[gollum65]

If I were to restart the leauge I'd try to more accurately simulate how the leagues really worked back in those days. No draft. I'd try to better simulate league finances if I used them at all. They're pretty screwed up in OOTP 9. I'm still averaging 15,000 fans a game in the 1950s. That can't be right. I'd also try to better replicate the "reserve clause" used in MLB to prevent free agency, which also means there probably wouldn't be free agency per se if I restarted. There certainly wouldn't be free agent comp. That did keep me from signing some players and it convinced me to let others go as I thought the picks were more valuable then the players.

Would I do anything differently with the team? Not much. I think I was pretty dominant in the first 30 years of the franchise. The last 20 years I seemed to be in perpetual rebuilding mode. Just when I'd think I had a good team, they'd stink and vice versa.

Overall my impressions are that it's really hard to win 26 titles in 100+ years. I never posted the end of the 1955 season, but we won 89 games and finished a distant 2nd behind Washington. And they finished way behind NL champs St. Louis who shattered the single season wins record with something like 117. I also learned that the early 20th century was very pitching dominated, so for guys like Hornsby, Cobb, Wagner, etc to put up the career numbers they did is truly amazing. The stats those great early batters put up would be like Jeter hitting .535 every year or ARod smacking 125 homers every season. And I learned that other teams besides the Yankees could be really good for long stretches in a "free market" arena like I had going with full free agency and full amateur drafts every year. Quite a few teams enjoyed a lot of success over these 50+ years.