First off, let me state emphatically that up against the heavyweights of the schedule modding world, I am a peon. What I've done here is simply take a schedule generated by the in game schedule generator, and re-configured it to suit my OCD scheduling tendencies. Just remember that my OCD tendencies might not mesh with yours. Oh yes, you all have them. You wouldn't be on the site of a highly addictive baseball sim that you can customize until your keyboard explodes if you didn't.
You will not like this schedule if you don't like off days happening on a league wide willy nilly basis on any day of the week (not just Mondays and Thursdays), but understand that that is part of the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) philosophy that I'm employing here.
Every series is three games long, so there are 54 series in total per 162 game season. The schedule that I'm putting out here is for a league with 2 sub-leagues which contain 1 division each, with 12 teams per sub-league (or division if you prefer
) for a league total of 24 teams. As I said above it's for a 162 game schedule. One issue with that is 54 series for 11 opposing teams doesn't compute to a whole number. Them are the breaks. That means each team plays every other team 15 times except in one case, where they play them 12 times. Hopefully the juggernaut in your league is this one case. *Fingers crossed* It's also a 6 home/9 away, 9 home/6 away type of setup, except for the 6 home/6 away team on your schedule. Each team does have 81 home games and 81 road games though, so things wind up OK in the end.
The season is exactly 26 weeks (or 1/2 a calendar year long), and starts on the first Monday in April (depending what year you happen to be in: April 1 through April 7). The All-Star game is either the first or second Tuesday in July (July 2 through July 8 again depending on the year). The season ends either on the final Sunday of September, or the first Sunday of October (September 29 through October 5: the year will dictate it). The first half is 13 weeks long, and is also exactly one half of the schedule: 81 games per team, so that half the calendar time = half the scheduled games. The final game of the first half falls on the Sunday prior to the ASG (that's June 30 through July 6 if you're keeping score). There's a Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday All-Star break, and then all the teams are back at it on Thursday. There are no doubleheaders because the classic doubleheader (not the current money grabbing version) was fun to attend if it was your turn to pay. Not fun to general manage/manage/nurse a pitching staff through though.
It basically gets rid of everything that I don't like in the current incarnation of MLB because, well this is my game damn it: No Bud Seligs allowed. I consider doubleheaders to be an abomination: Be gone! I consider divisional play and unbalanced schedules (this one's not completely balanced, but it's decent enough to get the job done in my book) to be grossly unfair, and I hate, hate, hate Interleague: Out damn spots! I believe that the first half, i.e. prior to the All-Star break, should contain exactly one half of the games, so when you go to look at who's leading what category at the break, you know that they're exactly half way home. The KISS setup should help pitching staffs, as they will get a breather on a reasonably steady, predictable, frequent basis. Some would say the offdays fall too often. You'll thank me when your bullpen is on fumes at any given point in the season. Realistic? No. Desirable? Hell yeah! This sort of arose out of 1-3 man rotations in 19th century historical baseball and wanting to ensure proper rest as well as players getting the right amount of days added to their service time (1 year = 172 days in default option).
With this schedule, no team will play more than eight straight games in the first half without a day off, and no team will play more than eleven straight games in the second half without a day off. First half = 91 days, 81 games, 10 days off. All-Star break = 3 days, 0 (real) games, 3 days off. Second half = 88 days, 81 games, 7 days off. Total season = 182 days, 162 games, 20 days off. Extract it to your schedule file, import it into your game, and off you go. I don't think there's a file in there with this specific name, but for others that I might make, you'll need to back up the original file (just in case you don't share my warped vision of baseball reality) before copying over them, and losing them forever. Forever that is, until you download them from this very mod forum.
All bow before the great gmo (and others, who I may be "misremembering"). Enjoy!...Or don't. S'up to you.
Be sure to leave questions if you're interested in it, and I didn't explain it well enough. Also drop a line in the thread to say "it worked" or "Jackson, WTF is wrong with your schedule?...I can't get it to work.". I may post more later, as I get them done, but I'm a total novice so don't hold me to it. Persnickety enough for you my fellow tweakers?
Stay thirsty my friends.