Someone help me to find the "thrill" of baseball please II

[Templer]

Someone help me to find the "thrill" of baseball please

I already posted this yesterday but somehow the contents of my thread disappeared.

I'm a football fan, and I'm a big fan of sports text simulations.
Recently I've started a thread in a forum to which I lead a football team (WWPF New Orleans Saints).
Text simulations. Baseball tops Football?

OOTP Baseball has long been known to me, only now, recently (almost by accident) I've been interested for more detail.
The simulation is a dream, just a dream!

I fall in love to what I see and read.
I love the mechanics, the screens, I love the comprehensiveness - but I don’t get used to baseball.

I know baseball, I know most of the rules and I know some statistics.
What I do not understand to baseball, where the baseball fans gets there"thrill" from.

What is "thrill" to me.:
Football:
I call a play.
I see how my running back run through the open line - my eyes getting bigger.
The running back breaks a few tackles and sees daylight - I hold my breath.
My running back is in, or to the way to the secondary - I jump up from my desk and screams run, run!

This is really so to me.
That’s what I mean by "thrill", were I find excitiment.

I do not find this with baseball - so far.
Where and how you find the "thrill" in baseball?

Well, all three bases are loaded.
The suspense is whether the batter hits the ball and whether the hit results in points.
But I feel this more and more as a matter of luck:
If he hits the ball or not. As he hits the ball wherever he strikes the ball
Isn’t it a gamble?

I'm sitting in the stadium.
On the field down there develops a highly dramatic situation but I do not recognize this!

I know this forum is about text simulations, about OOTP produkts.
But if I can not find any real baseball fan here to help me out - then where?

Can you help me? Help me to understand baseball better?
Not the rules - but from were and how you feed your fascination with it.

I am thinking to purchase OOTP 14, because it is so is a great and exceptional text sim.
But I have to to do baseball (and any other sport) with emotions.

Oh, what does this "Stuff" rating?

[CatKnight]

Oh dear. I'm not sure whether to call it thrill or not, but I'll tell you a few things that attract me:

In baseball, it's never over until the last out. Ever. In any sport with a timer, there comes a point of no return: If I'm losing a football game 42-0 (6 touchdowns) with 2 minutes left in the game...it's over. There is no point in me prolonging my agony other than pride.

If I'm down by 6 runs in the bottom of the ninth, it's serious. I will PROBABLY lose. But even with 2 outs and no one on, once in a long while the baseball gods smile on you.

Let's talk about these baseball gods. Call it luck, random chance, spirituality....doesn't matter. Usually we have enough stats on hand to have a pretty good idea what's going to happen. If you have your ace pitcher, and I have a rookie who's hitting 0 for 20, you're probably going to get me out. Once in awhile though, something improbable happens. I get a freak single. Or I hit the ball right to the infielder, and the infielder drops it.

Improbable plays happen in football too, of course, but in baseball because it's such an isolated incident - pitcher vs. batter vs. fielder vs. runner - you have more time to wonder at it.

You mentioned luck in your post...to be honest, and this is not a knock on the NFL...the whole season is a crap shoot. ANYONE can do really well (or really poorly) over a sixteen game streak. When Vince Lombardi said that on any given Sunday anything could happen, he was absolutely right.

16 games isn't long enough to wear away all the statistical anomalies. 16 games into a baseball season, I can't tell you crap about how it's going to end. I can't tell you who will win the Cy Young or MVP. Get back to me at the end of May, or about 40 games in. Only then can I even begin to guess who'll still be standing at the end....and even 162 games might not be quite enough to sort it out.

I've heard baseball called a soap opera for guys. Day by day, inning by inning, a story unfolds that will take six months to tell....and just like being 6 runs down in the 9th, until very late in the process it's never too late to turn things around. The 1978 New York Yankees were considered hopelessly out of the pennant race at the All Star Break. They won.

Long story short....the thrill for me - the passion - is in those little moments when probability gets turned on its head, because no matter how old the season is, or how many stats you can bring to bear.....you're just not quite sure what's going to happen next.

[Erik W.]

I already posted this yesterday but somehow the contents of my thread disappeared.

It's there, it's just in the moderation queue because something in your post set off the anti-spam system. I'm not sure why that one did and this one didn't since you included the same link, unless it was the bolded text or something in the other.

Since this one went through I'll just delete the other one.

Oh, what does this "Stuff" rating?

I'll let the game manual handle this one.

Stuff is a measure of the quality of a pitcher's pitch repertoire. Think of it as essentially how a pitcher "puts it all together." Stuff directly affects the number of strikeouts a pitcher throws. Stuff is calculated based on a combination of his individual pitch ratings and the velocity with which he throws.

Relief pitchers receive a small bonus to stuff, to reflect the fact that batters get fewer looks at their pitches and have less of a chance to adjust to them. OOTP displays that bonus in the form of increased Stuff ratings. This bonus is heavily tied into the strength of a reliever's top two pitches, since relievers have much less incentive to mix in their weaker offerings. This means that a pitcher with a strong fastball, a strong slider, and a weak changeup might make for an average starting pitcher but a great reliever. You get to decide how he provides the most useful fit for your team. You can see the change in a pitcher's Stuff rating if you change the player's position from SP to MR and back.

[CD1083]

For me personally it all goes back to my childhood. Playing little league, having my dad cheer me on from the stands. It still brings a smile to my face when I think of all the fun memories I had of playing the game.

In football and many other sports, it's all moving so fast that I never got to stop and smell the roses. I may remember a specific play here or there that I'm proud of when playing football or soccer but nothing to the degree of baseball where I can remember silly antics we'd play on each other in the dugout or the awesome feeling I got when stealing a base off someone in school I disliked.

Baseball is a game for kids. Even for those who play it professionally. It's for the kids in all of us.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by Templer

This is really so to me.
That’s what I mean by "thrill", were I find excitiment.

I do not find this with baseball - so far.
Where and how you find the "thrill" in baseball?

Baseball is not about "thrill". Baseball is about charm.

Baseball is a fine wine that you savor, not a beer that you chug.

I suggest watching the Ken Burns documentary on baseball for a better understanding.

[The Game]

Originally Posted by Orcin

Baseball is not about "thrill". Baseball is about charm.

Baseball is a fine wine that you savor, not a beer that you chug.

I suggest watching the Ken Burns documentary on baseball for a better understanding.

I wrote up a 6 paragraph story of why I love baseball and OOTP. I then decided to see what others have said and Orcin said it best.
To me baseball is about having a brain and being able to think for yourself. the others sports are mindless.

[Big Six]

Like many of you are, I'm a big fan of both baseball and football. In fact, I played a lot more football growing up and in school than I did baseball. There are things about both sports I love and appreciate.

When I watch a baseball game, I don't typically get the same kind of adrenaline rush I get when I'm watching football, or basketball or hockey for that matter. There are moments in some baseball games that keep me on the edge of my seat--the classic "full count, two men on in the bottom of the ninth, my team two runs down" moments. Most of the time, however, the drama of a baseball game is a much more subtle drama.

I like to try to think along with a pitcher. What pitch will he throw this batter in this situation? What does he throw when he's got two strikes on the batter? Will he always throw his cutter then, or does he throw a curve sometimes? My dad watches a game like this, too, so it's a lot of fun to watch a game with him when we're visiting.

That reminds me of something else I love about baseball. I'm lucky enough that every member of my family--my parents, my brother, my sisters, my wife, and even my two oldest kids--enjoy baseball. My wife and I went on our first date to a minor league baseball game, and all the adults in our family know the game well. As sappy as it might seem, there's almost nothing better in life than watching a baseball game with my dad and my nine-year-old son. We watch other sports together, too, but during a baseball game I have time to think about how cool the experience really is. It's fun to teach my son, and now my older daughter (she's almost 6) about the game. Lil' Sis, who's only three, doesn't get it yet.

I like to think along with a football team's coaching staff--trying to figure out what will the offensive coordinator might call here, or what the defense is trying to do to stop it. I'll watch a basketball coach's substitution pattern, or try to match wits with him/her during the last minutes of a close game. And I'll pay attention to who's on the ice during crucial situations of a hockey game--who takes the key faceoff, or who's getting more time on the power play or on the penalty kill. Still, there's nothing to me quite like thinking along with a pitcher and catcher, or a manager, as they make the hundreds of decisions they're faced with during a baseball game.

Or, I can simply relax and watch the game if I don't feel like thinking too much.

[Skipaway]

With baseball, a person with good analytic skills can easily go through meaningful stats and identify trends and strategies. Most of the significant parameters of this sport is measured and recorded, unlike football.

A lot of the thrill of OOTP and real life baseball are from that for analytic people. It's similar to stock market.

[Faroo6]

Smell of fresh cut grass at a ballpark in the spring. That is all.

[jaxmagicman]

Baseball is a symphony of movement and sound. The crack of the bat puts the batter in motion, the fielders converge and perfect harmony is met. The shorstop moves towards second. The first baseman moves towards first. The catcher moves to back-up, the second baseman moves towards the ball. The right fielder moves towards the second baseman. There is nothing like it in sports.

On any given play in baseball, you can close your eyes and know exactly where each player is going. You cannot do that in football. All 22 guys in football are doing different things. There is motion in the play, but no play lasts the first hike. Not in baseball. Baseball is beautiful. Baseball is precise. Baseball is tradition. Baseball is America.

The thrill comes from being able to picture yourself there. You can smell the grass. You can feel the rawhide of the ball. You can hear the catchers glove as the ball hits the mitt. You can see the players faces. They aren't covered in masks. If you concentrate you can taste popcorn in the stands. Nothing is like baseball in that respect. Too many people are at football games. You can't be lesiure and enjoy the game. Basketball moves too fast. Hockey is too cold. Only baseball offers all the experiences that I mentioned.

So you may ask why would people get a thrill out of a simulation game of baseball, and my question would be how could they not?

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by Skipaway

With baseball, a person with good analytic skills can easily go through meaningful stats and identify trends and strategies. Most of the significant parameters of this sport is measured and recorded, unlike football.

A lot of the thrill of OOTP and real life baseball are from that for analytic people. It's similar to stock market.

Agree, and this is one of the beauties of the game to me. Even if you're not a big stat guy, like me, the game is still very enjoyable. You can spend a lifetime coddling baseball stats if that's your thing, or you can just sit and watch the field and the game, sort of let them tell you a story. This is what OOTP does for me, tells me a story about a baseball universe.

[Jabez54]

Nicely written, Jax !!! ... Made me feel I was really there, during that moment of reading ... THAT about sum it up ... if it doesn't, nothing will ... Tomas

[abailey3313]

Originally Posted by The Game

To me baseball is about having a brain and being able to think for yourself. the others sports are mindless.

This is an awfully naive statement.

[Sven Draconian]

Originally Posted by abailey3313

This is an awfully naive statement.

I would have went with a stronger word.

Truthfully I enjoy three sports for different reasons.

Football - I love the strategy of football. More than just the X's and O's, all the little details of execution. To me, it's the ultimate strategy game, but the strategy begins so much earlier than game day. There isn't another sport that even remotely compares to the sophistication of football. Everything is orchestrated and practiced and timed to perfection.

Rugby - I think Rugby is the ultimate team game and in a lot of ways the most physically demanding sport. It's constant, fluid and unrelenting. The strategy is both simpler and more difficult, the pauses are infrequent and short. Decisions are made in real time by the men on the field.

Baseball - To me, baseball is art. Just like a film or a novel, you can watch a story unfold with so many stories overlapping. You have career arcs, season arcs, franchise arcs, game arcs all converging at once. When the Tigers play the Yankees next week and Rick Porcello is pitching against Ichiro there is a lot more to it. You have a 24 year old Porcello trying to jump start a somewhat disappointing career pitching for a franchise who hasn't won a championship in nearly 20 years, but both are trying to start a season with huge expectations. You have Ichiro, trying to prolong the end of a fantastic career playing for the yankees who are trying desperately to stay on top despite seemingly being over hill.

Sure, you can dig in other sports and find those types of story lines, but in baseball it's played out front and center.

[Green & Gold Heart]

Some things:

- No timer
- The structure and order of a lineup and everyone having a turn at bat
- The idea that anyone from the biggest star to bench guy can be the hero on any given day

[stannis]

Originally Posted by Templer

What is "thrill" to me.:
Football:
I call a play.
I see how my running back run through the open line - my eyes getting bigger.
The running back breaks a few tackles and sees daylight - I hold my breath.
My running back is in, or to the way to the secondary - I jump up from my desk and screams run, run!

This is really so to me.
That’s what I mean by "thrill", were I find excitiment.

I do not find this with baseball - so far.
Where and how you find the "thrill" in baseball?

I think the most obvious baseball analogy to the play you've described would be a deep hit, with the outfielder racing back to the fence, jumping at the wall - and the ball either just evading his glove for a home run, or being pulled down in a leaping grab. It combines the dynamic athleticism of the act with the suspenseful drama of its context.

You'd be right that routine grounders and foul balls are much more common, of course - but then again, 2 yard runs up the gut getting stuffed and quick checkdown passes are much more common than long breakaway runs by the running back.

[Templer]

For now, thanks for the effort so far.
Some notes were useful.

The references to the need of analytical skills I find very inspiring.
The "romantic" posts are not quite as helpful.

I've purchased iOOTP 2012 a few days ago for my iPad.
Not because I am a fan of baseball, but because I am a big fan of text simulation.

I know most of the baseball rules, but there is some more I have to learn to get in the game.
i. e. I know what the player has to do on the 2nd base.
But I do not know at what stats I need to focus to find the best man for the job.
The same is true for all other positions.

Originally Posted by Erik W.

I'll let the game manual handle this one.

Thank you Erik W.,

where do I find this manual in iOOTP 2012?
There are many terms in the game I don't understand, of which I don't know what they mean.

[Erik W.]

Originally Posted by Templer

where do I find this manual in iOOTP 2012?
There are many terms in the game I don't understand, of which I don't know what they mean.

iOOTP Baseball 2011 - Out of the Park Baseball for iPhone/iPod/iPad

If there's anything terms-wise that isn't covered in the iOOTP manual, you can probably find help in the full game manual, as terms and ratings and such are generally the same between the two versions.

Out of the Park Baseball Manual

[jaxmagicman]

Originally Posted by Templer

I know most of the baseball rules, but there is some more I have to learn to get in the game.
i. e. I know what the player has to do on the 2nd base.
But I do not know at what stats I need to focus to find the best man for the job.

Now you are getting into why baseball is so much fun.

There are no set skills you can look for to see who would be best at second base. Or for any position.

Ryne Sandberg is probably my favorite 2B of all-time. He was good with the glove but didn't have great range. Over his entire career he hit 282 homeruns, so not great with power. Look at some of the 2b since and you will see players like Jeff Kemp who could hit 40 homeruns any season, or Dan Uggla who could hit 30. Neither would be considered good defensively. You could have Brandon Phillips, while good with getting on base, not much power. So you want to find somebody that matches what you want to do. If you have a pitching staff that gives up a light of fly balls, you don't need much range at second and you could have Uggla or Kemp. If you have a staff that has high GB% you would want someone with a lot of range at second, like Dustin Pedroia.

The usual argument is you want someone who has good defense, because good defense up the middle matters. But who does SF have a 2B? Marco Scutaro? His runs saved above average were -17! Meaning the Giants would have been better having a AAA player there.

So really it matters what you need. That is the beauty. It isn't like Football with the speed guys have to WR and RB or the guy with the strong arm plays QB. Really the skillset needed is up to what you want to do with your team.

[Templer]

@ jaxmagicman,

another instructive post.
Another upcoming fact that from my side there will be much to do.

Sirs, please go on giving me lessons.

But please don't throw player names on me.
Beside Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Gary Carter, Reggie Jackson and - of course Bo Jackson I don't know any players.

What GB% stands for?