I have decided to do a Historical Replay of the 1969 MLB season and beyond. I am using real transactions and will be using actual line-ups. As well with the help of an old Injury DL database, will account for injuries that were 2 weeks or longer.
The idea will be to update the standings and cover top performances and transactions with a touch of baseball history in real life. (with the help of Wikipedia)
The 1969 MLB season celebrated the 100th anniversary of professional Baseball. Each division now had 12 teams with the Expansion. The new teams were the
Montreal Expos,
San Diego Padres,
Seattle Pilots and because of
Charlie Finley moving the
Kansas City Athletics to Oakland,
Kansas City was awarded another franchise.... the
Royals. The story goes deeper as Finley had moved the Athletics the year before even though public funds were used to build a new stadium for the Athletics in Kansas City. Basically baseballs anti trust exemption was challenged and the MLB agreed to move up a planned expansion from 1971 to 1969.
To add to the turmoil, 400 players refused to report to spring training as the Collective Bargaining agreement had expired at the end of the 1968 season, its first in MLB History. A major sticking point was the pension plan as the owners refused to increase it although revenues had increased due to increased TV revenue. TV broadcasters eventually placed pressure on the MLB and new commissioner
Bowie Kuhn in turn pressured the owners and the boycott was averted by March 1st, enough time for players to get ready.
Another issue was resolved by MLB...... low scoring games. The trend for increasing less offense was hoped to be resolved by lowering the mound height by 5 inches and by decreasing the size of the strike zone. As well for the first time, the stat called the
"save" was introduced as an
"Official Statistic".
The 1969 Final Standings
The 1969 Leaders
