The Parallel History of Baseball, Redux

[mjj55409]

The theme of 1885 was one of reconciliation. After the acrimony produced by the Union Association in 1884, the National League and American Association wanted to get major league base ball back on the firm footing of cooperation. Abe Morrill's UA champion St. Louis Maroons was brought into the League. And with Morrill gone, the remaining UA club owners had no interest in continue their little experiment.

After the 1884 season, the League and the Association staged an exhibition series pitting the two pennant winners against one another. That series wasn't very well attended nor was it covered much by the press. This season, they will try something else--an official championship series. The Association and League pennant winners will meet in a "World's Championship Series."

The National League pennant was won, as we've become accustomed to, by Boston. Without much difficulty either. Detroit, after consecutive second place finishes, fell way back. Buffalo and the UA-exiled Maroons provided the competition, such as it was.

1885 National League Standings


Boston's Mark Stewart (.332, 118 runs, 68 stolen bases) won another batting championship, besting Chicago's John Selby (.324). Boston's UA club had found a local amateur--Patsy Deal--who had some how missed the notice of the Red Caps. Once the UA folded, Deal was signed by Boston, and he ended up leading the league in runs batted in (.320, 23 doubles, 94 rbi).


Patsy Deal

Boston's Arnold Jacobs (35-13, 1.74) had another fine season, but he was bested on the mound by Buffalo's Augustus Enright (36-19, 1.70). Levi Callaway, who the led the Maroons to their UA championship, returned with the club and league the league in strikeouts.

National League 1885

The pennant race in the Association was much, much more interesting. All summer long, Cincinnati appeared to be the best Association club. But the Pittsburgh club would not give up. On the last day of the season, Cincinnati traveled to Pittsburgh for one final game. The Alleghenys won that game 8-0, giving the Pittsburgh club the pennant and the right to face the Bostons in the World's Championship Series.

1885 American Association Standings


For the Reds, Chris Parish (.326, 91 runs, 16 triples, 70 walks) once again led a superb offense. But Parish finished second in the batting race to Baltimore's Chris Dix (.328). The key to the Pittsburgh pennant was the pitching. Egbert Robin (45-15, 1.19) and Thomas Harbison (32-16, 1.43) was enough to counter Cincinnati's Williams Easton (36-14, 1.34) and Doc Langdon (36-15, 1.61).


Thomas Harbison

American Association 1885

All in the base ball world expected Boston to have an easy time in the championship series. And while Boston did win the series, it took five hard fought games for them to do so. These games were very well attended, and it looks as though the "World's Championship Series" will have a permanent place in base ball.

In one respect, 1884 had pushed the limits of professional base ball; three leagues and 34 clubs had proven to be too much. But one thing was certain--base ball was increasingly popular. More and more "minor leagues," as they were being called, were coming into existence. They provided an outlet for those players who were not quite good enough for the professional clubs, and they provided a cheap form of entertainment in non major league cities. One such league was the Eastern League. Officially established in 1884, they will become a permanent part of base ball's landscape.

1885 Eastern League Standings


Pitcher Gottfried Flanigan is a good example of the type of player in the Eastern League. He had spent three seasons in the National League with the Browns and the Gothams, but he was not quite good enough become a permanent member of a League club. Signing with the Richmond club, he becomes their top pitcher (27-14, 1.01), though the Virginians ended up second to the Hartford club.


Gottfried Flanigan

[mjj55409]

Buffalo's Augustus Enright breaks Arnold Jacobs' four year lock on the Cartwright Award. Mark Stewart is named the Chadwick winner. Boston's Lawson Newman is the top amateur.



After missing out on the award last season, Chris Parish wins his third Chadwick in four seasons. Pittsburgh's Egbert Robin is given the Association's Cartwright Award. Brooklyn's Adolf Ragan is the top amateur.

[mjj55409]

History Leaderboards

After ten years of post-National Association base ball, it's time for a look at the career leaderboards heading into the 1886 season.

# - indicates active player

Hits


Runs


Total Bases


Batting VORP


Pitching Wins


Pitching Strikeouts


Pitching VORP

[mjj55409]

Player Report for #88 Preston Boyd

You may have noticed on the pitching leaderboards above that Preston Boyd has retired at age 27. In June of 1885 he broke his leg while pitching for the Orioles. By November infection had set in, forcing doctors to amputate. Boyd's career was over.


Preston Boyd (166-113, 1.39 ERA, 2512 IP, 1372 K)

Every so often in this parallel version of baseball history, I will be introducing a fictional version of a real player. I won't be telling you who the doppelganger is until after their parallel career is over. Preston Boyd was our first. The parallel version of James "Pud" Galvin.

Pud Galvin Statistics and History - Baseball-Reference.com

[David Ball]

Originally Posted by mjj55409

Player Report for #88 Preston Boyd
Every so often in this parallel version of baseball history, I will be introducing a fictional version of a real player. I won't be telling you who the doppelganger is until after their parallel career is over. Preston Boyd was our first. The parallel version of James "Pud" Galvin.

Pud Galvin Statistics and History - Baseball-Reference.com

This is an interesting idea, but in this case also kind of a shame, because Galvin is one of my particular favorite players, in large measure because of his enormous durability in an era that chewed pitchers up and spat them out. So it's a disappointment to see his career come to a premature end this way, but 1885 was the one season in the middle of his career when Galvin did have injury problems.

Can I ask about how you've set all this up? You seem to have free agency turned on, but exactly what is your system, and why did you not choose to go with the reserve system that was actually in effect by 1884? How do you insure teams can field a complete team with these small rosters? Do the major teams have reserves?

I know from a post in another thread that your Eastern League is an independent minor that began in Afghanistan, then migrated to America. Do you have or intend to have a fuller set of independent minor leagues, and how do you handle playhers movement betwen minor and major league teams?

[mjj55409]

Originally Posted by David Ball

This is an interesting idea, but in this case also kind of a shame, because Galvin is one of my particular favorite players, in large measure because of his enormous durability in an era that chewed pitchers up and spat them out. So it's a disappointment to see his career come to a premature end this way, but 1885 was the one season in the middle of his career when Galvin did have injury problems.

Can I ask about how you've set all this up? You seem to have free agency turned on, but exactly what is your system, and why did you not choose to go with the reserve system that was actually in effect by 1884? How do you insure teams can field a complete team with these small rosters? Do the major teams have reserves?

I know from a post in another thread that your Eastern League is an independent minor that began in Afghanistan, then migrated to America. Do you have or intend to have a fuller set of independent minor leagues, and how do you handle playhers movement betwen minor and major league teams?

The Preston Boyd injury really disappointed me too, because he really developed into a very good pitcher. There is another doppelganger currently in the league, but the development engine has not been kind to him. We will see how much longer he hangs on. But the Boyd injury was double frustrating because he was rated as "Durable."

The "create the league in Afghanistan thing" is just a workaround I developed for a very annoying bug. When you are adding a league to an existing historical universe, the added league gets created with modern settings. This includes player creation settings, so those players created along with the league must be deleted if you do not want your overall league statistics to be off. Initially creating the league as an Afghanistan league just makes it easier to identify and delete the created players (i.e., all players from AFG). And I chose Afghanistan simply because it is the first country in the drop down list.

But yes, the Eastern League is an independent minor league. I chose to add it at this point because I had a large number of rather marginal players left over from the one year existence of the Union Association. I could have simply allowed those players to drift into retirement, but why not give them a place to play. Luckily for me, the Eastern League can trace it's history to 1884. Thus the Eastern League was born. I am not going to follow the structural changes of the league; it is in place mostly for window dressing.

At some point after the turn of the century I will expand the Eastern League and affiliate it, in addition to adding some more leagues to have at least three minor league levels. I don't quite know yet when I'd like to add the affiliated minors. I might wait until the 1920s to be more in line with history, but I may do it sooner to help the development engine.

I did have free agency turned on at first, but it is now off. It was in the 1880s when the reserve clause became front and center for baseball. I mimic the reserve list by taking each team down to the reserve limit in the offseason (right now it's 11).

The AI doesn't have too many problems with the rosters. I check each roster prior to the season and make any adjustments I feel are necessary. I don't have to make too many adjustments though. Just those teams that feel they can get by with six catchers and two pitchers. If a team did not get enough players, I will generate some marginal players for them.

There is some quirkiness with the AI's handling of one and two man pitching rotations, but now, the pitching rotation is at three, and the roster management is improving. All teams have five pitchers.

One more important point, I go through the newly generated free agents each offseason. I do this for two reasons: (1) to make sure I'm happy with the names being generated, and (2) to remove the metric ton of middle relievers the game feels that it is necessary to generate.

[mjj55409]

One of the consequences of the 1884 war with the Union Association was the increasing power of organized base ball. In October of 1885, the National League and American Association signed a new National Agreement. The agreement called for a player's salary to be capped at a maximum of $2,000, and the reserved list was raised to twelve. In addition, it provided the general rule: "Once a league player, always a league player." What this meant is that any player attempting to sign a contract with an organization that is not a National Agreement signatory (which in this case is the National League, American Association, Northwestern League, and Eastern League) would be black-balled from all National Agreement associations.

These clauses, particularly the cap on the players' salaries, so angered a small group of New York players, led by short stop Horace Ferry, that they formed a secret organization called The Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players.


Horace Ferry

The National League's Providence and Buffalo franchises folded after the 1885 season. Buffalo, though fielding a competitive club, could not afford to continuing doing so. The bigger cities could provide the ticket sales that the smaller cities could not. More and more, base ball was evolving into a collection of "haves" and "have nots".

1886 National League Standings


Thus fittingly, the National League was again dominated by the Boston Red Caps, who won nearly 80% of their games. Boston (8.0 runs/game) had by far the best collection of batsmen, scoring nearly two runs per game more than their nearest opponent, New York (6.8 runs/game). Though it was the Gothams Frederich Schaefer (.364) who won the batting title ahead of Washington's Green Stearns (.356). Boston's Mark Stewart (.340) had a down year for him, but his team mate Patsy Deal (.339, 32 doubles, 109 rbi) again led the league in runs batted in.

Levi Callaway (27-17, 1.79 ERA, 353 strikeouts) had another fine season for the Maroons, again leading the league in strikeouts. Fuzzy Bradfield (39-7, 1.49 ERA) was the main beneficiary of the Boston offense.


l-to-r, Frederich Schaefer, Levi Callaway

The Association pennant chase was a little more competitive, coming down again to a race between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, with the pitching of Pittsburgh besting the bats of Cincinnati.

1886 American Association Standings


Cincinnati's Webster Mansfield (.327) won the batting title, narrowly edging out team mate Chris Parish (.324), while another Red, Duncan Hendrix (.244, 9 home runs, 101 rbi), lead the Association in home runs and runs batted in.

Both Cincinnati's Doc Langdon (40-16, 1.72 ERA) and Pittsburgh's Thomas Harbison (41-12, 1.28 ERA) won over 40 games, but it was Pittsburgh's one-two punch of Harbison and Egbert Robin (37-14, .97 ERA) that proved to be the difference maker.


l-to-r, Webster Mansfield, Duncan Hendrix

So the "World's Series" was a rematch of 1885, pitting Boston against Pittsburgh. When Boston opened with two victories, its fans immediately started celebrating. But Pittsburgh won the next three games, with Robin winning two of those games, to claim the title of World's Champion.


Egbert Robin


1886 Eastern League Standings


In the Eastern League, Hartford again finished in front of the Richmond club. The Dark Blues' Kary Woody (.333) was the batting champion. Hartford's Swede Larsson, who had played for Richmond during the latter's sole season in the National League, lead the league with 8 home runs.


Swede Larsson

[mjj55409]

The base ball convention in the winter of 1886 opened with the resignation of the Abe Morrill's St. Louis club from the League. Morrill just could not field a competitive team, and frankly, he was out of money, having spent his share of the family fortune on the Maroons. So with the absence of St. Louis, and the folding of Kansas City, the National League needed to find two other clubs to remain at eight. Pittsburgh owner, Patrick Reese, had long preferred League membership over Association membership. And after the Allegheny's dismantling of Boston in last season's championship series, the league was happy to bring Pittsburgh into the fold. To replace the bankrupt Kansas City franchise, the League also admitted a club from Indianapolis. The Association admitted a new club from Cleveland, replacing the Pittsburgh club.


Patrick Reese

1887 National League Standings


1887 American Association Standings


Both pennant races had absolutely no drama. Pittsburgh thoroughly dominated the league, winning their first National League pennant (and third consecutive pennant overall). Boston and Detroit fought an empty battle for second place. In the Association, Cincinnati continued its string of second place finishes, this time losing out to a rejuvenated Baltimore club. This is despite Cincinnati having scored an astounding 1,174 runs (8.6 run/game) over the course of the season.

Pittsburgh also won it's second championship series, winning five of nine games played against Baltimore.

Rule changes produced a massive increase in offense across the board. In a season absent of pennant races, the excitement was generated by Chris Parish's pursuit of .400. The Cincinnati batsman fell short of that goal, but he set numerous records in the process (.397 avg, .495 obp, 217 hits, 116 walks, 150 rbi). The runs scored record was actually set by Boston's Mark Stewart (.371, 160 runs scored), who also won the League batting title.


l-to-r, Chris Parish, Mark Stewart

But even in this season of batsmen, the pitching of Pittsburgh proved the difference. Egbert Robin (33-6, 1.53 ERA) had another top form season, this time joined by team mate Johan Middleton (31-5, 1.46 ERA). Cincinnati's Doc Langdon (35-15, 2.19 ERA) had a typically fine season, but it was the pitching of Kansas City cast-off Gabby Peters (43-9, 1.89 ERA) that put Baltimore over the top.


l-to-r, Johan Middleton, Gabby Peters

1887 Eastern League Standings


Hartford won its third consecutive Eastern League pennant. Kary Woody (.377) won another batting title, and Quilla Saunders won 27 games for the Dark Blues (27-9, 1.70 ERA).


Quilla Saunders

[ashantewarrier]

Originally Posted by mjj55409

The "create the league in Afghanistan thing" is just a workaround I developed for a very annoying bug. When you are adding a league to an existing historical universe, the added league gets created with modern settings. This includes player creation settings, so those players created along with the league must be deleted if you do not want your overall league statistics to be off.

Yes, this does happen upon league creation but my workaround is to select another start year other than the actual year your league will begin in. Then go back and select the correct start year. This should do it!

[Isacco]

Really a great work! I like to know if you have created a quickstart version of this game.

[mjj55409]

Originally Posted by ashantewarrier

Yes, this does happen upon league creation but my workaround is to select another start year other than the actual year your league will begin in. Then go back and select the correct start year. This should do it!

That is so simple. And so. Much. Easier. Thanks!

[mjj55409]

Originally Posted by Isacco

Really a great work! I like to know if you have created a quickstart version of this game.

I do not have a quickstart; I do have a template for the 1871 start, but if you want to mimic the structural history of the baseball leagues, there is unavoidable manual work moving from season to season.

[ashantewarrier]

Originally Posted by mjj55409

I do not have a quickstart; I do have a template for the 1871 start, but if you want to mimic the structural history of the baseball leagues, there is unavoidable manual work moving from season to season.

Yes indeed! I've done this in solo play myself!

[mjj55409]

After the 1885 season, the League finally forced the New York owner, John Day, to sell the Metropolitan club, deeming it too great a conflict of interest for Day to run a club in the League and the Association. So Day sold the Metropolitans to Dick O'Grady, chairman of the Baltimore & Ohio Railway. B&O had recently purchased the Staten Island Rapid Transit Railroad, which was operating the Staten Island Ferry between Manhattan and Staten Island. O'Grady's idea was to build a ballpark on Staten Island for the Metropolitans, thereby increasing ferry traffic. That plan was not a success, and the Metropolitans folded after the 1887 season. In replacing the Metropolitans, the Association will make another attempt at establishing a Kansas City outpost.

1888 National League Standings


1888 American Association Standings


And during the summer, neither Day's New York Giants nor the Boston Beaneaters were able to close the gap with Pittsburgh. The pennant races were a little closer than last season (Boston was only three games behind at the beginning of September), but ultimately both Pittsburgh and Baltimore led wire-to-wire in a repeat of last season's pennant finishes.

The World's Championship Series was another decisive victory for the Pittsburgh club, winning five of seven games with Baltimore. Pittsburgh has now won four consecutive pennants and three consecutive World Series. But they are still two seasons away from tying Boston's string of six straight pennants.

Boston's Patsy Deal (.348, 10 hr, 72 rbi) led the League in batting, finishing ahead of Philadelphia's Douglas Endicott (.327, 26 hr, 103 rbi), who set a new league record for long balls. Cincinnati's Chris Parish (.369, 12 hr, 100 rbi) repeated as the Association batting champion, while team mate Webster Mansfield (.313, 25 hr, 115 rbi) nearly matched Endicott's homerun total.


l-to-r, Patsy Deal, Chris Parish

Some exciting amateur players have joined the professional ranks over the last couple of seasons. Of note are Baltimore's Mathew Briggs (.283, 9 hr, 75 rbi) and New York's Bill Fletcher (.290, 22 doubles, 17 triples, 90 runs).


l-to-r, Mathew Briggs, Bill Fletcher

As we've come to expect, the pitching of the Alleghenys was far and above the rest of base ball. Thomas Harbison (36-15, 1.38 ERA) and Johan Middleton (34-15, 1.37 ERA) were the ace hurlers of the club. Boston's Arnold Jacobs won his 337th career league game.

Baltimore's Gabby Peterson (27-15, 1.21 ERA) led the Association hurlers in earned runs average. Cleveland's young pitcher, Lester "Willow" Baugh (44-33, 2.24 ERA), started an astonishing 81 games for Cleveland, pitching 666 innings. Not to be out done, Kansas City's rookie pitcher, Loyd Duffield (31-45, 2.59 ERA), also started 81 games and completed 69 of them.


l-to-r, Lester Baugh, Loyd Duffield

1888 Eastern League Standings


Hartford won it's fourth consecutive Eastern League pennant. Hartford short stop Mason Culp (.348, 20 doubles, 15 triples, 94 runs) was named the outstanding batsman of the circuit. Richmond's Gottfried Flanagan (20-13, 1.85 ERA) was recognized as the top pitcher.


l-to-r, Mason Culp, Gottfried Flanagan

[mjj55409]

Fancy Prices for Fancy Players Ruled Out
New York Times
November 23, 1888

After making threats for half a dozen years, the Baseball League passed what is known as the salary-graded list at the meeting at the Fifth-Avenue Hotel yesterday, and from present appearances a war between managers and players is imminent.The compensation for all League players for services as players shall be limited, regulated, and determined by the classification and grade to which such players may be assigned by the Secretary of the League after the termination of the championship season.

*****

The above meeting took place while Ben Osgood, former Chicago pitcher, manager, and now owner of the club as well as a sporting goods magnate, took a group of base ball all stars on a barnstorming tour of Europe and Asia. The second such trip that he had put together. A member of the tour was Horace Ferry, New York Giant short stop. When he had returned from the tour and found out about the salary grades, he was livid.


l-to-r, Ben Osgood, Horace Ferry

In addition to playing base ball, Ferry had gotten a law degree from Columbia University. He had already attacked the legality of the reserve clause in an article written for Lippencott's Magazine, "Is the Base Ball Player a Chattel?". He also founded a semi-secret organization, The Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players. Now he demanded a meeting with base ball executives to discuss the salary grade issue. He was refused. He threatened that the Brotherhood would strike on July 4th, 1889. A symbolic date not only for American's independence, but also the largest money making day on the base ball calendar.

The Brotherhood members were split on the strike issue. They did hold a strike vote in June, 1889. The leader of the side opposing the strike, Brotherhood chairman Blondie Clapp, thought the better plan was to play the season out and then form their own league, a players league. As we will see, that is that the side that won out.


Blondie Clapp

[ashantewarrier]

Originally Posted by mjj55409

1884 also saw base ball's "color barrier" broken, at least temporarily. Judson Barnhardt was a catcher for the Toledo Blue Stockings of the minor Northwestern League. Toledo was one of the new American Association clubs for 1884 and Barnhardt appeared in 110 games for Toledo (.236, 19 doubles, 49 runs). Barnhardt's team mate, pitcher J.W. Dickerson, stated Barnhardt "was the best catcher I ever worked with, but I disliked a Negro and whenever I had to pitch to him I used to pitch anything I wanted without looking at his signals." As Toledo went bankrupt and folded after the season, Barnhardt's base ball future is still up in the air.


l-to-r, Judson Barnhardt, J.W. Dickerson

I am so glad that you included this historical piece in your current incarnation of this universe! Not too many people know that Moses Fleetwood Walker was the first know African American to play professionally in the Major Leagues some played with the Toledo Blue Stockings of the A.A. for one season along with his brother Welday Walker. His exclusion from the majors, a year later, would be the start of the so-called "Gentleman's Agreement" between all Major League owners excluding African Americans from Baseball. Good work!

[ashantewarrier]

BTW- What name file are using for historically appropriate names?

[mjj55409]

Originally Posted by ashantewarrier

BTW- What name file are using for historically appropriate names?

I'm still using Coolyvol's name set: http://www.jazzrack.us/mods/ootpmods...%20Nameset.zip

Though I do go through each free agent class and clean them up a bit.

[ashantewarrier]

Yeah, I'm considering restarting my fictional MLB universe because I don't like some of the names generated. The historical name file list I use tends to list too many Bills, Bibs, Babes and Johns. The set I use has a nameset for each decade which I import a year before each decade start.

[David Ball]

Originally Posted by ashantewarrier

I am so glad that you included this historical piece in your current incarnation of this universe! Not too many people know that Moses Fleetwood Walker was the first know African American to play professionally in the Major Leagues some played with the Toledo Blue Stockings of the A.A. for one season along with his brother Welday Walker. His exclusion from the majors, a year later, would be the start of the so-called "Gentleman's Agreement" between all Major League owners excluding African Americans from Baseball. Good work!

This reminds me, I had been curious about what happened to Barnhardt after 1884. Did he find a place in the Eastern League? The real Walker remained in organized baseball for some years after '84.