The Next Generation

[CBL-Commish]

I haven't posted here in a good while, but I've been playing OOTP since version 2 in 2000. I'm the guy who'll occasionally discuss the Continental League that I started on PureStat Baseball on a Commodore 64 in 1988 and have kept going ever since.

I have a nine-year-old who got into baseball a few years ago. He's in kid pitch Little League, and like me is an Orioles fan. He's seen me playing OOTP, and got me to add an expansion team to one of the many leagues in my long-term universe that was "his". Eventually he asked if I could put OOTP on his computer in the toy room. I thought that it was probably too much, but maybe with simple settings, small league, etc, and some help he might be able to figure it out.

Well... we set up a small universe with MLB, MiLB, NBP, and his own independent Saskatchewan Confederation. He's GM and sometimes manager of the Porcupine Plain Porcupines. He really hasn't had much problem figuring out the game. His team was middling in year one, just missed the playoffs in year two, and won the league by 20 games in year three.

He knows all his mostly fictional players. He mostly sets the lineups and pitching staffs by himself. Occasionally I'll look and see his roster is short a few players because he put people on the DL or the reserve roster without replacing them, but for the most part he maintains a fully functional team by himself. He sold a star prospect to the majors and used the proceeds on signing free agents (not wise signings, but he learned the pain of carrying two wildly overpriced, underperforming players on your roster).

Yesterday he asked me to come look at something, and he showed me that he'd scoured the web for png files to use as logos for the other nine teams in his league, and without any help had imported them into the game and assigned them to the correct teams.

When I was nine or ten I checked out the Baseball Encyclopedia from the library and bored my parents to tears with trivia. My own kid is now nine, almost ten, and constantly races into the living room to announce the latest feats of glory from triple crown winner Van Conroy, Alex Spotton, Tyler Pastornicky and the other stars of Porcupine Plain.

Makes a dad proud! I just might have someone to pass the Continental League on to in my dotage.

[thorpegiovanni]

Always good to hear about young baseball fans. Sadly, it seems to slowly be swallowed away by other sports.

[CBL-Commish]

Originally Posted by thorpegiovanni

Always good to hear about young baseball fans. Sadly, it seems to slowly be swallowed away by other sports.

MLB drew 74M fans last season and had $8-9B in revenues. That can't all be from senior citizens. All entertainment is niche now, you can't expect the world to be like it was in 1950 or 1920. Most choices we have today didn't exist back then.

My kid's Little League has 10 or 12 teams of 8-10 year olds each with maybe 15 players in a moderately sized suburban county. And similar levels of participation in other age groups despite the existence of many other sports.

I think the death of baseball has been greatly exaggerated.

[WillyW3]

That's very cool on the indy league. Originally being from SK, I know where Porcupine Plain is. What other teams are in the league?

[CBL-Commish]

Originally Posted by WillyW3

That's very cool on the indy league. Originally being from SK, I know where Porcupine Plain is. What other teams are in the league?

Let's see... I remember the Humbolt Wingnuts, Regina Federals, Saskatoon Moomen, Moose Jaw, Weyburn. I'll have to go look for the rest. We did just add 2017 expansion teams to Pinto Butte (really Val Marie, but we wanted a team called the Pinto Beans), and the Qu'Appelle Northern Ducks.

I've never been to Saskatchewan, but always liked the name and kind of a vague idea of striking off for a great adventure in the frozen north.

[cavebutter]

This is so great! I can't wait until my little guy is old enough for me to share this with him. Even better that he came to it on his own!