Historical leagues question

Markmeister · 03-24-2002, 09:10 AM

I am working on a solo historical league starting in 1876 and was wondering how other GM's handle real life historical events that effect the game (players banned for gambling, position changes, jumping to rival leagues, etc.)

Do you normally have these events occur in your league also? For examble, in 1877 Jim Devlin, George Hall and 2 others I can't remember right now were caught/implicated in a scandle for taking $25 each to throw games and never played in the NL again.

Or do you typically have such events not occur in the league and allow the league to be a "what if" replay of history.

VEASE · 03-24-2002, 09:36 AM

Its a tough one, but it depends on whether you want OOTP to be a Game or some Action Replay of history. There comes a point where realism is self defeating, because then you might as well just read a book to find out what happened in a certain year rather than waiting for OOTP to play things out exactly as they occurred.

Fortunately there are aspects of baseball history that can't be modelled with 100% accuracy - how many games did McGraws Giants win by intimidating opponents and umpires? When you get to 1942 do masses of players become unavailable due to the small matter of WW11? How do you balance the huge advantage Pitchers had (until the Spitball was outlawed and game balls were replaced regularly)with the 'need' for Honus Wagner,TY Cobb,Nap Lajoie and many others to post awesome hitting numbers(apart from Homers).

I think many people like to keep things 'pure' and just let the years roll by without any interference and check out the numbers after a couple of decades or so. The great thing about this is that some guys who had promising careers cut short early on are allowed to develop and you can see whether they might have become superstars or just faded away. The downside for some people is that due to the injury model, you might never see some of the all time greats names appear anywhere, but then you can say 'hey,Murderers Row didn't happen without Gehrig' for example.

Let them play, even if they didn't in reality. Some people get a nice thrill when Shoeless Joe gets inducted into the Hall of Fame

[ March 24, 2002: Message edited by: VEASE ]</p>

03-24-2002, 09:10 AM	#1
Markmeister Major Leagues Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Kentucky Posts: 463	Historical leagues question I am working on a solo historical league starting in 1876 and was wondering how other GM's handle real life historical events that effect the game (players banned for gambling, position changes, jumping to rival leagues, etc.) Do you normally have these events occur in your league also? For examble, in 1877 Jim Devlin, George Hall and 2 others I can't remember right now were caught/implicated in a scandle for taking $25 each to throw games and never played in the NL again. Or do you typically have such events not occur in the league and allow the league to be a "what if" replay of history. __________________ It's not that baseball has ever had a shortage of ways to embarrass yourself -- dropping an easy flyball, being the one guy Heathcliff Slocumb actually struck out, realizing you're Bud Selig... Jersey style logos Vintage letter logos Vintage uniforms

03-24-2002, 09:36 AM	#2
VEASE Minors (Single A) Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Stocksfield, UK Posts: 55	Its a tough one, but it depends on whether you want OOTP to be a Game or some Action Replay of history. There comes a point where realism is self defeating, because then you might as well just read a book to find out what happened in a certain year rather than waiting for OOTP to play things out exactly as they occurred. Fortunately there are aspects of baseball history that can't be modelled with 100% accuracy - how many games did McGraws Giants win by intimidating opponents and umpires? When you get to 1942 do masses of players become unavailable due to the small matter of WW11? How do you balance the huge advantage Pitchers had (until the Spitball was outlawed and game balls were replaced regularly)with the 'need' for Honus Wagner,TY Cobb,Nap Lajoie and many others to post awesome hitting numbers(apart from Homers). I think many people like to keep things 'pure' and just let the years roll by without any interference and check out the numbers after a couple of decades or so. The great thing about this is that some guys who had promising careers cut short early on are allowed to develop and you can see whether they might have become superstars or just faded away. The downside for some people is that due to the injury model, you might never see some of the all time greats names appear anywhere, but then you can say 'hey,Murderers Row didn't happen without Gehrig' for example. Let them play, even if they didn't in reality. Some people get a nice thrill when Shoeless Joe gets inducted into the Hall of Fame [ March 24, 2002: Message edited by: VEASE ]</p>