Quote:
Originally Posted by joefromchicago
Quite possibly, but then the men who were playing baseball at that time weren't really representative of the general population. Whereas the majority of Americans lived in rural areas and participated in an agricultural economy, the majority of baseball players lived in urban areas and participated in a commercial economy. I'd be very surprised if 25% of the Knickerbocker Club, for instance, served in the civil war.
And, of course, southerners really didn't play baseball at all until they learned the game from northerners -- often when they were serving time in northern POW camps.
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To your first point, yes, I may have to tone down the percentages. Maybe from the 20% I was thinking to 10 or 15%. I am trying to reflect the "gentlemanly" image that ruled baseball pre-ACW. That said, a review of the amateur National Association standings during the war does show that the sports' organized growth slowed from 1861-1865. Maybe it wasn't from guys going off, but I don't think there was a lot of public support in that era for casual sports during wartime.
As to your second, demographic factors are one thing I've decided I'm going to have but limited control over for the duration of the dynasty. It would be awesome if I could manipulate these things with ease, but going from a league of all-Caucasian dudes (with era appropriate names) from NYC and surrounding areas to a universe full of players from all over would IMO be so time consuming as to prevent me from ever getting there in the first place. This means that I have guys from all over, including the South, in the league at the beginning of 1861. Perhaps I overlooked the regions feature in 13 here?
The compromise is that using the in-game editor to manipulate nations' baseball quality, one can at least control where the foreigners come from. For this era, I have foreigner percentage set at 5% and those guys will come from Great Britain, Canada, Ireland, with a few from mainland Europe (based on immigration data).
That is interesting about your league and internment. I'm assuming it was for WWII with players from Axis nations? Did you have to mess with the demographic stuff (world_default) a lot in that universe?