if I am approaching innings limits or whatever, by cutting the totals in half.

I figured out a schedule while the last few months, I rounded out rosters while still trying to decide how the divisions would be set up, and what teams would finally make the cut. Believe me, even as of a few weeks ago, I juggled around some teams with new logos, while ditching those that I was not comfortable with.

By the way, the league name AGBA (pronounced AG-BAH) actually was the same name of my high school APBA Baseball league with my classmates. I always liked the name, although it might come off sacrilegious having an abbreviation inside of an abbreviation, with the league being called AGBA (APBA Galaxy Baseball Association)...

but anyways, I will start breaking down each league and how I came up with the team, and all that.

AGBA Baseball: League's Setup of Play

The APBA Galaxy Baseball Association (AGBA, pronounced AG-BAH!) is a league of 36 teams, which consists of MLB players from three different eras. The inaugural season will involve players from the 1968, 1993 & 2018 MLB Seasons, with the next season following suit with 1969, 1994 & 2019 players and so on...

• Each team will consist of 10 players from each era at all times, no more or no less. 

• The league will consist of three individual leagues: The Western, Central & Eastern Leagues, in which each league consists of 12 teams separated into two divisions of 6 teams each.

• In AGBA's entirety: 36 teams, 3 leagues, 6 divisions.

• Each team will play a total of 76 games -- 6 games against each team in opposite division, and 8 games each against their division rivals. Teams don't play teams outside of their individual leagues, until the 2nd round of the AGBA Playoffs.

• Each team has a soft salary cap of $100 million.

• Players salaries are from a simulation baseball site, which the salaries are based on their actual MLB performance, endurance & fielding for that individual season. Their salaries will flux from season to season, which will create interesting player cuts, trades & pickups from season to season as well.

• Universal DH rule is in effect, due to there being many star hitters. 

• Stamina charts and stamina ratings will be used for starting pitchers each game. Each pitcher gets a pregame dice roll to see if their stamina went up or down prior to the game (think Max Scherzer during 2019 MLB Playoffs, who woke up with a stiff neck).

• Steals charts and battery mates' grades will be in effect. There will be the normal, result 15-11 basic game element to it, plus strategy to steal whenever a manager feels like it. Using the Master Game speed ratings for base runners, while they will want to steal against easier battery mates. Catcher's throwing arm & pitcher's move to first will be combined, meaning if you have a catcher with a TH+3, and a pitcher with MF+3, you have a +6, to go against the baserunner with a speed of 26 minus the +6 = speed of 20, meaning more margin of error for the base runner.

• I will be using the 2011 PAAL Boards, which has results depending on the HR Allowance grades to pitchers such as H, G, M & L.

• Also by using the PAAL Boards, also means that I am using the numeric pitching grades that are used in Master Game or Baseball for Windows.

• I will also be using the APBA Baseball Error Card and Unusual Play Card (from the APBA Journal)

• APBA Brawl Chart.

• J-4 Batters can only start 6 times during a season (which all players starts will be tracked), while the games that they don't start won't see those players appear until the 6th inning or later.

• J-4 Starting Pitchers will be held to innings limits and game starts, equivalent to a 76-game season.

• J-1 or J-0 Starting Pitchers can pitch every 5th day (3 games off between each start). 

• Relievers will be using Usage Fatigue charts, and may be forced to rest from time to time, depending on their usage. 

• Non J-4 Starting Pitchers will not have innings limits, since those innings will have a lot to do with the stamina they are given from start to start, pitchers hitting their stamina max will suffer fatigue & possible grade reductions considering the scenario.

• Reliever innings limits depend on the grade... ( A Relievers = 100% of innings pitched, B Relievers = 112% of innings pitched, C Relievers = 125% of innings pitched, D Relievers= no limits.) Once relievers pass their season total marker, they are downgraded a grade, then another grade for every 12% over.

• In-Inning relief changes, relievers up 1 letter grade (or +5 numerically) -- only for LH vs LH & RH vs RH.

• All Injury charts will be in effect (using J-Chart), with result of dice roll result will be split in half, due to the season practically being half of what Major League Baseball plays. For example, if a J-4 rolls a 34, and the result is 27 games, split in half (13.5 rounded up) to 14 games.

• J-1, J-2 & J-3 Hitters can start as many games, but there is always the risk factor, especially for J-3 players.

• Each Regular Season game will consist of 9 innings, plus a potential of 3 maximum extra innings, meaning teams can end up in a tie (after the end of the 12th inning). Teams will record 2 points for wins, 1 point for ties in the standings. I know, I know... it's Baseball blasphemy to have ties, but I have 1,368 games a season to roll, and I would be helping myself in the long run. Plus through exhibitions, I have already seen teams come back from 5 runs to 8 runs down late in games, teams can score in bunches.

This should pretty much cover the in-game setup, and season setup. 

Next I will go over the genesis of the league setup, where teams are located, how I decided on what, and how things will be done from season to season, including the playoff setup, etc etc.