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.