[legendsport]

I'm not sure anyone outside my FABL peeps really wants this, but since I'm doing it, I might as well share it with the world (or at least the little corner of it that visits this board anyway...).

As you're no doubt aware from looking at the numerous threads with the acronym 'FABL' or word 'Figment' in their titles, I run an OOTP league called the Figment Baseball League. I've also been writing a dynasty thread on one large family that permeates the baseball league in various capacities. What I've also been doing all along is running other sports in various ways, generating history with an eye towards eventually being able to have online leagues in the same universe as FABL (which stands for Federally Aligned Baseball Leagues, if you were wondering). FABL just wrapped up its 1934 season and is about to start 1935, so I am currently catching my other sports up to 1935.

These sports include hockey (the main league is the North American Hockey Confederation or NAHC), football (American Football Association, AFA), basketball (pro league name TBD), boxing, golf, auto racing, horse racing and tennis. I also plan on doing some Olympic track & field stuff too (mostly in support of the Barrell brothers story). I also have college leagues for football and basketball.

I'm guessing if you're reading this, you're likely familiar with the work of Tiger Fan, who is the master of the multi-sport dynasty thread. He's a member of Figment baseball and likely will be a member of the other universe leagues when I get them spun up. I mention him because his work is the primary inspiration for what I want this thread to become and I wanted to give him some well-deserved props.

So... a little more background for anyone still reading. The universe contains fictional leagues, fictional teams and fictional players. Most are based on real-life leagues - FABL for example, has two leagues (we call them Associations: the Federal and Continental instead of AL & NL) with eight teams apiece, and mirrors the rules and structure of MLB. The AFA will take its rules and basic structure (generally speaking) from the NFL (which had a very interesting and chaotic first couple of decades, much like baseball did in the 19th century). The NAHC by the time the online league starts will have dealt with several rival leagues, much like the NHL did in its early years and its rules and playing style will be based on NHL rules of the same time. Basketball will be the same, although in the time period Figment currently sits within (the 30s) there was no NBA and wouldn't be for another decade-plus. There were pro leagues though - the American Basketball League and the National Basketball League (the latter would eventually merge with the Basketball Associatio of America to form the NBA). Regardless the basketball league (this is true already for the college game) will feature the same play style and rules as the actual pro & college games did in the 20s & 30s. That means low-scoring, low-shooting percentages, etc. Because these sports will all exist within the same universe, there will be crossover among players, owners, and others. The Barrells already have a role in the football and hockey leagues and will likely be involved in others as well. But they're not the only ones - as was the case historically, many players who were pros in baseball (or football, or hockey, etc) participated professionally in others as well. 11 of the men who played in the proto-NFL in 1920 also played Major League Baseball and a score more played in the minors. So that's an area that will be fun to explore.

The simulations I'm using... this is a bit more complicated. Honestly, as everyone knows there is nothing like the masterpiece that is OOTP for any of the other sports. Sure, FHM is working towards that goal, and hopefully will get there, but it's nowhere near as customizable in its current state as the baseball game was in its 7th iteration let alone now. I'm also a programmer, so I am able to do my own stuff - not anything I'd want to put out in the public (I'm more interested in results than dealing with user interfaces and bells & whistles that customers would want, so don't expect to see any of these games that are mentioned here & there below).

HOCKEY: While FHM is likely the hockey engine I will be using for the online league (I'm considering another game engine as well), I've actually used a system of my own devising to run the early years of the NAHC and its competitors.

FOOTBALL: Similarly, football has no sim that can handle the way the game was played before the mid-50s or so. We're talking ironman football, with no platooning and the 11 players going the whole game on both sides of the ball and special teams. Again, I've been using a system of my own devising and might try using Action!PC Football for the mid-30s through 1950-ish era before switching to Draft Day Sports Football which does an okay job with the 50s and a better job after the mid-60s. The college game I will continue to use my own system until the postwar era when I will switch to either the old Bowl Bound game from Grey Dog or Draft Day Sports College Football, pending developments with the latter game.

BASKETBALL: This has slightly better news. The game is old and no longer updated, but Fastbreak Pro Basketball allows you to edit the playing style and shooting percentages to somewhat accurately mirror the pre-shot clock, low shooting percentages of the set shot era. So I will use that for my pro league. The Fastbreak College game does not have a similar setting, so I will probably continue to use my own system for the college side until the postwar era.

BOXING: For boxing I have been using the similarly aged Title Bout game formerly sold by OOTP. I have also been considering doing my own thing. I have a tendency to be overly ambitious sometimes - while I can do something of my own, time is not always available for me to do so and I have to be wary of overextending myself (I do have a full-time programming job and a wife & kids to consider).

GOLF: For golf, I have used Quick Play Golf (which Tiger Fan also uses) as it makes it easy to create seasons and play tournaments. I might move to Draft Day Sports Golf down the road... we'll see.

AUTO RACING: For auto racing I am again using the same game as Tiger Fan: Tom Mink's Indy 500 game.

HORSE RACING: For horse racing I have devised my own game based on a tabletop system with fictional horses based on actual thoroughbreds.

TENNIS: For tennis, I am still working on deciding what to use, but leaning towards an old Lance Haffner game - the same is true for my Olympic track & field events.

SOCCER: I would love to include soccer in this. Probably English football. The engine is a question mark though. Again, I could do something of my own, but time... time is always the problem. This is high on my "want to do it" list, though, so it may end up getting in there somehow.

As you can see, that's a pretty long list, worthy of Tiger Fan himself. I'm currently writing up my recaps for pro football, having just finished the college football entries. I've been posting them on my website (legendsport.com) and they're not all published there yet (baseball and hockey are mostly there, college and pro football are there only up to the early 20s as I don't want to post spoilers for my Barrell brothers story). Regardless, what's there will appear here, in a slightly modified format more suited for this board.

Eventually my goal is to have a database-driven website that will allow users to access the stats and history of all this stuff, cross-linked so if a guy played baseball and football you can look at one and click a link to see the other sport(s). That's down the road though. For now, it'll mostly be narrative though I will post stats and such too, much like Tiger Fan has done in his excellent multisport threads.

I'm hoping you'll enjoy this as much as I will doing it. I should be posting something soon to get this officially started. Thanks for reading!