Quote:
Originally Posted by SandMan
Suggestion
Allow exhibition games (barnstorming) between teams from any league. Allow for option to include stats in seasonal records, or to have the stats split from actual league stats.
Reason
Would allow for world playoffs, barnstorming and simple exhibition games such as the Major League club playing its AAA affiliate in an annual match....
Priority
Medium (should have)
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Let me expand upon this idea, as I've been thinking along similar lines.
Suggestion
Allow intraleague and interleague exhibition games to be scheduled in the schedule editor and/or added manually to the schedule file, and those games considered as real games which are part of a team's season (though, of course, not counting in the league standings).
Reason
Exhibition contests between major league clubs, and between major and minor league clubs, were once very common during a season.
In 1975, for example, there were at least 15 exhibition games played during the season. The New York Mets played 3: one against Army, one against the Yankees, and one against Tidewater of the IL. In 1955, there were at least 19 exhibition games played. The New York Giants played 3: one against the Yankees, one against the Red Sox, and one against Minneapolis of the AA. The Cleveland Indians played 4: one against the Cardinals, one against the Reds, one against Reading of the EL, and one against Indianapolis of the AA.
The difference in how OOTP would treat exhibition games under this proposal rather than how they are done is as follows:
First, these exhibition contests
would be considered part of the club's playing season. This means the exhibition games would appear on the league and team schedules (but would be marked as exhibition contests). Also, player participating in these exhibiton games would accumulate fatigue and could also be injured (but the AI should understand that these are exhibition games and thus would primarily use its backups and bench players rather than its regular lineup). The results and stats from such exhibition games of course do not count in the standings, but would be kept track of in their own category.
These exhibition games could be added via the schedule editor, or added manually into the schedule file. For the latter, add a column to the file format which designates whether a game is a regular season or exhibition contest. A 0 would indicate a regular season game and a 1 an exhibition game (the ability to add such exhibition games into the schedule files directly would make it much easier for me to update the MLB historical schedules to include at least the exhibiton games which took place between major league clubs).
The preceding was aimed at exhibition games between teams in the same league. If exhibition games between different leagues could be done in a similar manner, that would allow for even more interesting possibilities.
Allowing set in-season exhibition games between separate leagues would allow the player to recreate scenarios like that of the Negro Leagues. The Negro Leagues usually played league games on the weekend, and then exhibition contests the rest of the week against teams from different leagues (indeed, there were more exhibition games played than regular season ones). An OOTP player could emulate that by setting up a league which plays a small number of league games but a large number of exhibition games.
Since player fatigue and injuries from those exhibition games count, that means being a GM is a balancing act between keeping your players ready for the league games but also not overusing them in the exhibition season (though if there's a low roster limit there won't be much choice).
One last item would be for such exhibition games to perhaps generate finances and income for the host team like a regular season game would, though at a lower level.
Priority
Medium.