My Fictional Sports Universe
Like many of you, since discovering OOTP many, many years ago - and even before that going back to programs like Lance Haffner games or dice games like APBA- I have played and enjoyed a number of other text-based sim games in a wide variety of sports. I have chronicalled many of my different dynasty's on this board and others including a few that combined multiple sports. I love playing pretty much any text-based sports game and the perfect mod, or stand-alone program for that matter, for me would be one that combined all the major sports in one universe. I would love to see something that would allow me to take the stats and news articles generated from my OOTP league and intermingle them with my FHM league and my football and basketball replays. Imagine a game where we could have cross-over athletes so that when OOTP says in a storyline that a player quit baseball for football they actually show up as a player in your football sim. I am sure that is too much to ask but it doesn't stop me from trying to replicate it in my solo sims.
I have been running an OOTP sim for a couple of months that I started in 1901. It matches up nicely with an old BBCF sim I had been playing off and on for several years and an FHM5 fictional sim I started a while back. I had been kind of thinking of those sims as a concurrent universe with all the sports running at the same time. The universe got a little broader when I was able to track down my old license codes for Total Pro Golf and Pro Football Simulator. I use PFS, even though it is very old, because it is the only game I know that allows me to import my BBCF college draft classes and I can also customize it's league allignment. So I have been running all of these games at roughly the same time period to mimic a multi-sports universe. That universe expanded recently when I picked up a copy of Fast Break College Basketball and Fast Break Pro Basketball as they were each on sale for $15. Now, I have never been a big basketball fan but I can't believe I never tried these two games before. The amount of customization you can do easily rivals OOTP and the learning curve was very easy. I quickly made a college basketball mod with the conferences of the 1920s and mapped out very easily how the league can add schools and conferences as it progresses through the decades. So now I have baseball, hockey, college and pro football and basketball, as well as golf all running in a similar time period and all loosely based as historical leagues but within a completely fictional player universe. I am going to do a dynasty report with baseball as the primary focus but I will also talk about happenings in other sports as well during the same time period. I might even throw some boxing in if I can get my old TBCB game to work properly. I act as the commissioner and just sim for the hockey and baseball. For the golf I have a golfer created who is average, good enough to play on the tour but I won't be a contender in most tournaments so I will rarely if ever write about him and instead will focus on the greats of the game. The college football and college basketball are a little different in that I had been running teams in both. Which gave me the idea that I am acting as the athletic director of a school. I had taken over Oklahoma of the Missouri Valley Conference in 1911 in college basketball and as soon as I catch up to BBCF (which is in 1914 now) I will take over the Sooners in that league as well - unless Oklahoma hoops fires me before then. When we catch up to the baseball, which is in 1915 now, I will also oversee the college baseball program of the school I am running in the other two sports. So I guess this dynasty is a multi-sport fictional-historical journey of a college athletic director running a baseball, basketball and football program while also acting as a reporter covering professional sports. Some of these saves, like the college football league, I started two or three years ago and have been slowly playing so updates may be sporadic at times but I am thinking this will be a universe I can revisit over time. |
My dynasty begins in 1901 for all of the sports except for golf which I started in the mid-1890's using an old sim I found on my backup drive that I did about 4 years ago and it was in 1910 now. I am going to pick-up my recaps beginning in 1901 though. The leagues are alligned like this:
BASEBALL - I have a standard 16 team major league with real team names. Each club has 4 levels of minors and there are a few extra minor league teams scattered through the league's that are unaffiliated. There are also two independent leagues with one based in Mexico and one in Canada. The independents do get some local players each year but the vast majority of the talent comes from a 72 team NCAA feeder league. The league is divided into 8 conferences that play a 120 game schedule strictly within their conference as they battle to earn a spot in the 16 team College World Series. I originally had a high school level feeder league as well but in testing there were far too many players coming in to the league each year so I deleted the high school league and lowered the college ages a year or two. The file itself is a slightly modified version of one of the two quick starts I shared here HOCKEY - A pseudo historical version of the early days of hockey starts with a 6 team league of Canadian teams but will eventually expand and relocate some teams to include the Original Six plus two. It is real team names but entirely fictional players like each of the other sports. COLLEGE FOOTBALL - There was an old 1970s mod made for BBCF many years ago. Several years back I tinkered with it a bit to make it closer to the 1930s. I started my league in 1901 many years ago and have played it slowly off-and-on for years always running a team. While the gameplay can't be adjusted to 1930s style football, the team names and top clubs started out as being designed to mimic it so there will be different schools like the University of San Francisco, Texas Mines and Sewanee playing in this league and the conference alignment's are decidedly old school. No ACC or SEC instead many of those teams can be found in the Southern Conference. The SWC is still active and there are many independents including powerhouses Notre Dame and Army. I also used a OOTP 1900s-1950s names file to mod the names of my BBCF athletes to be more era appropriate. PRO FOOTBALL - I just restarted my pro football league as I found the draft class exports for BBCF seniors beginning in 1909. The plan is to run a league from 1909-1919 that folds and then I will import the player pool into my NFL when it debuts in 1920. This means there is no initial pool of created players in the NFL. All are from my BBCF league. GOLF - as mentioned in the first post I started my golf solo career many years ago and recently discovered the save along with all of my old course files. It's 1911 in this world so it will blend in nicely with the other sports. I will try to play an occasional tournament but the recaps will be brief and focused primarily on the majors. COLLEGE BASKETBALL- I mentioned in the previous post that I love FBCB. It is so easy to mod and the only limitation is I don't believe I can eliminate schools that drop out of D1 so the only restriction is once I had a school it stays forever. Using that, I found a great 1953 league mod and worked back to the early 1920s where I was going to start my league and then add teams and change conferences according to history. But I decided I wanted to start in 1901 and have a history like my other sports so I kept the same 1922 alignment and will use it from 1901 until I pass 1922. I am having a blast playing this game and I am not really much of a basketball fan, but the recruiting is addictive. It is easy to learn the basics but very hard to master so I will see how my Oklahoma Sooners fare now that I have taken the helm after simming from 1901 to 1909 to build a bit of a league history. PRO BASKETBALL - FBPB2013 is just as easy to mod and supports multiple leagues. (Why can't someone make a football series just like this) I did a little research nd there were several regional based pro leagues in the first half of the 20th century before the NBA was born. I am using a combination of teams from them to create my Eastern Professional Basketball League. I will sim only in this league. It is strictly there for me to track the careers of college stars after they graduate. So that is a quick backstory. Next up will be 1901. If you want to know more about any of my league setups, or some of the games, feel free to ask. |
This is a concept I love! I am sure I could never manage to maintain it all but something like this is often in the back of my mind.
I will enjoy following along. |
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I actually started the golf game in 2014 and the college football save around the same time but got away from them for a while. I dug them out again recently and started the saves up again. Funny thing is I had some written text file recaps in each of their save folders chronicling previous seasons. I will use some of that in bringing things up to where I am now. I guess only the baseball and hockey will be in danger of becoming obsolete as new versions of the game come out, but I guess I could always convert the baseball league to OOTP21 next year. |
1901 BASEBALL RECAP Baseball will get the bulk of the attention in these recaps but it won't focus entirely on the major leagues as I have grown very attached to following the college feeder league and it's NCAA basketball style College World Series format. I should also add that this league does not play deadball-era style ball as I set the modifiers to mimic the 1950s. NCAA The big story in college baseball was the incredible season put up by freshman Jason Sawyer. The 17 year old Arizona outfielder won the triple crown (.389,65,141) with a truly dominating season and helped the Wildcats tie Michigan State for the best record in the entire NCAA. In addition to Arizona in the Pac 10 and Michigan State in the Big 10, the other conference winners were Florida in the SEC, Maryland in the ACC, Rice in the Southwest Conference, Brown in the Ivy League, Oklahoma State in the Big 8 and Penn State claimed the Big East title. THE TOURNAMENT The College World Series is set up as a 16 team tournament featuring the 8 conference champions and the next 8 teams with the best overall record. It begins with 4 regional double round-robin tournaments with the top two teams from each region advancing to the quarterfinals or Elite Eight. We then go to best-of-three series' to narrow us down to four teams and then the final two with the championship series also being a best-of-three affair. The brackets for the 1901 NCAA Tournament were as follows: Code:
The Final Four would have 3 teams from the same conference as Rice, TCU and Baylor all moved on and were joined by Penn State. Both semi-finals were sweeps with Rice and Baylor advancing to the first-ever College World Series finals. Rice was led by it's pitching staff which was anchored by 18 year old Ron Conner (24-8, 1.96), who led the NCAA in victories during the season and was 3-0 with a 1.73 era in four post-season starts. Baylor was a much more offensive minded club led by senior 1B Seth Keller (.286,35,101) and junior second baseman Jose Estrada (.353,33,96). Homeruns by Keller and Zeb Cromwell paced Baylor to a 6-3 victory in the series opener but Rice evened the series thanks to a 5-hit complete game from Ron Conner in Game Two to lead the Owls to a 2-1 victory. Game Three was a slugfest won 10-4 by Rice in a contest that saw 6 homeruns including a pair from Rice outfielder Armando Reyes. https://i.imgur.com/bA4OWl0.jpg Here are the top ten selections in the 1901 MLB draft https://i.imgur.com/mjM25qZ.jpg MAJOR LEAGUE SEASON The Boston Red Sox, led by the game's first offensive superstar, easily claimed the American League pennant in the league's inaugural year. Washington mounted a bit of a challenge in early August but in the end Boston bats, led by Craig Hill (.338,40,130), proved too much for the rest of the American League. Hill, a 24 year old shortstop, led the majors in homers and rbi's and finished second in the American League in batting average to teammate Donovan Hudson (.351,1,47). Hill was the anchor of a powerful middle of the Red Sox lineup that also included Matt Davis (.313,30,113), Danny Robinson (.237,32,103) and Matt Ritchie (.225,26,78). 31 year old Chris Tidwell (20-8, 2.85) paced a Red Sox pitching staff that was middle of the pack in the American League. While the American League pennant race belonged solely to the Red Sox, 4 teams were in the thick of the National League race until 3 of them faded in September. It was the Cincinnati Reds, at 87-67, who emerged victorious finishing with a 5 game bulge on second place St Louis. The Reds did have some decent hitters including 29 year old first baseman Patrick Stoneberg (.341,24,80), 27 year old third baseman Chad Eggers (.339,25,111) and 39 year old outfielder David Layne (.326,29,79) but there strength was a balanced pitching staff led by the old guard in 38 year old Francisco Hermida (19-8, 2.63) and 40 year old reliever David Sutherland (22sv, 2.44). https://i.imgur.com/pqah9DZ.jpg WORLD SERIES The World Series would feature a veteran Reds team that looks like it has a very small window to win a title against a Red Sox club that has a core that could challenge for several World Series crowns.Boston took the series opener on the road by an 8-6 score as Ritchie and Davis each homered early to chase Cincinnati ace Hermida after just 2 innings. The Reds would get a stellar pitching effort from Austin Kerin (14-14, 3.78) in Game Two and even the series with a 2-1 victory. More Boston fireworks in Game Three as Davis hit his second homer of the series and Hill added a 3-run shot in a 10-5 Boston victory. American League batting champ Donovan Hudson was the star of Game Four, delivering a pair of doubles and driving in 4 runs to power the Red Sox to a 5-2 win and a 3 games to one series lead. Felix Hermida kept Cincinnati alive by combining with closer David Sutherland on a 4-hit shutout to give the Reds a 4-0 victory in Game Five and send the series back to Cincinnati. Matt Davis hit his third homerun of the series for Boston in Game Six but Reds 39 year old outfielder David Layne also hit his third of the series - but it was a grand slam and helped the Reds force Game Seven with a 7-2 victory. Boston ace Charlie Tidwell took over in Game Seven, holding the Reds to 1 run on five hits in going the distance for a series winning 5-1 victory. Danny Robinson and catcher Gabe Ruiz (.241,15,61) each drove in a pair to pace the Boston offense. After hitting .393 (11-for-28) with 6 rbi's and 7 runs scored, Boston lead-off man Donovan Hudson was named the Series MVP. https://i.imgur.com/1Te1BcT.jpg OTHER NOTES Minor league champions were as follows: Code:
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1901 other sports
Here is a look at what happened beyond baseball in the sports world in 1901.
HOCKEY In what would be the forefather of the National Hockey League, The Upper and Lower Canada League (ULCHL) began play in 1901-02 with 6 teams and a 40 game schedule. The Montreal Wanderers, led by 31 year old center Joseph Matheson, would claim the first league title. Matheson led the league in goals with 24 and points with 57, standards that would continue to be the league's best even a decade later. Code:
COLLEGE FOOTBALL It was tough trying to mod a 1900's era alignment with any game so I did the best I could with Bowl Bound by creating conference setups like they were in the 1940s. It is now a 10 year old program but for me still a lot of fun to play and surprisingly nothing newer has anywhere near the ease of customization that BBCF allows. I can't eliminate teams and bring new ones in after I start but can adjust conferences to whatever setup (with some restrictions) that I want. So here is what happened in 1901. We actually had 4 teams go 13-0 in 1901 led by National Champion winning Notre Dame. The Irish faced MVC winner Missouri in the Orange Bowl and completed their perfect season with a 35-20 victory. San Francisco, another independent, was also 13-0 and finished second in the AP Poll after beating Penn State 16-14 in the Gator Bowl. Rose Bowl and Pacific Coast Conference winner Washington was also unbeaten. The 13-0 Huskies finished 3rd in both the media and coaches poll after edging Western Conference champion Michigan (10-3) 17-16 in the Rose Bowl. The final unbeaten team was North Carolina, which ran the table in the Southern Conference before beating Minnesota(11-2) in the Sugar Bowl. Other bowl winners included independent Army improving to 10-3 on the season with a 24-21 win over Oklahoma in the Citrus Bowl, while Texas Mines, which upset California of the Pacific Coast Conference 35-33 in the Cotton Bowl to finish with a 12-1 record. Code:
COLLEGE BASKETBALL While a majority of the schools still played a haphazard schedule as independents, the college game began to organize itself in 1901 with 6 conferences being formed including the Western Conference (now the Big 10), the Ivy Group, Southern Conference, Southwest Conference and the Pacific Coast Conference. The Conferences ranged in size from as few as 3 teams in the Mountain State Athletic Conference (Colorado, Colorado A&M and Denver) to as large a group as 12 teams in the Southern Conference. In addition the first organized national championship was held as the top 32 clubs in the nation, including each of the conference winners, participated in a single elimination tournament in March. The Kentucky Wildcats would lead the polls and be favoured entering the tournament, but after a first round win over Columbia, Kentucky's season came to an abrupt end when they were upended 87-79 but 5th seed Utah in the South Regional semi-final. The national champion would be Bradley as the Braves capped a 32-2 season with a 79-64 win over Indiana in the title game. Senior center Dick Hague, who was the National Player of the Year, paced the Braves in the title game with 20 points and 15 rebounds. Holy Cross and Duquesne were the other two schools to reach the final four. Here are the final four results, the 25 and the list of Award winners. https://i.imgur.com/7OwSE09.jpg PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL After several years of small semi-pro basketball leagues several of those organizations along the eastern seaboard banded together to form the first Professional Basketball League. The loop, dubbed the Eastern Basketball Association began play in 1901-02 with 8 clubs playing a 56 game schedule. Code:
The Crescents swept the best of five championship series to claim the first Eastern Basketball Association title. None of the games were close as Paterson won by scores of 75-60, 72-57 and 85-65. with Paterson center Bobby Parker being named playoff MVP almost solely because of his work neutralizing D'Amato. GOLF My main focus on golf will be updating the results of each of the 4 majors. In reality there should only be two majors at this time as the PGA Championship didn't start until around 1916 and The Masters was first held in the 1930s. However, I did not know what removing these two majors would do to the modified schedule file I made a few years ago for my old TPG2 golf game so they are in. Plus, I really enjoying playing the Augusta course in the game, although the golfer I control has yet to play for a major. In 1901 we had 4 different golfers win a major with two of them claiming their first major title (I started this golf replay in 1896) . The Masters winner was Canadian Hayden Gallant, who needed a playoff to snap a 3-way tie with Clem Jordan and Gus Carlson. Jordan, who would win 2 events this year, ended up as the leading money winner on the tour. Code:
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1902 RECAP NCAA A very balanced season as the 8 conference champions all ranged between 82 and 72 victories and the wildcards were all within 6 wins of each other. We did need a playoff to determine the final wildcard tournament berth and it went to LSU after the Tigers beat Colorado 6-4. A one game playoff was also required to declare a winner in the Big 10 as Purdue and Wisconsin each finished with 77-49 records. The Boilermakers won the extra game to claim the Conference title. Arizona slugger Jason Sawyer(.355,58,133) missed out on a repeat Triple Crown win but did lead the NCAA in homers and rbi's. However, the 18 year old's team missed the post-season with a 64-62 record. A great debut this year from Penn State freshman righthander Samuel Pullen. The youngster went 26-4 with a league leading 1.27 era while fanning 336 batters in 298 innings. He did all of this while playing on a team that was well below .500. Equally impressive was another freshman pitcher. Bobby Atkins went 31-4 with a 2.11 era and 333 strikeouts in 324 innings for Ivy League champion Dartmouth. THE TOURNAMENT The brackets for the 1902 NCAA Tournament were as follows: Code:
EAST REGION Despite finishing third in the ACC the Wolfpack caught fire in the tournament, compiling an 11-4 record en route to the title. Known for their hitting during the regular season, it was timely pitching that led North Carolina State to the title. Senior Ryan Seay (13-8, 3.15) and freshman Dave White (15-10, 2.96) each went 4-1 while senior Rich McGuire (10-10, 3.97) came up with 2 wins in the finals. The offense was also present, particularly from senior second baseman Dave Alonso (.378,40,104), who hit .306 with 13 runs scored in the post-season, and fellow senior Danny Gillean (.316,9,58) who led all batters with 7 post-season homers and 15 rbi'. Alonso is a likely top five pick in the upcoming MLB draft. https://i.imgur.com/TrKiQh8.jpg THE DRAFT North Carolina State star Dave Alonso did indeed go first overall in the draft as he was selected by the Philadelphia Athletics. The 21 year old second baseman is projected to be a future MLB star. The A's will have him begin his career with Class B Lancaster of the Interstate League. Detroit selected Boston University third baseman Elijah Briggs second while the St Louis Cardinals opted for Princeton outfielder Josh Tyner with the third pick. MAJOR LEAGUE SEASON Both World Series participants from last year got off to slow starts and never recovered. It was somewhat expected that would happen to the Cincinnati Reds with so many of their key players being in their late thirties or early forties but it was a surprise that the defending World Series champion Boston Red Sox started so poorly. Craig Hill (.336,44,136) basically duplicated his last year offensive production but again narrowly missed out on the triple crown because of batting champ John Clardy (.347) of the Athletics. The American League champion ended up being the St Louis Browns, who got off to a great start and led nearly all the way. Much of the Browns offense came from Cody Garcia (.337,29,99), Jason Barr (.331,36,130) and Nate Wood (.315,30,90) while Seth Houser (18-9, 3.01) and Jon Kleiner (19-9, 2.64) anchored the rotation. Despite having the league's best pitcher in 29 year old Michael Muir (25-4, 2.20) and top batter in 26 year old John Garrett (.352,7,82, 49SB) the best the Philadelphia Phillies could do was finish second in the National League. Top spot went to the team with the highest payroll in the NL - the Boston Braves. The key to Boston's success was it's power with 5 players hitting over 20 homeruns led by first baseman David Ingram (.305,41,136) and third baseman Jesus Pagan (.279,36,98) who was a mid-season pickup from Pittsburgh. The strength of their pitching staff was 30 year old reliever Dave Whitaker, who led both leagues with 26 saves. https://i.imgur.com/MZSxNUp.jpg WORLD SERIES The Browns took the series opener by an 8-2 score at home but lost game two 10-6 as Matthew Elden (.274,31,77) homered twice and Pagan once for the visiting Braves. Pitching was the story of Game Three as crafty veteran Matt Raymer (9-9, 3.88) tossed a 2-hit shutout to pace St Louis to a 3-0 victory. The bats came alive the next day as Boston evened the series with a 10-9 victory behind catcher Brian Rose's (.292,9,62) 3-hit, 5-rbi performance. Jason Barr, who is having a whale of a series, carried St Louis to a 9-3 victory in the all important fifth game. The slugger homered for the second time in the series and drove in 4 runs, giving him 10 rbi's in the first five games. St Louis wrapped up the series the next game with another terrific pitching effort from a veteran starter. 38 year old Jon Kleiner, who was lit up for 8 runs in 6 innings in Game Two, fashioned a 2-hit shutout to clinch the series for the Browns with a 2-0 victory in Game Six. Jason Barr had two hits and drove in one of the runs to give him 11 rbi's in the series. He was rightfully named the Most Valuable Player of the 1902 Fall Classic after posting the following numbers: .444 (12-for-27) with 2 homers and 11 rbi's. https://i.imgur.com/wghnZQa.jpg OTHER NOTES For the second year in a row the Tampico Alijadores won the Mexican League title while in Canada the Victoria Royals successfully defended their Western Provincial League crown but lost in the national championship series to the Trois-Rivieres Phillies. Minor league champions were as follows: Code:
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1902 HOCKEY Like last season, the Montreal Wanderers were regular season champs but this time they had much more competition. The Wanderers edged out their cross-town rival Montreal Canadiens for top spot once again but a greatly improved Ottawa Senators team led much of the way before faltering down the stretch and missing the playoffs on a tie-breaker. The Toronto Tecumsehs decided to relocate, abandoning Toronto for the short trek to Hamilton where they were rechristened as the Tigers. The Toronto Ontarios decided to change their name and would now be known as the St. Patricks. Code:
COLLEGE FOOTBALL Unlike last season when there was plenty to debate when it came time to chose a National Champion, 1902 left no doubt as the Duke Blue Devils were the only undefeated team. The Southern Conference champs had a scare in the Orange Bowl but a late touchdown gave them a 30-27 victory over 10-3 Colorado. Other bowl games saw Michigan avenge last year's loss to Washington in the Rose Bowl by winning in a rout 44-9 behind the strong arm of quarterback Ray Babcock. Notre Dame beat Texas Mines 31-28 in the Sugar Bowl and #2 Syracuse downed Furman 31-13 in the Cotton Bowl. Code:
COLLEGE BASKETBALL The Kansas State Wildcats, led by senior All-American Harry Stevens, were the class of College Basketball in the 1902-03 season. Kansas State, playing in the Missouri Valley Conference, built on an impressive 27-4 season a year ago - when they finished #2 in the rankings behind Kentucky - by going undefeated and ranked #1 heading into this years 32 team NCAA tournament. Included in the Wildcats 30-0 run were a pair of victories over rival Kansas, which finished 9th in the polls. Kansas State's bid for a perfect season came to an end in the Midwest Regional Final when last year's runner-up Indiana stopped the Wildcats 78-70. Indiana would meet it's demise the following week to another Wildcat squad, as Kentucky beat the Hoosiers 77-59 in one National Semi-final while Iowa edged Duquesne by 3 points in the other one. Kentucky, which finished 34-3 on the season, clinched the National Championship two days later with a 68-59 win over Iowa. Kentucky would not place a single player on any of the 3 post-season All America teams, but the Wildcats seemed poised for a good chance at a repeat championship as they would return 4 starters and their top two bench players next season. https://i.imgur.com/hzPPXGo.jpg West Virginia would come up with the top recruiting class of 1902 as they signed three players ranked in the top ten nationally. Power Forward Dusty Nunnally, a North Carolina native who was ranked 2nd, Virginia high school SF Bob Perry - the 6th rank recruit, and Bobby Glasser, a center from Texas was rated 10th in the nation. The consenus number one recruit was a guard from Coal City, Illinois by the name of John Lesley. Lesly signed with Indiana which had the second best recruiting class. PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL The Eastern Basketball League expanded by one team in it's second season as the Wilmington Peaches joined the EBL. The Peaches, strengthened the acquisition of College Player of the Year Dick Hague, finished with the best record in the league and went on to win the playoff title in the maximum 5 games by beating Millville. Hague, who led Bradley to a National Collegiate Title last season, finished second in the league in both points and rebounds but lost out on the MVP award to the man who led in both of those categories. That would be fellow rookie Bubba Gibson, who scored a previously unheard of 34.1 ppg and had 12.7 rebounds per game. Gibson, the fifth pick of the draft by Pittsburgh, was a second team All-American (Hague was the first team center) a year ago while at Kansas State. The Peaches offense when through Hague, but he was not the only threat as guards Gene Levine and Dave Bressler, along with PF Papa Troutman, all averaged double figures in scoring. All four were standouts in college a year ago as a large influx of NCAA players joined the league, after hearing about it's success last season. After posting the worst record in the league a year ago, the Pennsylvania Bicyle Club improved by 9 games and finished second in the West Division, but even with the improvement they were still 12 games back of division leading Wilmington. The Bicylce Club had a hotshot rookie of their own in former Kansas star Josef Wetterman, who grew up in Germany dreaming of soccer greatness before his family immigrated to the midwest when he was 13 years old and he switched to basketball. Trenton, led by former Louisville star Wally Baker finished third while Pittsburgh, despite the heroics of Bubba Gibson, settled for fourth place. Despite first team all-star forward Bennie Lent from the University of Cincinnati, the Camden Skeeters finished in the West Division cellar with the worst record in either league. The Millville Glass Blowers won the East Division for a second straight season, but this time by just a single game over Bristol. To illustrate just how big an impact the influx of ex-college stars had on the league this year one just needs to look at Millville's center Giorgio D'Amato. D'Amato was league MVP a year ago but spent most of this season on the bench as Jim Funderburk, who helped Duquesne to the final four a year ago, took over at center. Millvale also had a pair of strong guards, including first team all-star George Green from Bradley. The Bristol Pile Drivers blew a 2 game lead on Millville by dropping their final four games, including one to the Glass Blowers, and finished a game back in the East. All five of their starters averaged double figures in scoring led by their big center Vic Carnevale from Kentucky, who averaged 19.3 ppg and 8.0 rpg. The New York Wanderers finished third as Chester Lee, from Wyoming, was their only real offensive threat while Trenton, with the league's worst offense, brought up the rear in the East. Code:
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GOLF The golfer of the year was Walt Berry, despite the fact his only tour win of the year came at The Shawnee Open in Pennsylvania. Berry did have a number of top five performances including both The British Open and PGA Championship. He nosed out Clem Jordan for the award, despite the fact Jordan won 3 tournaments (Miami Biltmore Invitational, California Open and El Paso Open) during the year. Andrew Sexton won The Masters as the only player to break par in the event. Berry finished 16th. Code:
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Here is the list of all-time major winners thru 1902 (minimum 2 titles) Code:
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Well, I just spent a couple of days fixing things because I ignored a rule we all now so well. Back up your dynasty leagues.
I knew but ignored it as I was playing out a season in the college basketball game when my computer suddenly rebooted. Not sure if it was something the game did my laptop didn't like or something the laptop did on it's on but when I restarted the file was corrupted and the league was lost. I learned my lesson. I restarted the basketball leagues (including the pro league as I would have a totally different crop of college players entering it now) and am diligently backing up my files each season. I have edited the 1901 recap now to show the new basketball info and the 1902 recap will be changed shortly. Anyway, that is the end of my PSA reminding everyone to back up their leagues, regardless of the game. EDIT - 1902 basketball has been rewritten and posted. |
1903 Baseball Recap
1903 RECAP - BASEBALL NCAA 1903 saw some terrific conference races. Michigan State (79-47) claimed it's second Big Ten title in 3 years by just two games over Purdue and 3 on Michigan. Arizona State won it's final 8 games but fell 3 short of catching slumping Oregon State for the Pac 10 crown. A 3 game losing streak to end the season cost Arkansas the Southwest Conference title to Texas Tech and Dartmouth held off Columbia by a single game in the Ivy League. The tightest race by far was the battle for the SEC crown. All ten teams finished with 8 games of first place and 6 of them were within two games. When the regular season came to an end we had a three-way tie for first place with Alabama, Tennessee and Auburn all at 66-60 and Ole Miss and Florida just 1 game back. Alabama beat Tennessee 2-1 and then blanked Auburn 1-0 to earn it's first conference title and the only post-season berth for the conference this season. Arizona slugger Jason Sawyer (.326,47,95) saw his numbers dip in his junior year but he still put up totals 99% of NCAA players would gladly accept. One exception was Syracuse senior outfielder Eddie Banuelos, who recorded the first triple crown in NCAA history, batting a record .405 while hitting 55 homers and driving in 140 runs, one shy of Sawyer's 1901 rbi mark. Banuelos led the Orangemen to the Big East title and destroyed his previous career highs in all 3 triple crown categories. THE TOURNAMENT The brackets for the 1903 NCAA Tournament were as follows: Code:
EAST REGION Three of the four Elite Eight series were 2-0 sweeps with Oregon, Alabama and Texas Tech moving on. They were joined by Michigan, which dropped the opener to Columbia only to win the next two. Alabama improved to 8-2 in the tournament with a sweep of Oregon in the final four while Michigan swept Texas Tech behind a great outing from sophomore ace Andy Green (23-12, 2.11), who pitched 12 shutout innings in a 1-0 victory to open the series. The College World Series finals won't have much for major league scouts - at least not in this years draft but there are a couple of future talents to watch. Alabama, which has arguably the worst offense out of the 16 playoff teams, does have an outstanding pitcher in sophomore Bryan Kleeman (21-11, 2.14), who is a projected first round pick in 1905. Michigan counters with the previously mentioned Green, also a likely high 1905 draft pick, and a much better offense led by senior outfielder Steve McWhinney (.300,21,67) Game One of the best of five saw Michigan score three times in the bottom of the ninth inning to pull out a 3-2 victory and make a winner of Andy Green, who allowed 2 runs (1 earned) in going the distance. After a 2-0 win in Game Two, the Wolverines completed the sweep with another 3-2 victory as McWhinney's 3-run homer in the second accounted for all of the Michigan scoring. https://i.imgur.com/mcG16CL.jpg THE DRAFT Three of the first four picks were middle infielders led by Washington shortstop Gabe Simpson, who went #1 overall to the Pittsburgh Pirates. In 3 seasons with the Huskies, Simpson batted .335 with 100 homeruns at the college level. The first pitcher selected was Dave Collins of Florida by the New York Giants with the fifth pick. Collins won a career best 24 games a year ago but missed several starts this year and finished with a 16-5 mark. His career era of 1.94 ranks him in the top twenty. Rice was the only school to have two players selected in the first round as leftfielder Chris Plata went 8th to Cleveland and centerfielder Joe Melton was taken 12th by the Phillies. Steve McWhinney, of the College World Series champion Michigan Wolverines was a supplemental first round pick, selected 16th overall by the Yankees. Syracuse slugger Eddie Banuelos, who won the triple crown, was taken 13th by the Boston Braves. https://i.imgur.com/IWKUwqp.jpg MAJOR LEAGUE SEASON After losing in the World Series last season the Boston Braves were on a mission in 1903, winning a record 107 games and finishing 26 games ahead of second place Cincinnati atop the National League. The Braves had the NL batting champ in 29 year old Josh Downing (.291,1,89) as well as Mathew Eiden (.322,46,144), who led the majors in homers and rbi's. Add in David Ingram (.315,34,130), Dan Perkins (.338,25,88) and John Macomber (.317,38,123) and it is easy to see why Boston led the majors in nearly every offensive category. Pitching wasn't bad either as Dale Coats (24-8, 2.28) had a breakout year at age 35, while fellow starters Ralph Mason (16-6, 2.87), Mark DeRidder (15-9, 2.85) and Chris Unrein (18-6, 3.70) rounded out a solid rotation. The St Louis Browns repeated as American League champs thanks in a big way to another great season from Jason Barr. The 28 year old outfielder led the American League in batting average (.354) and rbi's (136) and finished second with 39 homeruns to Boston Red Sox star Craig Hill (.314,40,101). Nate Wood (.285,21,118) and Cody Garcia (.323,20,100) were other key offensive pieces while the Browns also had the only 20 game winners in the American League in Seth Houser (25-7, 2.09) and Jon Kleiner (22-6, 2.53). https://i.imgur.com/OmrzFDj.jpg WORLD SERIES Game One was a matchup featuring the most winningest pitcher from each league and the Braves Coats prevailed taking a 4-3 decision over Houser and the Browns. St Louis evened the series with a 10-8 win in Game Two as Jason Barr went 4-for-4 with a homer, a double and 3 rbi's while David Layne hit a grand slam for the Browns. Shifting to St Louis for Game Three it was the visitors who's bats came alive with Boston winning 7-4 thanks to two-run homers from both Macomber and Eiden. Game Four was all Boston as the Braves scored all of their runs in the 6th inning of a 9-2 win. Matthew Eiden drove in 3 more runs to give him 9 rbi's in the season and his Braves a 3 games to one lead. Even the right arm of St Louis ace Seth Houser could not slow down the Boston offense as the Braves chased him with 5 runs in 5 innings en route to a series clinching 7-1 victory. Dale Coats left after 5 innings with a sore shoulder but still earned his second win of the series for Boston. Despite Matthew Eiden's 2 homers and 9 rbi's to go with a .286 batting average he lost out on Series MVP honours to Jason Barr of the losing Browns. Barr was amazing in the series as the 28 year old outfielder hit .591 (13-for-22) with 2 homers and 6 rbi's. He had at least 2 hits in every game of the series. https://i.imgur.com/inmoNJS.jpg OTHER NOTES For the first time both rookie of the year award winners were former college players. Pat Pettyjohn, a second baseman taken 8th overall in 1901 out of Kentucky by Cleveland, won the American League top newcomer award after hitting .294 with 6 homers and 62 rbi's in 150 games with the Tribe. The National League winner was also a second baseman as former Florida State star Mario Gaona (.339,7,53) earned the nod. Brooklyn selected Gaona 4th overall in the 1902 draft. A minor league single season homerun record was set by Joe Harken of Augusta. The 22 year old, who was taken 19th overall by Detroit in 1902 out of Virginia Tech, slugged 54 homers and drove in 150 runs in 124 games for the Sally League Tigers. Harken earned a late season promotion to AA Dallas, where he hit 3 more homers in 14 games with the Rebels. The Texas League had a .400 hitter as outfielder Shawn Reamer batted .405 with 32 homers and 101 rbi's. The 23 year old White Sox prospect was selected in the second round of the 1902 draft out of Penn. First overall pick in 1901, Jake Lemieux denied Reamer a triple crown by leading the Texas League in homers (39) and rbi's (118) while playing for Pittsburgh's farm team in Tulsa. It was a third straight Mexican League crown for the Tampico Alijadores. Tampico finished the season with a 94-46 record, good for a 5 game lead on the second place Monterrey Industriales. They then beat Monterrey in a 7 game Mexican Series that saw former Kansas State first baseman Edwin Garcia win the Series MVP award with a .481 batting average and 11 homeruns. The Canadian Series also went the full seven games with the Western Canada League champion Winnipeg Buffaloes prevailing over the St Hyacinthe Saints. Minor league champions were as follows: Code:
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1903 other sports
1903 OTHER SPORTS HOCKEY The Montreal Wanderers were quickly establishing themselves as the class of the ULCHL and the 1903-04 season just reiterated that point as the Wanderers finished first for the third straight season and established a new season mark for points. Joseph Matheson, who was troubled by injuries a year ago, rebounded nicely and won his second league scoring title in 3 seasons. Matheson was denied a second league MVP trophy as that award instead went to Quebec Bulldogs winger Derek Edur. The 23 year old Edur set a career high in goals and points this season and looks to be one of the future stars of the league. The Ottawa Senators, who were last in the opening season but finished third and narrowly missed the playoffs a year ago, moved up to second place this year and earned the right to play for the Stanley Cup. The Montreal Canadiens, runners up each of the past two years, sank all the way to the basement this time around. Code:
COLLEGE FOOTBALL Duke repeats as National Champion as the Blue Devils went a perfect 13-0 for the second straight season, culminating in a Citrus Bowl 42-35 victory over Georgia in a battle of unbeatens for the National Championship. At 12-1 Georgia slipped to fifth in the final rankings. Duke was led by perhaps the greatest college football quarterback of the era in Marlan Sumner. Sumner passed for 4,952 yards and 50 touchdowns in his senior seasons -both records that still stand a decade later, after throwing for over 4200 yards and 38 touchdowns as a junior. In a 3 year career (I started the sim in 1901) he threw for over 13,000 yards and 113 touchdowns. Texas Tech also entered New Years Day unbeaten, but the Raiders were beaten 34-29 in the Sugar Bowl by one loss Notre Dame. The win lifted the Irish to second in the polls. Other Bowl results saw California beat Minnesota 40-34 despite a 4 touchdown passing performance from Gophers QB Berry Ippolito. Army beat Kansas 38-31 in the Orange Bowl while Furman topped Penn State 27-21 in the Orange Bowl. Code:
COLLEGE BASKETBALL A year ago Kansas State carried a perfect record in to the NCAA tournament only to suffer their first loss of the season in the Conference Finals. Kentucky was dealt the same fate this season after UK, who won the NCAA tournament a year ago, were 35-0 when they faced West Virginia in the South Regional Finals. The Mountaineers prevailed 74-60 to improve to 27-6 on the year and then would win two more games, beating Cal by 8 points in the National Semi-finals before topping Indiana 75-71 in the tournament title game. While West Virginia had an exceptional group of freshman from the nation's top recruiting class a year ago, it was the upperclassmen who led the Mountaineers to the tile with senior guard Al Humphry leading the way. Humphry was named the National Player of the Year after leading West Virginia with 14.5 ppg and 6.2 assists per game. https://i.imgur.com/D2UHDP8.jpg Code:
PRO BASKETBALL The Eastern Basketball League remained at 9 teams but three clubs changed their names. The Pennsylvania Bicycle Club, were now known as the Philadelphia Wheelers while both Trenton and Camden changed their nicknames. Trenton would now be the Potters and Camden was renamed the Electrics. The name change must have inspired the Potters as they rose from a last place finish a year ago to the top of the East Division. Orlin Burdick, a guard from Kentucky, led Trenton in scoring and made the league's first all-star team for the second consecutive year while another former Wildcat, rookie first round pick Corky Gipson gave the Potters a second scoring threat, something they lacked a year ago. Bristol finished in second place for the second year in a row, with rookie guard Harvey Stevens, fresh off an All-American season for Kansas State, leading the way. The New York Wanderers again were third in the East, as an injury to Chester Lee, a first team all-star a year ago, slowed the team. Millville had a rough season, dropping to last place in the East with a 15-41 record after two straight trips to the League championship series. Wilmington once again was the class of the West Division as the Peaches received another dominant season out of second year pro Dick Hauge, a former NCAA player of the year. Second place Pittsburgh improved by 13 games and looks like a serious threat in the future thanks to two-time MVP Bubba Gibson, a second year pro out of Kansas State, and this year's rookie of the year Willard McNew. McNew, from West Virginia where he was College Player of the Year last season, stepped in at center forcing Gibson to move to power forward. Gibson led the league in scoring averaging 29.3 ppg while McNew was fourth with 24.2. They were also 1-2 in rebounds with McNew's 12.7 boards per game leading the way and Gibson next at 11.1. All-star Josef Wettermann of Philadelphia also had a position change, moving from shooting guard to small forward to make room for another Kansas State product in Joe Hubbard, who the Wheelers selected with the 6th pick of the EBL draft. The fourth place Paterson Crescents had a pair of rising stars in second year power forward Wally Baker (24.9 ppg, 9.1 rpg) and rookie shooting guard Jimmy Hurlburt (21.9 ppg, 8.0 apg) out of Indiana. It was another bad year for last place Camden, which changed from the Skeeters to the Electrics but were awful either way. Even their first overall draft pick did not work out well as Bradley guard German Krauss, while a decent player, was overshadowed by other newcomers and failed to make the all-rookie team. Code:
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[b] The series shifted to Trenton for Game Three and the Potters would get their only win of the series as Orlin Burdick had 27 points and rookie Corky Gipson 21 in an 81-73 Potters victory. Hauge was held to 18 points, still tops for Wilmington on the night. Two days later the series would end as the visiting Wilmington Peaches claimed their second straight EBL title with a 101-100 victory. Hauge was the star of the show once more, cementing his series MVP award by scoring a game high 38 points. GOLF 1903 gave us four first time winners of Major Tournaments. The top of The 1903 Masters leaderboard was dominated by Americans including Gus Carlson, a Boston born golfer who's win at Augusta was his first as a professional, never mind a major. Carlson was 7 under par after two days and coasted to victory, winning by 5 strokes on Calvin Baumgartner, a man with 4 major titles under his belt. Code:
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Englishman Lord Lovett, a dominant player on the European Tour, claimed his first major as he held off the pack at the Royal Edinburgh Golf Club to win The British Open. Lovett was under par in each of his four rounds, carding scores of 71-69-70-70 enroute to a three stroke victory. Vern Thomas, who won a PGA Championship in 1899, finished in a 3-way tie for second that also included Masters champ Gus Carlson. Code:
Oakland Hills in Michigan was the site of the 1903 PGA Championship, it's first turn at hosting a major event. The weather was very bad for most of the event and the scores reflected it as the co-leaders after 72 holes were at +12. It took two playoff holes for American Owen Houle to beat Ireland's Colin O'Higgins and claim his first major title. O'Higgins, you might recall, was the winner of the 1902 British Open. James Fox, a two-time major champion who won the first PGA Championship in 1896, missed the playoff by a single stroke. Code:
Here is the list of all-time major winners thru 1903 (minimum 2 titles) Code:
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The scope of the project is only equal to the courage you have for taking it on. Thanks for sharing your stuff, here. It will be interesting to follow along.
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1904 RECAP - BASEBALL NCAA Unlike last season when there were tight pennant races in nearly every conference, the 1904 season lacked drama. Only the always tight SEC had a real race as Alabama held off Tennessee by 1 game for it's second straight conference crown, and even that race was tempered as the Tide, despite winning by just 1 game, clinched the title with 3 games left in the season. The Stanford Indians tied the record set by Michigan and Arizona in 1901 for most victories in a season, finishing at 88-38 and winning the Pac 10 by 16 games over Oregon. The Indians were led by three juniors: pitchers Kevin Field (22-8, 2.76) and Mike Smith (20-4, 2.71) as well as outfielder Pedro Perez (.377,41,126). Arizona earned a wildcard berth as Jason Sawyer(.300,41,81) finished up his storied college career. The outfielder ends up with 211 career homers and 451 rbi's, both records, as well as a career .342 batting average. THE TOURNAMENT The brackets for the 1904 NCAA Tournament were as follows: Code:
EAST REGION The Final Four saw an all-Ivy League matchup in the East between Dartmouth and Penn while Nebraska-Omaka, which knocked off Stanford, would face Virginia in the West. When the dust settled it was the Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks that won the College World Series, needing the maximum 5 games to eliminate Penn in the Finals. Junior outfielder Ryan Coots was the hero, capturing tournament MVP honors after hitting 7 homers and driving in 14 runs while batting .263 in 15 games. https://i.imgur.com/62raDex.jpg THE DRAFT Well I was waiting to see if Arizona's Jason Sawyer would go number one overall but it turns out he is 11 days too young for the draft and will be granted a 5th season of college eligibility. Penn State pitcher Samuel Pullen, who was an All-American in 1902 but missed almost the entire 1903 season with arm problems, went first to the Chicago White Sox. Pullen had a bounce back year this season, going 26-7 with a 1.49 era and threw two no-hitters in a 10 day span including a perfect game. The White Sox also picked third because they were unable to sign their first round pick a year ago. That pick was 2B Joe Estrada of Baylor, who was taken second by Brooklyn this time around. A second player, pitcher Mike Barror, also failed to sign last year when the Cubs selected him 6th. Guess they really like him as the Cubs picked Barror again, this time with the 5th pick. https://i.imgur.com/UYqkC1t.jpg MAJOR LEAGUE SEASON In 1901 we had the Red Sox and in 1902 and 03 we had the Braves. Now for the 1904 World Series we have both Boston teams as the Red Sox and Braves rolled to their respective league championships. The Red Sox are beloved in the city of Boston and lead the majors in attendance while the Braves, despite three straight National League titles, have the worst attendance in either league and are constantly losing money with their high payroll. It is clear who the favourite in the World Series will be, at least in the hearts of fans. The Red Sox led the majors in runs scored and homers and their #3 thru 7 hitters all belted at least 20 homeruns. They include 27 year old shortstop Craig Hill (.345,39,97), 29 year old first baseman Matt Davis (.323,32,109), 28 year old catcher Gabe Ruiz (.290,29,92), 34 year old second baseman Matt Ritchie (.272,24,77) and 32 year old outfielder Curt Wasinger (.282,24,97). The Braves have plenty of offense of their own with 30 year old outfielder Matthew Eiden (.295,46,146), 32 year old outfielder John Macomber (.275,41,128) and 28 year old first baseman David Ingram (.290,33,115) providing the bulk of it. The Braves real strength is their pitching but it suffered a big blow when reigning Cy Young Award winner Dale Coats (8-2, 1.89) went down with arm troubles in June. The 36 year old is said to be ready to return for game one of the World Series but there are question marks about how effective he will be coming off of more than 3 months of inactivity. https://i.imgur.com/hbeXaMw.jpg WORLD SERIES Coats was very good in his return, allowing just 2 runs over 7 innings but the Red Sox were better, taking a 2-1 victory in Game One thanks to a 6-hit complete game from Tyler Lawrence (18-13, 4.10). The Braves evened the series the next day with a 4-3 win behind a 3 hit effort from Matthew Eiden. Game Three was the most attended contest ever at Braves Field but the crowd was decidedly pro-Red Sox. The home team prevailed 5-4 thanks to an rbi double off the bat of John Macomber in the bottom of the 8th. With all of the big name talent on the field it was a rookie that stole the show in Game Four as the Red Sox evened the series with a 6-2 victory. Jermaine George (.316,12,79), a 1902 first round pick out of Rutgers, had a double and two triples while driving in 5 runs to key the victory. Not only did he pitch 6 innings, allowing just 2 runs, but Braves ace Dale Coats also had 2 rbi's in a 9-2 Braves victory in Game Five that moved the National Leaguers to within one victory of a second straight World Championship. That win would come two days later at Fenway as Ralph Mason pitched 7 innings of 4-hit ball and the Braves clinched the Series with a 3-1 victory. The Series MVP was 23 year old outfielder Rich Goeldner (.288,12,78). The 1902 second round pick out of Penn State went 9-for-22 (.409) with a homer and 5 rbi's in the series. https://i.imgur.com/v4jutku.jpg OTHER NOTES Former Wisconsin star Tyler Dempewolf had an outstanding first full season of minor league ball. The 1903 14th overall pick of the Dodgers was named Eastern League MVP after hitting .421 with 33 homers and 145 rbi's for Williamsport. Dempewolf went on to bat .452 with 7 rbi's in the Eastern Series but Williamsport fell short, losing to Wilkes-Barre in 7 games. Dempeewolf's average was surpassed only by Roland Point of the Abilene Blue Sox. The 25 year old West Texas-New Mexico League star hit .486 in 137 games for the Independent club. Point has spent all 4 seasons of the game with Abilene and is a career .402 hitter with 856 hits in 523 games and is a two-time league MVP. The Sherbrooke Athletics became the fourth different champion in the four years of the Canadian Baseball League. The winners of the Quebec Provincial League beat the Western Canada champion Regina Bonepilers 4 games to 2 in the Canadian Series. The Tampico Alijadores 3 year run as Mexican League champion came to an end when they lost to the Mexico City Red Devils in the playoff series. The Red Devils set a league regular season record with 97 wins and finished 8 games ahead of second place Tampico. Pitching was the Red Devils strength on a staff anchored by 20 game winners Zachary Anderson (20-8, 2.88) and Mexico native Alex Garcia (20-8, 2.92). Minor league champions were as follows: Code:
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1904 OTHER SPORTS HOCKEY The great Joseph Matheson led the Montreal Wanderers to yet another regular season title in the Upper & Lower Canada Hockey League. Matheson won his third league scoring title in 4 seasons and was named the loop's MVP for the second time as he led the Wanderers to their fourth straight regular season title. Fan support was still not there for the predominantly English speaking Wanderers and after the season the club would be sold. In addition to Matheson's usually strong season, the Wanderers got a breakout year from 31 year old goaltender Max Faucher. The veteran, who had been a backup the previous 3 seasons, set league marks for wins by a goalie in a season with 23 and goals against average at 1.77. Francophone hockey fans in Quebec had a new team to cheer for as the Bulldogs made the playoffs for the first time in their existence, edging out the Ottawa Senators for second place. The Senators got a strong season out of 20 year JP Rustad after the 1902-03 rookie of the year missed all of last season with an injury, but fell just shy of a return to the playoffs. Code:
COLLEGE FOOTBALL California entered the Rose Bowl at 12-0 and was one of three unbeaten teams heading into New Years Day. The number 1 ranked Bears just needed a Rose Bowl win over Western Conference champion Michigan and they would win the National Championship. Michigan had been to the Rose Bowl twice, winning in 1902 over Washington after losing to the Huskies the previous season. Cal beat Minnesota in last year's big game but this time it was not meant to be for the Bears as they lost 37-27 thanks to 184 yards rushing and 2 touchdowns by Michigan back Billy Creighton. The loss took the Bears out of the National Championship picture. Kansas State had a chance at the title as well as the Wildcats were also 12-0 entering their Orange Bowl matchup with 11-1 LSU. The Tigers dashed Kansas State's hopes with a 23-12 victory. That left Texas Tech, 12-0 after winning the Southwest Conference title and they would play Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl. It was a down year for the Irish, at least by their standards as the entered the game with a 10-2 record. Texas Tech got a late touchdown to pull out a 20-17 victory and end the day as the only unbeaten team left - winning their first National Championship. The other bowl games saw USF beat Duke 25-20 in the Cotton Bowl as the Blue Devils two year run of unbeaten teams came to an end with an 11-2 season. Texas Mines beat Villanova 13-10 in the Gator Bowl while Harvard topped Washington 34-27 in the Tangerine Bowl. It was one of the few times where the Media and Coaches poll agreed completely on the order of the top 9 teams. Code:
COLLEGE BASKETBALL Only one school made it to the Final Four in each of the first three NCAA tournaments. That school was Indiana, and the Hoosiers failed to win a title despite making it to two title games and a third final four. Indiana made it four for four in Final Four appearances in 1904-05 and for the first time, the emerged as the National Champion. Despite finishing the regular season with a 24-5 record, Indiana entered the tournament on a down note after falling 67-59 to Michigan in the final day of Western Conference action. There were no conference tournaments in these days so that game was for the Conference title and the loss left Indiana at 10-2 and it forced them to share the title 3 ways with Michigan and Iowa, 2 of the four clubs to beat Indiana this year. Indiana's other losses came to Arizona in early January and twice to unranked Cincinnati- with one of those in a pre-season tournament. Indiana entered the NCAA tournament with the second highest scoring offense in college basketball, and the leader was guard John Lesley, who averaged 19.8 ppg and was a first team All-American this season as a sophomore. The Hoosiers drew the second seed in the West Region, the toughest bracket as it contained the powerful Kansas State Wildcats, who were ranked number one in the nation and were the only team to average more points per game than Indiana. In addition to scoring more points than any other team, the Wildcats also gave up the fewest points in the nation and were led by two All-Americans, both seniors in first team point guard Byrd Polley and second team shooting guard Al Booth. Kansas State, which was a perfect 12-0 in the Missouri Valley Conference and 27-2 on the season, had little trouble beating Colorado A&M in the opening round of the tournament. At the same time Indiana was handling 7th seed Utah 66-52 in their first tournament game. The Hoosiers easily got past 6th seed George Washington, which had done them a favour and knocked off #3 Bradley in the opener, in round two. Next up for the Hoosiers was an expected tussle with Kansas State but the #5 seed in the West, Oregon State, had other ideas. In the biggest upset of this year's tournament, the Pacific Coast Conference co-champs upended Kansas State 69-60 setting up a Regional Final with Indiana. The Hoosiers, their path to another final four now much clearer, walloped Oregon State 74-52 behind 15 points from John Lesley to reach their fourth straight final four. There they would meet fellow #2 seed Holy Cross, who had beaten #1 North Carolina State in the South Region. Lesley poured in 23 points and junior guard Red Seba added 20 to lead Indiana to an 87-76 victory and a berth in the National Championship Game for the third time in four years. Their opponent in the title game would be defending champion West Virginia, who had beaten Indiana by 4 points in last year's championship game. Despite Lesley only scoring 4 points in the first half, Indiana led 32-28 at the break. The game would be back and forth throughout the second half until Indiana took the lead for good at 59-58 with just over a minute to play. The Hoosiers would earn a 64-59 win and their first National Title. Lesley ended the day with 14 points to lead what was a balanced Indiana offense in the game. The good news for Indiana is next year's team looks even better as they would graduate only 1 of their top 9 players in the rotation, starting point guard George Burrows. https://i.imgur.com/IitNroW.jpg Code:
Three of the top 18 ranked recruits highlight the West Virginia class. They include #9 Yank Fishel, a center from Champaign, Illinois who passed on Indiana at the last minute to switch to West Virginia. He will be joined by a pair of Maryland high schoolers in PG Curly Tipton and SF Donie Martens. St John's was the surprise destination for the nation's top recruit. PG Bob Hendricks, a high school All-American from Highland Park, New Jersey passed on offers from Bradley, West Virginia and Duquesne among others to join the Redmen. Kentucky recruit Pug Marvin, a shooting guard from Buffalo, was the MVP of the high school all-star game which brought together the best high school seniors across the country. Marvin had 22 points in the game, won 95-81 by his East squad. In addition to leading in points, his 9 rebounds were also tops in the contest. Code:
PRO BASKETBALL The Eastern Basketball League added two teams but lost one prior to it's fourth season. Two Pennsylvania teams in the Reading Bears and Johnstown Johnnies joined the league while the Millvale Glass Blowers, after a dreadful 15-41 season a year ago, folded. With ten teams the league decided increase the number of games from 56 to 60 per club as well as expand the playoffs to include the top two teams from each division and not just the division winners. Each playoff round would remain a best-of-five series for the time being. The Wilmington Peaches continued to dominate the West Division, as they feasted on the two new entries to help them post a league record .767 winning percentage. In it's 3 years in the league the Peaches are 129-43, far and away the best record of any franchise. Center Dick Hauge remains a big reason why. In 3 years in the EBL after winning the NCAA player of the year award at Bradley in 1901-02, Hauge has averaged 27.5 ppg. He was a second team all-star each of his first two seasons but broke through this year to win his first league MVP award, while leading the loop in ppg with 30.2 and finishing second to Pittsburgh's Willard McNew in rebounds with an 11.3 average per game. As for the Homesteaders, they finished with a 30-30 record but that was still good enough to earn a playoff spot under the new system. Second year center Willard McNew (23.6 ppg, 13.1 rpg) and PF Bubba Gibson (25.7 ppg, 10.5 rpg) remained the focal point of the Pittsburgh offense but neither made the first all-star team, primarily because of injuries that forced each of them to miss about a dozen games. Their first round pick was a PG out of Syracuse by the name of Roland McIness. He was brought in to try and balance out their offense and that succeeded to a point with McIness averaging 10.7 ppg and showing some promise for the future. The third place Wheelers narrowly missed the playoffs as second year guard Joe Hubbard, out of Kansas State, had a breakout year leading the team by averaging 22.5 ppg and giving Philadelphia a second scoring option to go along with Josef Wettermann. Philadelphia also got a nice selection with their second round draft pick, as Pretzel Tully, a center out of Tulsa, averaged 11.3 ppg and 10.0 rpg. Expansion Johnstown actually tied the Wheelers with 28 wins as the Johnnies had a balanced attack led by center Ken Wardle, who came over from Philadelphia, and forward Vic Carnevale, who was selected from Bristol in the expansion draft. The Reading Bears finished in last place despite getting guard George Green, who made his second straight first all-star team, from Millville after that franchise ceased operations. The East Division race was a battle all season and finished with just 5 games separating the top four clubs. New York, at 35-25, and Trenton, two games back of the Wanderers, would earn the playoff spot but Camden and Paterson - both transfers from the West Division - were in the mix until late in the season. Bristol won just 16 games and was absolutely dismal. The first place Wanderers scored more points than any other club in the EBL, but did so without a true star as 6 players averaged double-figures in points led by small forward Chester Lee's 21.1. Ciriaco Ferrer, a rookie center out of Cal, had a strong debut season. Second place Trenton was again led by Corky Gipson (22.4 ppg) and Orlin Burdick (21.7 ppg) and were now joined by a third scoring threat in rookie Rags Hockett, the 9th pick of the draft out of North Carolina State. After winning just 13 games a year ago, the Camden Electrics improved to 31-29 this season with much of the credit going to rookie of the year Rufus Nickerson. The first overall pick out of Kentucky averaged 21.0 ppg and gave them a second option to go along with guard Bennie Lent (21.3 ppg). The fourth place Paterson Crescents placed two players on the league's first all-star team in forward Wally Baker and guard Jimmy Hurlburt. Add in rookie guard Al Humphry, the college player of the year from NCAA champion West Virginia, and the Crescents future looks very bright. Things in Bristol, however, were not so bright as the Pile Drivers endured a terrible campaign even though they had a couple of very good players in Harvy Stevens and rookie Ed Brayton, an All-American out of Indiana. Code:
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The finals were a rematch of last season when Wilmington prevailed in 4 games. However, Trenton shocked the defending champs by winning the first two games on the road. Game one's score was 95-76 despite Dick Hauge getting 44 points in a losing effort for Wilmington. The Potters won by being the better team with Otis Burdick (21 pts), Corky Gipson (19), Rags Hockett (18) and center Dick Pfeil (17) all contributing at both ends of the court. Game Two was much the same story as Hauge scored 31 but his Peaches lost 85-68 with Burdick, Gipson and Pfeil all topping 20 points each for Trenton. Trenton returned home looking for a sweep but it didn't happen as Hauge's 33 points and some help from his supporting cast kept Wilmington alive with an 87-66 win. The series did end the next night as the Trenton four proved better than Wilmington's one star in a 100-91 win. Hauge had 40 points but Pfiel (23), Gipson(22), Burdick (19) and Hockett (18) more than negated it giving Trenton it's first Eastern Basketball League title. Despite averaging a league high 34.4 ppg to go along with 11.0 rpg, Hauge did not win his second playoff MVP award. The honour instead went to Trenton's Corky Gipson, who was third in playoff scoring with 20.6 ppg behind Hauge and Pittsburgh's Willard McNew. Code:
GOLF The big story in golf in 1904 came from the European Tour as German Albert Lichtman was becoming a dominant force in the game. The 29 year old won 8 events on the Euro Tour this year and, while he has yet to win a major, it seems like just a matter of time as he has come close a couple of times. For the first time we had a golfer win more than 1 major in a season as Frenchy Savard, a 44 year old Louisiana born golfer, won both the Masters and the US Open. His hopes for a grand slam were quickly extinguished when he missed the cut at the British Open. Savard had not been a factor on the tour in each of his 8 seasons, but someone caught lightning in a bottle twice in 1904. THE MASTERS The Masters leaderboard read like a who's who of golf as rising star Lichtman was just a stroke of the pace and former major winners Calvin Baumgartner, Hayden Gallant, James Fox and Colin O'Higgins all cracked the top ten. In the end it was Savard who prevailed, but it took 4 playoff holes for him to beat Luther Swartz to win his first Green Jacket. Code:
The River Course in Blacksburg, Virginia was the site of the 1904 US Open and it was extremely unforgiving. Frenchy Savard followed up his victory at The Masters with another win but he failed to break par in any of his four rounds. Scores under 72 were few and far between as Savard prevailed by a stroke over Gordon Dendy and two-time major tournament winner James Fox. For the 28 year old Dendy, who finished tied for third at The Masters it was a second straight strong showing. Code:
Defending champion Lord Lovett nearly made it two in a row but the Englishman came up just short as he lost in a playoff to Len Tucker. The most disappointed golfer after the event had to be American Whitey Gordon. The 43 year old Gordon had a 1 stroke lead on Lovett after 36 holes but carded rounds of 79 and 80 on the weekend to drop into a 10th place tie. James Fox continued his strong summer as the two-time major winner finished in the top ten for the third time in a major this year. The Belfry course near Birmingham, England was unforgiving in it's first time hosting a major and scores reflected that. Code:
The PGA championship made a return trip to Oakland Hills in 1904 and for the second time this year 32 year old Calvin Baumgartner was in range of a record 5th major title. Baumgartner, who was 2 strokes off the pace at The Masters, finished just 1 stroke back of winner Joseph Power in a PGA championship that went down to the wire only because the 43 year old Power nearly blew a 4 stroke lead heading into Sunday. Power would card a final round 80 but had scored just low enough to beat 3 golfers by 1, including Baumgartner who gained 8 strokes on the leader in the final day with an even par. Baumgartner's undoing was shooting a 77 on Saturday after being just two strokes behind Power, who led after each day of the event. Code:
Here is the list of all-time major winners thru 1904 (minimum 2 titles) Code:
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Good work so far, but I got a question: What does the alignment look like in College Football?
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The one drawback to BBCF is it is only customizable to a point. I had tried removing teams and lowering the number of conferences but the game always seemed to crash so I couldn't set things up exactly how I wanted. Also once you start a league, you can not add or delete any schools but I think you can have teams switch conferences although I have never tried. Here is what I am going with: BIG EIGHT Colorado Iowa State Kansas Kansas State Missouri Nebraska Oklahoma Utah A note here. I guess I decided Utah was the best option as I needed all conference to be 8 or 10 teams and I decided it was a better fit to put Utah here and keep Oklahoma A&M (OkState) in the MVC. WESTERN CONFERENCE (BIG 10) Indiana Illinois Iowa Michigan Michigan State Minnesota Northwestern Ohio State Purdue Wisconsin Note - I wanted to put Chicago here and keep MSU an indy team but was afraid I could not switch them in later years. BORDER ATHLETIC CONFERENCE Arizona Arizona State Colorado State New Mexico New Mexico State Northern Arizona Texas Mines (becomes UTEP) Texas Tech IVY GROUP Brown Columbia Cornell Dartmouth Harvard Penn Princeton Yale MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE Creighton Drake Grinnell Oklahoma A&M (Oklahoma State) Saint Louis Tulsa Washburn Washington(Mo) PACIFIC COAST CONFERENCE California Oregon Oregon State Stanford UCLA USC Washington Washington State Idaho should be here but would have left me with 9 teams. ROCKY MOUNTAIN CONFERENCE BYU Colorado College Colorado Mines Denver Northern Colorado Utah State Western State Wyoming SEC Alabama Alabama Polytechnical (Auburn) Florida Georgia Kentucky LSU Mississippi Mississippi State Tennessee Vanderbilt SOUTHERN CONFERENCE Clemson Duke Maryland North Carolina North Carolina State South Carolina Virginia VPI (Virginia Polytechnical Institute - became Virginia Tech) VMI (Virginia Military Institute) Washington & Lee SOUTHWEST CONFERENCE Arkansas Baylor Rice SMU Texas Texas A&M TCU Tulane Tulane is here because I needed 8 teams. I also have 4 independent conferences. Because the game treats them like conferences and forces a conference schedule on them they are not really independent but it was the best solution I could find at the time. MIDWEST INDEPENDENTS Army Chicago Detroit Mercy Fordham Marquette Navy New York University Notre Dame Pittsburgh Syracuse EASTERN INDEPENDENTS Bucknell Carnegie Tech Duquesne Georgetown Holy Cross Penn State Temple Villanova SOUTHERN INDEPENDENTS Citadel Davidson Furman Georgia Tech Sewanee Wake Forest West Virginia Xavier WESTERN INDEPENDENT Fresno State Idaho Montana Pacific San Diego State San Francisco Santa Clara St Mary's Like I said, not ideal but as close as I could get it at the time. |
It's always great to see you do a thread like this. What program do you use to simulate golf and is it still available?
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1905
1905 RECAP NCAA After two seasons of finishing just behind Alabama, the Tennessee Volunteers finally won their first SEC title, going 82-44 to finish one game ahead of the Crimson Tide in what is quickly becoming the most competitive conference in college baseball. The Vols were led by a tremendous season from senior outfielder Bill Stigall (.320,50,121) and freshman righthander Tim Jones (23-3, 2.33). Defending National Champion Nebraska-Omaha won it's third straight Big 8 title behind the right arm of junior Jason Garrison (26-10, 1.80, 374k's). Jason Sawyer will definitely be drafted this year. The Arizona slugger, who was given a 5th year of college eligibility due to his birthdate, had a down year by his standards but still hit .308 with 34 homers and 89 rbis. It is very early obviously but I have doubts if his career homers and rbi totals will ever be surpassed. He graduates with 245 round-trippers. Tennessee's Bill Stigall is number two on that list with 173. Sawyer's 540 career rbi's are 62 more than Stanford's Pedro Perez accumulated. THE TOURNAMENT The brackets for the 1905 NCAA Tournament were as follows: Code:
EAST REGION Game one saw Alabama win 4-3 thanks to a walk-off homerun by pinch-hitter Tyler Bennett (.158,1,3) with two out in the bottom of the ninth. It was just the second career homerun for the little-used sophomore. In Game Two, senior pitcher Justin Webster (15-6, 3.84) tossed a complete game allowing Tennessee to even the series with a 4-2 victory but Alabama won the deciding game in convincing fashion, 7-1 behind a Sean Frego (.246,21,74) grand slam. Alabama would play Yale in the semi-finals while Nebraska-Omaha continues it's title defense with a matchup against Dartmouth. Yale continued it's improbable run with a series win over Alabama. The Bulldogs won the Ivy League with an 82-44 season after never finishing above .500 in school history prior to this season. Their opponent in the final will be Nebraska-Omaha, as the Mavericks bid to become the first repeat winner of the College World Series. In the title series every thing went Yale's way as the Bulldogs won each game by a single run coming in their final at bat. In Game One sophomore outfielder Tim Stainiszewski (.295,32,87) hit a run scoring single with 1 out in the bottom of the ninth to give Yale a 6-5 victory. Game Two it was a solo homerun from freshman Sklyer Gearhart (.210,3,33) to lead off the 9th that proved the difference in a 4-3 victory and in the final game it was an rbi double from junior Justin Pruitt (.253,5,21) in the top of the 12th that broke the tie and gave Yale a 7-6 win. This happened after Nebraska-Omaha rallied with 3 runs in the bottom of the 8th to tie the game and force extra innings. https://i.imgur.com/qeZy3Py.jpg THE DRAFT The Big Ten conference dominated the first few picks as 3 players from the conference went in the top five including first overall Andy Green, a pitcher from Michigan. Green missed much of his senior season with an injury but finished his college career with a 77-29 record and a 1.58 era. He was a two-time All-America selection and helped the Wolverines to the 1903 College World Series title. He goes to the Pirates, who have been just awful and show little signs at this point of getting better. I included an 11th player on the top ten list as the Braves selected Arizona slugger Jason Sawyer with the final pick of the first round (before supplemental picks are taken). The Braves are a good fit for Sawyer as, while they are loaded with young outfielders, they did lose homerun king Matthew Eiden to Detroit as a free agent over the winter. One of the Braves prospects is 23 year old Eddie Banuelos, who won an NCAA MVP award while at Syracuse and was Southern League MVP last year at Little Rock when he hit .367 with 37 homers and 130 rbi's. The #9 prospect in baseball is now hitting .318 with 13 homers in 65 games for AAA Milwaukee. https://i.imgur.com/lejeUZB.jpg MAJOR LEAGUE SEASON I am not sure if I discussed the league settings much before but I am playing with finances enabled and include free agency. Now that we are 5 years into the league we are starting to see some player movement and no team was hit anywhere near as hard as the two-time defending World Champion Boston Braves. The Braves had one of the higher payrolls in the league but had terrible fan support (even with the titles) and were dead last in attendance so you knew something had to give soon. This past off-season it gave....big time. Without signing a single free agent in return, the Braves lost their two best pitchers, 2 outfielders and their starting second baseman. Leftfielder Matthew Eiden averaged 46 homers and 145 rbi's over the past two seasons. He signed a 7 year deal with Detroit. Centerfielder John Macomber (41 HR, 128 rbi last season) and veteran starter Dale Coats (1903 Cy Young winner) both left for Washington while Ralph Mason (19-7 last season) went to the Yankees. Finally, 4 time all-star second baseman Josh Downing signed with Brooklyn. As a result the Braves payroll dropped to the second lowest in the league and they fell to fifth place in the National League. With Boston's 4 year run atop the National League over, it opened the doors for other teams and it was the St Louis Cardinals that took full advantage. No one really stood out on the Cardinals but they did have a solid lineup from top to bottom. Their best player would likely be 37 year old third baseman Craig Croy (.275,29,93), especially considering star pitcher Jimmy Wallace (13-2, 3.02) missed the final couple months of the season when he blew his arm out. The young and improving Cincinnati Reds finished second with their best win total since the pennant-winning 1901 campaign. This is a retooled team with many starters in their mid-twenties with the exception of veterans Dan Perkins (.312,29,95) and Chad Eggers (.296,21,94). Eggers is an original Red and was the 1901 NL MVP while Perkins spent 4 years with the Braves before signing with Pittsburgh this off-season and being dealt to the Reds at the deadline. Brooklyn's Ray Abernathy won his first batting title while, with Eiden gone to Detroit, the homerun and rbi race were wide open. Dan Miller of the Dodgers led with 111 rbi's while 30 year old Cubs infielder Jeremy Meadows won the homerun race with 37. Injuries destroyed the Boston Red Sox chances of repeating in the American League. Pitcher Chris Tidwell blew out his arm and at age 35 a return to form is in doubt. Outfielder Mike Price and shortstop Craig Hill, who combined for 70 homers and 193 rbi's a year ago, both missed much of the season with long-term injuries. That allowed the Chicago White Sox to step up and win their first pennant and probably earn some much deserved credit for the best pitcher I have yet to mention in Ryan Joy. Joy, winner of the 1902 Cy Young Award, has led the AL in ERA each of the past four seasons including a 1.85 mark this season. He was also the league's only 20 game winner this year at 22-6 and led the AL in K's for the fourth time in his career with 259. The best young player in the majors is 22 year old centerfielder Jonathan Collazo (.347,31,107). The former Wisconsin star led the American League in batting, rbi's and stolen bases in his first full major league season. Only ex-Brave Matthew Eiden's 37 homers for Detroit denied the young White Sox outfielder a triple crown. https://i.imgur.com/ArFeE4f.jpg WORLD SERIES The Chicago White Sox won the World Series in 5 games over the St Louis Cardinals. The Sox were led by former Penn star Shawn Reamer (.279,18,70), who went 8-for-15 with 6 walks in the series and scored 7 runs. Despite the quick ending it was a tight series as four of the games were decided by just one run. https://i.imgur.com/fdiQ57H.jpg OTHER NOTES Another .400 season for Roland Point. The 25 year old infielder hit exactly .400 this season, his fifth with the West Texas-New Mexico League's Abilene Blue Sox. After batting .340 as a rookie pro in 1901, Point has hit .400 each of the past 4 seasons and has won 4 straight batting titles. After losing in the championship series last season, the Tampico Alijadores claimed another Mexican League playoff title - their fourth - with a 7 game victory over the Mexico City Red Devils. The Trois-Rivieres Phillies won the Canadian Series in 6 games over the Victoria Royals. It was the third time in 5 years the two clubs have met. Victoria won in 1901 while the Phillies prevailed in 1902. Minor league champions were as follows: Code:
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1905 part II
1905 - Other Sports HOCKEY For a change the Stanley Cup winner was not named the Montreal Wanderers. It was not because another club finally knocked off the 4-time champions but instead because the Wanderers franchise was sold to new owners. The team remained in Montreal, at least for the time being, and was rebranded as the Montreal Maroons. Call it what you want, the franchise still made the playoffs but this time they were in an unfamiliar spot as the Maroons finished second to the Ottawa Senators in the regular season. It made no difference come playoff time as the Maroons won yet again, beating Ottawa 2 games to one with the deciding game ending on an overtime goal by Denis Ryan, who was named playoff MVP. Ryan also won the league scoring title but it was teammate Joseph Matheson who was named regular season MVP for the 3rd time in his career. Code:
COLLEGE FOOTBALL Tiny Grinnell College in Iowa won a National Championship in 1905 following a perfect season. In real life Grinnell is now a D-3 team but they have a rich history including hosting the first college football game played west of the Mississippi in 1889. Grinnell was a member of the Missouri Valley Conference in the early days and actually tied for the conference title in 1929. In this sim, Grinnell has had seasons of 7-5,6-6,7-5 and 9-3 before there perfect run this year. They don't play the toughest schedule in the MVC but a Cotton Bowl win over 11-1 (entering the game) Washington gave the Pioneers their perfect season. They beat the Huskies handily as well, with the final score 34-16. Grinnell's senior running back Tex Blanton had an outstanding season with 1,818 yards rushing and 15 touchdowns. In 49 career games at Grinnell, Blanton would rush for 6,396 yards which placed him second all-time. Michigan and Notre Dame could perhaps each make a case for deserving the number one ranking as their schedule's were much harder. Unfortunately each club stumbled once during the regular season but both recovered with solid bowl wins. The Wolverines hammered Cal 40-3 in a Rose Bowl rematch while Notre Dame doubled Texas Tech 28-14 in the Sugar Bowl. Other bowl games saw Utah beat Duke 31-28 in the Orange Bowl, Harvard blasted North Carolina 50-17 in the Tangerine Bowl, Northwestern topped Villanova 39-10 in the Gator Bowl while New Mexico beat Furman 30-20 in the Citrus Bowl. It must have been quite the season in the Western Conference as Michigan, Northwestern, Ohio State and Minnesota all finished in the top 14 with Michigan State just outside the top twenty. Unfortunately, they all beat up on each other denying any of them a National Title. Code:
COLLEGE BASKETBALL Defending National Champion Indiana had a huge season but it was a year of upsets in the NCAA tournament and for the first time in the tournament's 5 year history, the Hoosiers failed to make the Final Four. Indiana went 32-2 on the year, losing to Kansas in December and not dropping another game until they were upset by 3 seed Cincinnati in the Midwest Regional Final. It was a rough tournament for number one seeds as North Carolina was shocked in it's South Region opener by tiny Muhlenburg College as the 8th seed pulled out a 64-62 victory. In the end the four seed Bradley would come out of the South after the Braves beat 3 seed LSU handily in the regional final. It was the same in the East as number one seed Holy Cross lost to the 8th seeded Ivy League champs Dartmouth in the tournament opener. West Virginia, a 3 seed this year, would advance from the East Region. The only number one to reach the final four came from out west as Pacific Coast Conference champion Cal beat conference rival and 7 seed Washington in the West Final, after the Huskies had knocked off number 2 Oklahoma A&M and number 6 Kansas in successive games. As the only 1 seed to make it to the Final Four, the California Bears were the favourites on the final weekend. Cal had a new head coach in Toby Rogers, who had spent the previous 4 seasons at West Virginia and won an NCAA title with the Mountaineers. Rogers would be named NCAA coach of the year this season but he inherited a ton of talent with the Bears including senior SF Jerry Winkler, who would be a first team all-american, and guards Dooley Conti and Joe Darling - both seniors who would be named 3rd team All-Americans. Their opponent would be Bradley, 25-6 and in it's second final four in three years. Despite a game high 30 points from junior forward Stewart Albers, the Braves fell 83-73 as Cal got 25 points from Conti and 20 from Winkler. The other semi-final had Cincinnati making it's first final four appearance against West Virginia, which had won the National Championship two years ago and lost in the title game last season. The young Bearcats, led by 14 points each from sophomore Ensign Collins and true freshman Mem Charron, would upset the experienced Mountaineers 76-68 to advance to the title game. After a tight first half that saw California leading by just 1 point, the Bears pulled away in the second half and ended up beating Cincinnati by 7 to win the National Championship. It was the experienced senior guards of Cal that made the difference as Dooley Conti had 24 points and Joe Darling added 18 to go along with 8 assists. https://i.imgur.com/yKR9NSq.jpg Code:
The Freshman of the Year was Kentucky guard Pug Marvin, who you may recall was talked about last year when he was the MVP of the High School all-star game. Marvin, from Buffalo, was a starter right away as a freshman at Kentucky, averaging 11.8 ppg on the season as he helped Kentucky to a 25-9 record and to the regional semi-finals. Code:
The second best recruiting class belong to Duquesne as the Dukes landed #5 Eddie Aldridge, a guard from Seneca, South Carolina, #6 Ed Patterson a forward from Newfield, New York and the 10th ranked player in Odenville, Alabama PG Luther Bracken. The top recruit in the nation was Rocky Mount, North Carolina forward Ralph Ridgway and he would choose Cincinnati with Duquesne also in the running. PRO BASKETBALL The Eastern Basketball League expanded to 11 teams this season with the addition of another Pennsylvania based team in the McKeesport Keys. The Keys would finish last overall in the league, compiling a 12-48 record on the season. However, McKeesport can take comfort in the potential for their future just by looking at what another expansion team in the Reading Bears accomplished in their second season. After finishing in the West Division cellar in their inaugural year last season, the Bears won the West Division with a 38-22 record. The Bears success can be pinned on three players: All-Star guard George Green who averaged 18.1 ppg and 10.2 assists per game, second year shooting guard Otho Legg, who averaged 18.9 ppg and rookie of the year Al Margolis. The West Virginia product led the Bears in scoring and was the league's top rookie despite not being drafted until the second round. A big reason why Wilmington fell to second place in the West was the fact that center Dick Hauge missed the final 13 games due to injury. He was still a first team all-star and led the league in points per game but the time off cost Hauge a second straight MVP award. Instead the MVP went to Willard McNew of Pittsburgh Homesteaders, who fell to 4th this year. The Philadelphia Wheelers were third for the third year in a row with Josef Wettermann and Joe Hubbard again leading the way. The East Division belonged to the New York Wanderers as they enjoyed their best season yet, going 43-17. The Wanderers had four solid scoring threats in returning stars Ciriaco Ferrer (21.7 ppg) and Chester Lee (19.0 ppg) plus Duane Taylor (14.9), a 3rd year center who came over from Camden, and rookie forward Deacon Mitchel, who averaged 16.7 ppg after being selected 10th overall out of Duquesne. The offensive firepower made the Wanderers the first EBL team to average over 100 points per game. Second place Paterson was nearly as strong offensively as the Wanderers. The Crescents had 3 twenty-point per game scorers in Wally Baker, Al Humphry and Jimmy Hurlburt. Camden, led by Bennie Lent and Rufus Nickerson, finished third. Fourth place Bristol leaned heavily on Harvy Stevens but it looks like he may finally have someone to play with as newcomer Buddy Neville made the All-Rookie team after being selected first overall out of Bradley. Ed Brayton, a second year pro out of Indiana, also gives Bristol fans some hope for the future. The Trenton Potters dropped to last place after finishing second a year ago primarily because of an injury that cost Orlin Burdick more than half of the season. Corky Gipson (20.8 ppg) and Rags Hockett (19.1 ppg) still excelled but there was not enough depth with Burdick sidelined. Code:
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New York's high octane offense was too much for Reading in the finals as the Wanderers swept the series in 3 games. Game 1 saw Cunningham get 27 points and Ferrer 26 in a 117-99 win. Game Two New York won 109-103 behind 25 points from Ferrer and 21 from reserve forward Foster Shanks. The final game was 116-105 as Chester Lee scored 26 while Ferrer and center Duane Taylor each potted 20. Jimmy Cunningham, who enjoyed a breakout playoff, was named the post-season MVP. Cunningham played two seasons at Oklahoma A&M and was the Southwest Conference player of the year in his final season before being taken 4th overall by the Wanderers. He has spent 3 seasons in the New York backcourt and averaged 15.7 ppg and 9.7 apg while being overshadowed by stars Ferrer and Lee. Code:
GOLF THE MASTERS Calvin Baumgartner's dominance in Major Tournaments added another chapter as the 33 year old added a Green Jacket to his collection of titles that includes two British Open and two US Open championships. Baumgartner came to Augusta red-hot, having won in Arizona and finished in the top ten in both the Utah and Miami Beach Opens the month before. He would win The Masters by two strokes over another talented golfer in James Fox. Despite some strong showing in recent years, Fox remains glued on two major titles. Code:
US OPEN Brae Burn in Massachusetts hosted it's first US Open in 1905 and the winner was Clem Jordan, an American golfer who had come close in the past but had never won a major. James Fox and Irishman Colin O'Higgins followed up strong showings at Augusta with another top five finish for each of them while last year's US Open runner-up Gordon Dendy was also in contention. Code:
The British Open returned to St Andrews for the fourth time and native Scotsman and Euro Tour regular Angus Wilson came away with his first major victory. The 31 year old finished 2 strokes ahead of American Rudy Shaw. Frenchy Savard was in contention in a major for the first time since winning a pair of them a year ago. Savard finished in a tie for 6th place, 6 strokes back. Code:
Flossmoor Country Club in Illinois played host to the 1905 PGA Championship. The course was also home to the initial PGA in 1896, an event won by James Fox. Fox had another strong showing this year, finishing in a tie for 10th with young German Albert Lichtman. The winner was a first-time major champ who has rarely been seen on the leaderboard of a major tournament. A 37 year old golfer by the name of Fritz Hobbs. Hobbs took the lead on Thursday with a 4-under par 68, dropped following back to back 75's on Friday and Saturday before finishing with a 71, the best round of the day, on Sunday to win by 3 strokes. Vince Cummins finished second on the strength of 3 straight par rounds, but a 76 on Thursday which left him 8 strokes back was too much to overcome. Ireland's Liam Hogan was the leader entering Sunday but he imploded with a final round 79 and remains in search of his first major. Code:
Here is the list of all-time major winners thru 1905 (minimum 2 titles) Code:
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