Originally Posted by Kammich
Hi there!
I am extremely interested, but first want to just give a little history of my own OOTP experience(s) and see if I would be eligible to join. I also would offer to help out, if needed in any way, whatsoever. Anyway, at the moment, I own & (mostly) play OOTP 14 (but also have licenses fo 13, 11, 10, and then the earlier releases that had me initially hooked on this SIM- 6.5/12... I believe I started with a demo of 5 or perhaps a free copy, though... but some of these are on a desktop that I do not access anymore, so I mainly stick with 14 lately since losing my Nationals franchise for the 13 edition, which took any reason for me to go back there out of play).
My interest in OOTP and baseball SIM games, and sport SIM games as a whole *really* took offer after co-joining a league with my friend for (I believe) version 6.5, where we co-managed the D-Rays to my recollection. I want to say this was circa sometime '03-'04, but I forget when 6.5 came out initially (and it confuses me even more so when I think about the patch and update which our league used and added pretty quick, once released), unless we began on an earlier version which is possible (and I'll get to why on that in a sec). Anyway, being allowed to co-managed wasn't necessarily unorthodox for our league as it was within the rules that we were allowed to co-manage (just like a lot of fantasy sport sits will let you anoint a co-manager, if so you desire and your commish doesn't have a rule preventing it), but we did not agree on any moves. He was closer with our mutual friend who got us into the league, and I simply let him keep the D-Rays when he dealt (then) #1 prospect in our league, Delmon Young, and another top-15 or something in Edwin Jackson and some other nice pieces for Jeff Weaver and a fill-in 3B for two seasons. To his credit, he made the wild card or won his division one of the next two seasons, but then his team completely went to hell, and he quit because he did that a lot with these things! Well, fast-forward to somewhere between '05 and '07 I think, and I was invited to rejoin the league and replace a team. I took over the A's. They were well into their league by that point, with at least 50-60% of players being fake by that point, but I was still more than able to get into it. The league ran for 32 seasons and I took part as A's GM for about 10-14, with a season lasting anywhere from 2-3 months I guess, as it was really unpredictable, but when active, very competitive and that made it a blast. I made the playoffs all of 3 times, and only won the division once- which I believe I had to play a 1-game playoff which would have made me the Wild Card had I lost it, for my 3rd postseason wild card appearance. My life grew busy, as did many other people within that league and we went through our changes and I eventually had to withdraw myself.
During this time period, I also ran my own league with a co-commish who ran it alone for about 2 or 3 months when I was unable to due to lack of time, but we didn't want things ending prematurely when we had such high activity level at that time. This was a league my friend and I experimented on perhaps too much, constantly trying new ideas and implementing them over off seasons and stuff. In retrospect, while the members had said they appreciated this about the league, I feel it wasn't the best tactic to use in re-introduced or simply introduced any new ideas. This league ran from the real-life MLB season of I'd say 2007 all of the way to 2021 in our league, and we had some real players left still, but ratings had started to skew and the league's file was acting up so we put it away for good. Shortly thereafter the other league I first mentioned would fold as well, but I had already had to withdraw.
Since all of this occurred, I have only played in one or two OOTP leagues and one was still being ran on 6,5/12, and one was a brief stay in a friend's league that was ran on a free copy of 8 or something like that.
I'm looking to join an online league on these boards at the moment, or one for next season and 15 if I can't find one at the least, when I saw this thread.
I have to admit that per your rules of qualification, I am not currently in an online league (but I am looking to join one, if I can find the right one hopefully), but I am still very, very interested in this.
(A little about me):
I am a 25-year-old autodidact, once-engaged but never married with a few close-calls that may have been blessings in disguise. I have a brother who was born with down's syndrome, and also suffered from infantile spasms, and he is someone I've taken care of or helped to care for from a young age, just from boundary and being around so much. He's now going on age 16 and in highschool! But from all of this, and a few years of being his caretaker, I have carried on interest in children with special needs (and still consider pursuing work as an aide). I also like: animals (cats bring me joy), music (I play guitar & percussion, and dig bands like Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers, Dead Boys..). I used to play and now just watch (and do the fantasy thing) with baseball, which is my favorite sport by far. Sad Cubs fan unfortunately, but I enjoy following the sport almost more at this point, but I think it's the only thing you can do when you root for the Cubs sometimes.
Anyway, this is a little bit about me, and my interest in the league is very high! If I need to join an online league to be eligible, if I have time to do so before sign-ups close, I likely should or hopefully will be able to!
Thank you, and I look forward to hopefully being a part of this, somehow!
-Nick Linden
|