How Baseball Maelstrom came to be...

sporr · 07-16-2003, 10:39 AM

As posted by AL Commish Shannon Dugan (IamIowa) on the Maelstrom message boards:

First of all, Shane and I have know each other since 1993 when we met each other working at Wal-Mart. That's where we found we had the same interest in baseball.

Shane was always an avid sports game player. He was always looking for the perfect game. The High Heat series seemed to be just that, but he kept looking for something better. In doing this, he would buy nearly every baseball game that he would come across. He read about this new baseball simulation that was supposed to be much more accurate than High Heat since it was text. In addition, it sported an actual career mode where players aged, developed, and retired. He ordered the game which happened to be the very 1st OOTP. It came on CD (which he still has) and filled the baseball career simulation void. The amount of stats that it tracked satisfied his stat-nerd side.

We decided to compete with one another in our own little league and needed a game to use. He proposed using OOTP, but the fact that it had no graphics totally turned me off of it and we used High Heat instead. Meanwhile, in order to satisfy Shanes desire to compete in a great career baseball league with 25-30 other owners, he decided to join an online league. He only turned to this after some failed play-by-email role-playing games didn't pan out. Luckily, the original XBL was just getting started. He submitted his "application" to be part of the league and chose his team (the White Sox). Little did he know at the time that he was involved in what would become (at the time) one of the most well-known OOTP online leagues ever. He also realized how cutting-edge the XBL was in terms of offering extra features. It was there that some Maelstrom ideas originated -- Owner chosen All-Stars, Futures Games, live events, killer web-site, etc.

At this point we had played about 2 seasons in High Heat. I couldn't understand how anyone could enjoy playing a text based game and finally gave up and started following his White sox team in the XBL to find out. To my suprise I kept going back and checking his team out, following their stats and everything. I was finally convinced and put my name on the waiting list for the XBL which ended up folding as I was to be the new Pirate owner. This left a void that needed filled for both of us. Why be in a league when we could run one of our own. Instead of just playing with the two of us, Shane suggested how cool it would be if we ran a league like we did with High Heat, but involved other people to run the other teams. That's when our Strat-O-Matic discussions took off and we decided to follow through with the idea.

A couple years ago Shane introduced me to a game that he played with his dad and uncles when he was younger, it was Strat-O-Matic Baseball. We played a couple seasons of that with his dad, cousin, and her boyfriend. Strat then came out with their Hall-of-Fame cards. We decided to draft a couple of teams each and play with current players. We allowed ourselves to draft 4 Hall-of-Famers for each team. I had hitters like Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Jimmie Foxx and Joe Morgan and pitchers Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax, and Tom Seaver. He had Ted Williams, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, Reggie Jackson, and others that I forget now.

This is where things came together. The XBL was over and our Strat league with HOF's was going. We sat there playing one night discussing OOTP and possible leagues to play in and what not. That's when I thought how cool it would be if there was an Ootp league that would allow Hall-of-Famers like our strat league. Shane only knew of the historical leagues but none that really combined historical and present day. Kinda jokingly I suggested that we make our own league, but since neither one of us knew anything about programming, making a website was out of the question. Thankfully, Shane had a job that allowed him 8 hours of free time each day. hehe. He researched possibilities for programs to use to develop a website. Once he was convinced he could make a site we talked and decided "What the hell" lets do it.

Shane looked at various leagues to get ideas for ours, focusing mostly on the XBL which he was most familiar with. He had been a long-time follower of the OOTP messageboard, so that was the logical first place to post for recruits.

As for the name BASEBALL MAELSTROM. We had a few other names that we didn't really like and we wanted something memorable. Thinking of how the historical players would come into the league and a little help from our D&D background I came up with the word maelstrom. I imagined the players walking through a cloudy timewarp to todays time. We then quickly finalized the name.

Lust for the game of baseball drove us to make this league. What drives us now is lust for the game and wanting to have The best league on the internet. No, we arent egomaniacs but we really want to be.

sporr · 07-16-2003, 10:41 AM

How We Picked the Legends by Commish Dugan

I am going to give you an idea of how we came up with each legend the best I can from memory. Some decisions were easy, some literally were not decided on for weeks. We tried to come up with a player who would be well known to most people and who spent a considerable amount of time with that team.

ANAHEIM ANGELS- ROD CAREW - He was one of the best hitters ever and the Angels history didn't offer up much competition.

ATLANTA BRAVES- HANK AARON - Dale Murphy was proposed but there was no competion here. Aaron is a legend among legends.

BALTIMORE ORIOLES- CAL RIPKEN JR. - Ripken certainly wasn't the most talented on our list, but when you think of the Baltimore Orioles you think of Cal Ripken Jr. Others considered were Jim Palmer and Frank Robinson.

BOSTON RED SOX- TED WILLIAMS - No brainer here as some consider him to be the best player to ever walk on a baseball field.

CHICAGO WHITE SOX - JOE JACKSON - We considered it mandatory that this man who was unjustly kicked out of baseball be honored by us as the Whitesox legend. Plus he didn't have much competition.

CHICAGO CUBS - ERNIE BANKS - He is Mr. Cub and always will be. We considered Hack Wilson and Billy Williams but the choice was simple.

CINCINNATI REDS - PETE ROSE - Joe Morgan and Johnny Bench were highly considered but Pete Rose won out as he is Charlie Hustle playing the game with all his heart.

CLEVELAND INDIANS - BOB FELLER - Bob Feller is considered to be one of the top pitchers of all time. That and the fact he is from our home state of Iowa made the choice easy.

DETROIT TIGERS - TY COBB - Had we not chosen Ty Cobb he would have come back from the dead and spiked us both with cleats up. Another legend among legends.

HOUSTON ASTROS - NOLAN RYAN - The man with the rubbery rocket arm. Had a batter's career run parallel with his he would have struck that man out in four different decades. Nolan could have been considered for other teams but since Houston lacked another true legend he was put on this team.

KANSAS CITY ROYALS - GEORGE BRETT - He is easily the best player in team history.

LOS ANGELES DODGERS - SANDY KOUFAX - The Dodgers have a rich history of players including Duke Snyder, Gil Hodges, Don Drysdale, and Jackie Robinson. Sandy Koufax simply stands above them all as the best left-handed pitcher ever.

MILWAUKEE BREWERS - ROBIN YOUNT - The choice was between Paul Molitor and Robin. We chose Yount because he spent his whole career in Milwaukee and he won the MVP a couple times.

MINNESOTA TWINS - HARMON KILLEBREW - This was a tough choice between Killebrew and Kirby Puckett. It finally came down to the fact that Killebrew has been out of the game a lot longer and therefore was more of a "legend". Plus he was someone we didn't get to see play and we were curious how he would do.

MONTREAL EXPOS - TIM RAINES - Tim spent a lot of productive years with the Expos. He didn't really have much competition because we considered Andre Dawson more of a Cub.

NEW YORK YANKEES - BABE RUTH - The Yankees have so many quality players like Mickey Mantle, Joe Dimaggio, Lou Gehrig, Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra, and Don Mattingly that you would have thought the choice would have been hard. Babe Ruth is possibly the best player ever, easy choice.

NEW YORK METS - TOM SEAVER - Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry were considered but Seaver best represented the Mets.

OAKLAND ATHLETICS - MARK MCGWIRE - Jimmie Foxx was penciled in and nearly became the legend til a last second change of mind put McGwire in the spot. McGwire is possibly the most powerful hitter ever and had many injuries not disrupted his career he would have blown the homerun record away.

PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES - MIKE SCHMIDT - He was the only choice because he is easily the best player in team history.

PITTSBURGH PIRATES - ROBERTO CLEMENTE - He was a true five-tool player and a great humanitarian. We felt these reasons made him the best choice, even over Honus Wagner.

SAN DIEGO PADRES - TONY GWYNN - Tony was, is, and always will be the San Diego Padres. There really was no competition here although we did take a quick look at Dave Winfield.

SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS - WILLIE MAYS - When you talk about the best player ever, this mans name is always mentioned. No other players were even thought about.

SEATTLE MARINERS - EDGAR MARTINEZ - This team was a potential problem. They had no retired players that we felt were good enough to be a legend. We decided to retire Edgar Martinez from the present day players and bring him back as a legend since he was so close to retiring anyway. Other choices were Ken Griffey Jr. and Randy Johnson, but Griffey was too young to retire and Edgar had played more of his career in Seattle than Randy.

SAINT LOUIS CARDINALS - STAN MUSIAL - This was a very tough choice between Bob Gibson and Musial. We couldn't make up our mind between these two until we remembered that Stan is revered like a god in Cardinal land. That was the difference.

TEXAS RANGERS - ROGER CLEMENS - This is the one that had us stumped forever. The team has no real good player in their history other than ones playing at that time and they were all too young to retire. After some thought we decided the next best route would be to take a player that had some history with the state and send him back. Who better than a Texas Longhorn? Roger Clemens was selected because of his college success and his closeness to retirement.

TORONTO BLUEJAYS - JOE CARTER - Joe Carter is the biggest name this team has ever had. He helped lead the Bluejays to two straight World Series victories including one series ending homerun. Fred McGriff was considered but he has spent so much time with other teams that its hard to tell who he belongs to.

sporr · 07-16-2003, 10:44 AM

How the Commissioners Chose Their Teams

Commish Orr choosing the Cardinals

So, you may wonder how we chose our teams once the Legends for each were determined. We originally would have had 30 teams, but the newer teams had so little history that we thought it easier not to stretch it.

In any case, we decided from the beginning that the league would be much more fun if we both owned a team. The 2nd easy decision was that we would own teams in opposite leagues so that we could at some point face off in the World Series.

So we each looked over the teams and narrowed the choices. I will let Commish Dugan discuss how he came to choose the Red Sox, but his choice forced my hand to choose an NL team.

Which NL team I wanted was the question. I actually had it narrowed down to Montreal (I like speedy teams even if my current team isn't), LA, and St Louis.

Finally, I decided on LA and the great anchor to the bullpen Sandy Koufax...or so I thought.

After taking many applications for teams, a certain LivnLegend asked if LA was available. When told it wasn't, he told me to put him on the waiting list. Knowing that he would be a quality owner, it took me a day or so to decide to give up my Dodgers and take another team.

I told him that the Dodgers had "just become available" and Mr. Fite jumped at the chance. Meanwhile, I still had to choose a team. Well, I opted to take one of the best NL hitters in history and with him the Cardinals.

Commish Dugan choosing the Red Sox

After the two of us deferred to the other repeatedly I finally said "screw it" I'll pick first.

The choice was between Sandy Koufax with L.A. and Ted Williams with Boston. After debating with myself for what took a couple days. It finally came down to, which player would I regret most for not picking. Since, Ted Williams was my all-time favorite player and I would regret not taking him the most, I decided on Boston.

I wasn't looking forward to being in the same division that had Babe Ruth, but then I just looked at it as a challenge.

The rest, so far, is playoff and tournament disappointment history.

rem · 01-08-2005, 10:41 PM

Cool! (belated)

pat · 01-08-2005, 11:00 PM

Great backstory you have. Congrats on making one of the popular leagues around.

TC Dale · 01-08-2005, 11:11 PM

And believe me, I feel it is probably the best league going. There are a few super solid leagues out there, but these "Evil Wonder Twins" have the magic and wield it stupendously.

Now if you could approve that move to the AL please Shane?

LivnLegend · 01-09-2005, 12:13 AM

I can't believe I missed this the first time! Great story, great league, great Commissioners.

Sandberg · 01-09-2005, 10:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sporr

How We Picked the Legends by Commish Dugan

I am going to give you an idea of how we came up with each legend the best I can from memory. Some decisions were easy, some literally were not decided on for weeks. We tried to come up with a player who would be well known to most people and who spent a considerable amount of time with that team.

PITTSBURGH PIRATES - ROBERTO CLEMENTE - He was a true five-tool player and a great humanitarian. We felt these reasons made him the best choice, even over Honus Wagner.

So how exactly would "great humanitarian" translate into ratings, because his batting average sure hasn't shown through?

Great league, great commissioners! This thread reminds me that we should all thank our commissioners whenever we can!

Shawn

DaCubFan · 01-09-2005, 12:45 PM

I was the charter GM of the Reds, and went on a hiatus. Back on the waiting list for this great league again!

Emmaculate · 01-09-2005, 08:17 PM

Great to read that, having been a member for the past 5 seasons. Its an honor to be apart of such an outstanding league.

sporr · 01-11-2005, 12:16 PM

Wow, I forgot I had even posted that stuff.

Thanks for all of the kind words. We're coming up on 3 years now for the league.

07-16-2003, 10:39 AM	#1
sporr Global Moderator Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Muscatine, IA Posts: 8,277	How Baseball Maelstrom came to be... As posted by AL Commish Shannon Dugan (IamIowa) on the Maelstrom message boards: First of all, Shane and I have know each other since 1993 when we met each other working at Wal-Mart. That's where we found we had the same interest in baseball. Shane was always an avid sports game player. He was always looking for the perfect game. The High Heat series seemed to be just that, but he kept looking for something better. In doing this, he would buy nearly every baseball game that he would come across. He read about this new baseball simulation that was supposed to be much more accurate than High Heat since it was text. In addition, it sported an actual career mode where players aged, developed, and retired. He ordered the game which happened to be the very 1st OOTP. It came on CD (which he still has) and filled the baseball career simulation void. The amount of stats that it tracked satisfied his stat-nerd side. We decided to compete with one another in our own little league and needed a game to use. He proposed using OOTP, but the fact that it had no graphics totally turned me off of it and we used High Heat instead. Meanwhile, in order to satisfy Shanes desire to compete in a great career baseball league with 25-30 other owners, he decided to join an online league. He only turned to this after some failed play-by-email role-playing games didn't pan out. Luckily, the original XBL was just getting started. He submitted his "application" to be part of the league and chose his team (the White Sox). Little did he know at the time that he was involved in what would become (at the time) one of the most well-known OOTP online leagues ever. He also realized how cutting-edge the XBL was in terms of offering extra features. It was there that some Maelstrom ideas originated -- Owner chosen All-Stars, Futures Games, live events, killer web-site, etc. At this point we had played about 2 seasons in High Heat. I couldn't understand how anyone could enjoy playing a text based game and finally gave up and started following his White sox team in the XBL to find out. To my suprise I kept going back and checking his team out, following their stats and everything. I was finally convinced and put my name on the waiting list for the XBL which ended up folding as I was to be the new Pirate owner. This left a void that needed filled for both of us. Why be in a league when we could run one of our own. Instead of just playing with the two of us, Shane suggested how cool it would be if we ran a league like we did with High Heat, but involved other people to run the other teams. That's when our Strat-O-Matic discussions took off and we decided to follow through with the idea. A couple years ago Shane introduced me to a game that he played with his dad and uncles when he was younger, it was Strat-O-Matic Baseball. We played a couple seasons of that with his dad, cousin, and her boyfriend. Strat then came out with their Hall-of-Fame cards. We decided to draft a couple of teams each and play with current players. We allowed ourselves to draft 4 Hall-of-Famers for each team. I had hitters like Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Jimmie Foxx and Joe Morgan and pitchers Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax, and Tom Seaver. He had Ted Williams, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, Reggie Jackson, and others that I forget now. This is where things came together. The XBL was over and our Strat league with HOF's was going. We sat there playing one night discussing OOTP and possible leagues to play in and what not. That's when I thought how cool it would be if there was an Ootp league that would allow Hall-of-Famers like our strat league. Shane only knew of the historical leagues but none that really combined historical and present day. Kinda jokingly I suggested that we make our own league, but since neither one of us knew anything about programming, making a website was out of the question. Thankfully, Shane had a job that allowed him 8 hours of free time each day. hehe. He researched possibilities for programs to use to develop a website. Once he was convinced he could make a site we talked and decided "What the hell" lets do it. Shane looked at various leagues to get ideas for ours, focusing mostly on the XBL which he was most familiar with. He had been a long-time follower of the OOTP messageboard, so that was the logical first place to post for recruits. As for the name BASEBALL MAELSTROM. We had a few other names that we didn't really like and we wanted something memorable. Thinking of how the historical players would come into the league and a little help from our D&D background I came up with the word maelstrom. I imagined the players walking through a cloudy timewarp to todays time. We then quickly finalized the name. Lust for the game of baseball drove us to make this league. What drives us now is lust for the game and wanting to have The best league on the internet. No, we arent egomaniacs but we really want to be.

01-08-2005, 10:41 PM	#4
rem Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: College Park, Md. Posts: 5,024	Cool! (belated) __________________ OTBA: Washington Filibusters CLBR: Minnesota Twins 2005 Winner of LL's Pick the Loser Contest! - 15-0

01-08-2005, 11:00 PM	#5
pat Hall Of Famer Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Quezon City, Philippines Posts: 2,748	Great backstory you have. Congrats on making one of the popular leagues around. __________________ Co-Founder & Technical Director at ExaWeb Corporation, an SEO company in the Philippines. Previous Leagues - Time Warp Baseball / International Federation of Baseball / Professional Baseball Replay League / No Pepper Baseball League / MLB Pro Current OOTP 24 Leagues - Sim Sports Gaming - (2016-Present) Washington Nationals (2016-2022) *2017 Champions Oakland Athletics (2023-Present)

01-08-2005, 11:11 PM	#6
TC Dale Global Moderator Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 4,982	And believe me, I feel it is probably the best league going. There are a few super solid leagues out there, but these "Evil Wonder Twins" have the magic and wield it stupendously. Now if you could approve that move to the AL please Shane? __________________ ----------------------------------

01-09-2005, 12:13 AM	#7
LivnLegend Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: 100% pure adrenaline! Posts: 5,624	I can't believe I missed this the first time! Great story, great league, great Commissioners. __________________ Excess ain't rebellion. You're drinking what they're selling.

07-16-2003, 10:41 AM	#2
sporr Global Moderator Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Muscatine, IA Posts: 8,277	How We Picked the Legends by Commish Dugan I am going to give you an idea of how we came up with each legend the best I can from memory. Some decisions were easy, some literally were not decided on for weeks. We tried to come up with a player who would be well known to most people and who spent a considerable amount of time with that team. ANAHEIM ANGELS- ROD CAREW - He was one of the best hitters ever and the Angels history didn't offer up much competition. ATLANTA BRAVES- HANK AARON - Dale Murphy was proposed but there was no competion here. Aaron is a legend among legends. BALTIMORE ORIOLES- CAL RIPKEN JR. - Ripken certainly wasn't the most talented on our list, but when you think of the Baltimore Orioles you think of Cal Ripken Jr. Others considered were Jim Palmer and Frank Robinson. BOSTON RED SOX- TED WILLIAMS - No brainer here as some consider him to be the best player to ever walk on a baseball field. CHICAGO WHITE SOX - JOE JACKSON - We considered it mandatory that this man who was unjustly kicked out of baseball be honored by us as the Whitesox legend. Plus he didn't have much competition. CHICAGO CUBS - ERNIE BANKS - He is Mr. Cub and always will be. We considered Hack Wilson and Billy Williams but the choice was simple. CINCINNATI REDS - PETE ROSE - Joe Morgan and Johnny Bench were highly considered but Pete Rose won out as he is Charlie Hustle playing the game with all his heart. CLEVELAND INDIANS - BOB FELLER - Bob Feller is considered to be one of the top pitchers of all time. That and the fact he is from our home state of Iowa made the choice easy. DETROIT TIGERS - TY COBB - Had we not chosen Ty Cobb he would have come back from the dead and spiked us both with cleats up. Another legend among legends. HOUSTON ASTROS - NOLAN RYAN - The man with the rubbery rocket arm. Had a batter's career run parallel with his he would have struck that man out in four different decades. Nolan could have been considered for other teams but since Houston lacked another true legend he was put on this team. KANSAS CITY ROYALS - GEORGE BRETT - He is easily the best player in team history. LOS ANGELES DODGERS - SANDY KOUFAX - The Dodgers have a rich history of players including Duke Snyder, Gil Hodges, Don Drysdale, and Jackie Robinson. Sandy Koufax simply stands above them all as the best left-handed pitcher ever. MILWAUKEE BREWERS - ROBIN YOUNT - The choice was between Paul Molitor and Robin. We chose Yount because he spent his whole career in Milwaukee and he won the MVP a couple times. MINNESOTA TWINS - HARMON KILLEBREW - This was a tough choice between Killebrew and Kirby Puckett. It finally came down to the fact that Killebrew has been out of the game a lot longer and therefore was more of a "legend". Plus he was someone we didn't get to see play and we were curious how he would do. MONTREAL EXPOS - TIM RAINES - Tim spent a lot of productive years with the Expos. He didn't really have much competition because we considered Andre Dawson more of a Cub. NEW YORK YANKEES - BABE RUTH - The Yankees have so many quality players like Mickey Mantle, Joe Dimaggio, Lou Gehrig, Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra, and Don Mattingly that you would have thought the choice would have been hard. Babe Ruth is possibly the best player ever, easy choice. NEW YORK METS - TOM SEAVER - Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry were considered but Seaver best represented the Mets. OAKLAND ATHLETICS - MARK MCGWIRE - Jimmie Foxx was penciled in and nearly became the legend til a last second change of mind put McGwire in the spot. McGwire is possibly the most powerful hitter ever and had many injuries not disrupted his career he would have blown the homerun record away. PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES - MIKE SCHMIDT - He was the only choice because he is easily the best player in team history. PITTSBURGH PIRATES - ROBERTO CLEMENTE - He was a true five-tool player and a great humanitarian. We felt these reasons made him the best choice, even over Honus Wagner. SAN DIEGO PADRES - TONY GWYNN - Tony was, is, and always will be the San Diego Padres. There really was no competition here although we did take a quick look at Dave Winfield. SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS - WILLIE MAYS - When you talk about the best player ever, this mans name is always mentioned. No other players were even thought about. SEATTLE MARINERS - EDGAR MARTINEZ - This team was a potential problem. They had no retired players that we felt were good enough to be a legend. We decided to retire Edgar Martinez from the present day players and bring him back as a legend since he was so close to retiring anyway. Other choices were Ken Griffey Jr. and Randy Johnson, but Griffey was too young to retire and Edgar had played more of his career in Seattle than Randy. SAINT LOUIS CARDINALS - STAN MUSIAL - This was a very tough choice between Bob Gibson and Musial. We couldn't make up our mind between these two until we remembered that Stan is revered like a god in Cardinal land. That was the difference. TEXAS RANGERS - ROGER CLEMENS - This is the one that had us stumped forever. The team has no real good player in their history other than ones playing at that time and they were all too young to retire. After some thought we decided the next best route would be to take a player that had some history with the state and send him back. Who better than a Texas Longhorn? Roger Clemens was selected because of his college success and his closeness to retirement. TORONTO BLUEJAYS - JOE CARTER - Joe Carter is the biggest name this team has ever had. He helped lead the Bluejays to two straight World Series victories including one series ending homerun. Fred McGriff was considered but he has spent so much time with other teams that its hard to tell who he belongs to.

07-16-2003, 10:44 AM	#3
sporr Global Moderator Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Muscatine, IA Posts: 8,277	How the Commissioners Chose Their Teams Commish Orr choosing the Cardinals So, you may wonder how we chose our teams once the Legends for each were determined. We originally would have had 30 teams, but the newer teams had so little history that we thought it easier not to stretch it. In any case, we decided from the beginning that the league would be much more fun if we both owned a team. The 2nd easy decision was that we would own teams in opposite leagues so that we could at some point face off in the World Series. So we each looked over the teams and narrowed the choices. I will let Commish Dugan discuss how he came to choose the Red Sox, but his choice forced my hand to choose an NL team. Which NL team I wanted was the question. I actually had it narrowed down to Montreal (I like speedy teams even if my current team isn't), LA, and St Louis. Finally, I decided on LA and the great anchor to the bullpen Sandy Koufax...or so I thought. After taking many applications for teams, a certain LivnLegend asked if LA was available. When told it wasn't, he told me to put him on the waiting list. Knowing that he would be a quality owner, it took me a day or so to decide to give up my Dodgers and take another team. I told him that the Dodgers had "just become available" and Mr. Fite jumped at the chance. Meanwhile, I still had to choose a team. Well, I opted to take one of the best NL hitters in history and with him the Cardinals. Commish Dugan choosing the Red Sox After the two of us deferred to the other repeatedly I finally said "screw it" I'll pick first. The choice was between Sandy Koufax with L.A. and Ted Williams with Boston. After debating with myself for what took a couple days. It finally came down to, which player would I regret most for not picking. Since, Ted Williams was my all-time favorite player and I would regret not taking him the most, I decided on Boston. I wasn't looking forward to being in the same division that had Babe Ruth, but then I just looked at it as a challenge. The rest, so far, is playoff and tournament disappointment history.

01-09-2005, 12:45 PM	#9
DaCubFan Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Illinois Posts: 232	I was the charter GM of the Reds, and went on a hiatus. Back on the waiting list for this great league again! __________________ Baseball... It's the only game!!

01-09-2005, 08:17 PM	#10
Emmaculate Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: BC, Canada Posts: 238	Great to read that, having been a member for the past 5 seasons. Its an honor to be apart of such an outstanding league. __________________ APBL- Seattle Mariners OTM- Pittsburgh River Bandits HBL- Colorado Rockies www.actionpackedbaseballleague.com www.overthemound.com/blog www.hblbaseball.com/forums/

01-11-2005, 12:16 PM	#11
sporr Global Moderator Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Muscatine, IA Posts: 8,277	Wow, I forgot I had even posted that stuff. Thanks for all of the kind words. We're coming up on 3 years now for the league.