Some Simulation baseball

 I suppose I have been into simulation baseball since 1994 or so. The first taste wasn't really even true sim baseball, but it lead to bigger and better things. I got a Commodore 64 computer from my Uncle Tom, and he gave us about 100 bootlegged floppy discs. One of those discs contained the original Hardball game.

 I played hundreds of games of Hardball. After a while, I started inputing my name and the names of friends as the players in the game, and kept score. I didn't keep season stats, but it led to many projects that were similar in the future. 

Somewhere around that time, my 14-year old self also got a carrom board. I noticed how it was shaped like a diamond, and got the idea to make my room into a baseball field and make a season using the pros and add myself, some friends, and guys from the Hardball roster to the rosters of the teams in my league by having a draft. After the draft, I came up with some basic rules. I took a pencil for a bat and a marble for a ball and would throw the marble up in the air with one hand and swing the pencil with the other one, and then watch what would happen. If a ground ball landed in one of the corner pockets of the board, that meant a fielder caught it, and I would roll the ball to the 1st base pocket (or another one with runners on), and if it went in the pocket successfully, I would repeat the roll. If it went in again, the runner was out. If either roll missed, it was an error. If a ball was hit in the air near where an infielder or outfielder was positioned, I would throw the marble in the air twice. If caught twice, it was an out. If not, an error. There were a lot of errors in my game. With runners on, I would flip a quarter before the pitch if I wanted to attempt a steal. 2 flips of tails meant a successful steal, 2 heads meant an out if the pitch wasn’t hit. I had 12 teams the first year, 6 teams per league and 2 per division. Each team played the other teams one, and division winners and 1 wild card made the playoffs. I played for the Atlanta Braves that first season, and led the Majors in HRs, RBI, AVG, Stolen Bases, and most everything else (of course). The Braves went 11-0 and won the title. I even created some of my first ‘customs’ with that league. I took some old Topps Match the Stats cards and traces the outline of them and then drew a custom design and picture for the front of each player. I also drew backs for the complete with stats. 

Real classy cards, huh? The one of myself is from the 2nd season, the one of my cousin Andrew is a future stars subset from season 1. 

The next season had a few more teams and ended up taking a few years to complete as I was finishing high school, got a job, was heavily involved in my youth group, and was collecting cards and busting packs probably a little more than I am now. I ended up finishing the 2nd season in my college dorm, changing the format by creating charts for each player and rolling dice to see the result. I again led the majors in everything and got a ring. I also made cards for that year, and although I lost most of them a long time ago, I still have mine and one of my cousin Andrew. I started a blog for my league, just somewhere that I could try to input everything that I had (some scoresheets, records/stats, draft info), so if you were interested in any of that, feel free to check it out.

Later that year in college, my roommate JT (who would later become my brother-in-law) introduces me to a sim League he and his brother were doing called the WJBL for Walk-Man/Jeffro Baseball League. JT’s brother Jeff was Jeffro, and his friend Walker was the Walk-Man. I was able to find an archived version of the League’s website. I ran the Colorado Rockies, and judging from my roster, we should’ve ran away with the division. The League was like a regular sim league where you draft players, and they simmed a whole season with your team. My division had a bunch of sub .500 teams, and going into the last week, I was in 2nd place. Either Albert Pujols or Ichiro (both were on my team) got injured and I lost my chance to get in first, but Jeff ended up telling the guy who was commissioner that there was an HTML error and they needed to replay the last week of games for my team because the injury didn’t happen, and I ended up winning the division. We never got around to the playoffs because of some personal stuff with Walk-Man. 

A year or two after that, my buddy Sawney introduced me to Stategic Baseball Simulator. One time after driving back from an Orlando Rays game, we stopped at a McDonalds to eat, and he got out his laptop, and we replayed a game from the 1986 World Series with myself running the Red Sox. I lost. 

In 2009, I ran SBS after finding a complete 1994 MLB schedule, and finished out the strike-shortened ‘94 season. Gwynn hit .410, and the White Sox beat the Reds in the World Series, with Ron Karkovice hitting 3 HRs in the final game. I got Ron to sign his ‘95 Topps Cyberstats card, but he wouldn’t inscribe ‘3-HR World Series Game’.  

I got OOTP at some point between then and when I met my wife in 2011, and have dabbled in doing another season of the first ‘sim league’ that I have done, this time using the 1999 rosters (season 1 was 1997, season 2 was 1998). It kind of took the back burner as I got married in 2012, found a new job, got full time, had a son in 2016, and have just had other commitments with my time. Maybe I’ll find a newer version of the game and input the ‘99 rosters with the original friends, as well as new ones I’ve made since then. 

The sim baseball doesn’t stop there, though. I came across a thread on a Commodore 64 forum of a guy who played 162 games with the Champs, one of the 2 teams you could play with when playing Hardball (the other team was the All-Stars). The poster used a DH every game, and kept stats for the Champs, and posted them. I thought the idea was interesting, but I had a few questions. I normally played without a DH, and let the pitcher hit. It's hard to explain, but having a DH doesn't effect anything, the number of the hitter in the batting order was all that mattered. Basically for the Champs, spots #1, 2, and 8 could steal 2nd 100% of the time and were very fast, no matter who you placed in that spot. #3, 4, 5, and 9 were all the only guys who could hit HRs over the fence, with 4 probably be the most powerful. #6 was the worst and slowest hitter, and #7 had decent speed, but not enough to steal bases. After seeing the post, I decided to play a season and keep the stats of the Champs, but not use a DH. After playing Hardball for almost 20 years, I had learned a lot of strategy and I learned even more playing the game. I absolutely slaughtered the numbers of the guy who wrote the original post. I have just about all of the scoresheets of the games, and wrote my results of the sims at the end of the post on the 4th page. 

When I started doing customs in 2013 or 2014, when I searched for customs to mark cards off of the checklists, I ran across a few sites that basically said ‘KOD’ and then had a number next to it. It was a sim league that operated a season under different criteria, like best World Series losing teams, best 3rd place teams, or teams the year after winning the pennant. Each league had baseball cards to go with the teams, many of the cards being customs. I was fascinated with the cards, and a few years later, I came across one of the main custom guys in the league, Marc, when I was invited to join the FB Custom Cards Page. Marc told me about the other sim league he is in ARAIG, which plays 2 seasons per year. They attempt to replay a historical MLB season and try to get the same amounts of At-Bats and Innings Pitched per player as they really had in the real season. I had the honor of making a ton of cards for the 1983 and 1984 seasons for that league. 

Finally, the last and most current sim league is one that CJ of Braniac Baseball Card Breaks runs. He has been doing the league for a little bit now, and is playing as the Detroit Tigers in the 1980 season. A number of players have switched teams (Cal Ripken, Jr. is a Red, Robin Yount is a Ranger, and Dwight Evans is a Royal), and he recently posted on the FB Custom Card Group that he wanted some customs for the upcoming 1981 season. Basically some ‘81 Topps cards with the traded  players put on their new teams. I did my best, and did the first batch of ones for him, and once the 1981 rosters are set, I’ll have my work cut out for me. He is hosting the games on YouTube and doing commentary, so you’ll get to see some of the customs along with the real cards of the players who stayed on their current teams. I look forward to following the next season, as well as the ARAIG seasons which are currently going. 

I hope you enjoyed my stories about sim baseball. Are any of you guys into simulation baseball?  If so, check out some of these leagues that are going, and be sure to check out CJ’s Mercari page with cards from his breaks. 

RIP, Hank. You will always be the true Home Run King. I wish I could've been old enough to have seen you play, but I am glad that I've been lucky enough to get a playing days card of you and a piece of one of your bats that perhaps you hit a Home Run with. You were a true legend.

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy