What's your favorite Historical season? - Page 2

DawnBTVS · 02-12-2017, 12:30 PM

1996 is a favorite of mine. Steroids/Power baseball is in full swing all over but both sides of the ball are fantastic. It's not quite the obscene 1998-2001 years but not the pitching dominant 1988-1992 years either.

Young pitchers like Andy Pettite, Mike Mussina, Hideo Nomo, and Pedro Martinez are battling it out with wily older veterans like Kevin Brown, Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, and Tom Glavine. Even near the end pitchers like Orel Hershiser and Jimmy Key are still pitching.

Relievers are loaded from Mariano Rivera to Jose Mesa, Rob Nenn, and Trevor Hoffman. Even Todd Worrell and Randy Myers are still going.

Offensively you have a 39 year old Paul Molitor going nuts and Tony Gwynn. The Colorado Rockies power bats are peaking.

Mark McGwire, Ken Griffey Jr, Frank Thomas, Juan Gonzalez, and Albert Belle are centerpieces of the home run slugger.

Dual threats are appearing more commonly with Barry Bonds as a 40/40 player and guys like Ellis Burks are flashing 40/30 seasons. Sammy Sosa was 2 steals away from a 40/20 season. Even infielders are becoming stars as Barry Larkin puts up a 30/30 season.

A-Rod, Chipper Jones, Raul Mondesi, Derek Jeter, Nomar, and Pudge Rodriguez are debuting or just came onto the scene and quickly making their names known immediately.

JMDurron · 02-12-2017, 12:46 PM

I'd have to go with 1967 intellectually, with the Red Sox finally emerging from an almost 20-year stretch of irrelevance, back when winning the League Pennant really meant something.

Emotionally, probably 1990, as I was 9 and it was the first season I remember following and watched a highlight video of about 95,000 times. In hindsight, that Red Sox team was one of the worst division winning teams ever (Clemens, Boggs, and....Burks? No wonder they got swept), but it was my first reason season/team attachment that I can remember.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Caporegime

1994, the infamous "strike year", is also a year I have often enjoyed replaying. For certain, no Expos fan would be interested in hearing me or any other Yankee fan whine about how the strike deprived my team of a shot at winning a championship, but I'd be less than honest if I said the strike didn't leave a bitter bruise behind and a sense of unfinished business. Yeah, I know. You'd think the four WS titles the Yankees subsequently won between 1996-2000 would've mitigated those feelings somewhat. But at the risk of sounding like an inordinately greedy a-hole, the retrospective gestalt on that baby is that there should be 28 championship banners flying over Yankee Stadium, not 27.

The more publicly presentable version of this wish might be phrased as "I wish Mattingly had won one in 1994."

actionjackson · 02-12-2017, 12:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMDurron

I'd have to go with 1967 intellectually, with the Red Sox finally emerging from an almost 20-year stretch of irrelevance, back when winning the League Pennant really meant something.

Emotionally, probably 1990, as I was 9 and it was the first season I remember following and watched a highlight video of about 95,000 times. In hindsight, that Red Sox team was one of the worst division winning teams ever (Clemens, Boggs, and....Burks? No wonder they got swept), but it was my first reason season/team attachment that I can remember.

The more publicly presentable version of this wish might be phrased as "I wish Mattingly had won one in 1994."

Boddicker had a very, very good season that year too, but the position players were kinda yucky (even Boggs and Burks were kinda so-so considering Fenway was their home park). Larry Andersen did a great job down the stretch for them, but obviously they way overpaid for him.

tward13 · 02-12-2017, 01:37 PM

1969 because the Mets are such a crazy team to control. All that young pitching and platoons at half the positions. Lots for a manager to do.

r0nster · 02-12-2017, 03:41 PM

mine is 1984 Detroit Tigers many memories of that season and yet hard to replicate via OOTP a challenge to say the least .... Wire to wire Bless you Boys team.

DreamTeams · 02-12-2017, 04:03 PM

1981

Strange, I know, to select that weird strike year. But, after those heartbreaking defeats in '77 and '78 at the hands of the Yanks, it was so sweet to watch my Dodgers exact revenge in '81 to take the Series.

Would have to give the 1988 (Improbable Dodgers over the might, mighty A's) season a very close second, though.

JMDurron · 02-12-2017, 05:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by actionjackson

Boddicker had a very, very good season that year too, but the position players were kinda yucky (even Boggs and Burks were kinda so-so considering Fenway was their home park). Larry Andersen did a great job down the stretch for them, but obviously they way overpaid for him.

I always forget about Boddicker. Now there's a trade (Schilling) that was actually worth the return (without Boddicker, no 1988 or 1990 AL East Titles). The Yawkey regime (it's a shame that Tom Yawkey re-married to a younger woman) was seriously deficient when it came to keeping or adding one-dimensional players, of which Greenwell and Brunansky come to mind from the 1990 squad.

jpeters1734 · 02-12-2017, 06:00 PM

'98 for me. I was a late bloomer to baseball, as I was 13 at the time, but that was the first season I actually paid attention to baseball through the whole summer and fall. Big Mac will always be my favorite player.

actionjackson · 02-12-2017, 06:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by r0nster

mine is 1984 Detroit Tigers many memories of that season and yet hard to replicate via OOTP a challenge to say the least .... Wire to wire Bless you Boys team.

Chester Earl Lemon (Chet "The Jet" Lemon) turned 62 today. Criminally underrated player on that team and those '80's Tigers teams that gave everybody in the AL East fits. They always talk about "strength up the middle" being a key component of championship teams. Off the top of my head only The Big Red Machine (also managed by Sparky Anderson) can rival those Tiger teams in terms of strength up the middle with Bench/Morgan/Concepcion/Geronimo. Parrish/Whitaker/Trammell/Lemon was where balls in play went to die, and would be base stealers were cut down. Lemon running down ball after ball in that 440 foot death valley of a CF was almost unfair, and Trammell and Whitaker were so spectacular defensively, without being flashy about it, that the HoF has completely whiffed on them for now.

Put that tremendous defense together with seemingly team wide offensive proficiency (a team OPS+ of 114!), and Willie Hernandez' pretty much perfect season along with major contributions from the rest of the bullpen and you have the makings of something special. Don't be too hard on OOTP for not being able to replicate that special season. A whole bunch of things went right for Sparky's boys that year.

actionjackson · 02-12-2017, 06:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMDurron

I always forget about Boddicker. Now there's a trade (Schilling) that was actually worth the return (without Boddicker, no 1988 or 1990 AL East Titles). The Yawkey regime (it's a shame that Tom Yawkey re-married to a younger woman) was seriously deficient when it came to keeping or adding one-dimensional players, of which Greenwell and Brunansky come to mind from the 1990 squad.

I know it's easy to forget about Brady Anderson's inclusion in that trade, but don't forget about him. That gave the Orioles a very solid CF, and gave them the confidence to trade Steve Finley, Pete Harnisch and the aforementioned Curt Schilling to the Astros for Glenn Davis in one of the most lopsided trades in the history of baseball.

Silent_Thunder · 02-13-2017, 01:47 AM

1919. It's perhaps right one of the more major turning points in the league to start right before. No Ruth to the Yankees, No Black Sox taking the best and brightest of Chicago away forever, no Ray Chapman death, etc etc. Those few years after it never happening makes a massive difference, and can have a massive knock on effect to baseball's history if you aren't using historical player assignments.

kq76 · 02-13-2017, 03:38 AM

It's 1985 for me as well. I'm not sure the exact year I started watching baseball a lot, it was probably a couple years later, but I'm pretty sure it was 1985 when baseball first started to enter my consciousness. Of course the Jays had maybe their first great regular season, but the WS was one of the best, and there were a number of great seasons by exciting players like Henderson, Raines, McGee, Smith and Coleman. It's the season I most like to start with. I guess I wish I watched more of it when it was playing out.

dunningrb · 02-13-2017, 09:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by southsidefan

1978... It was the first and only year I bought Avlon Hill's Statis Pro Baseball. 700 miniature player cards, charts and..... a game board of a baseball field! The card stock and print had a unique smell that I instantly liked everytime I played. I knew those players well. It was really a precursor, in my mind, to OOTP. I played multiple "seasons" with that 1978 card deck, trading players, managing all the games and keeping stats manually ..... until Micro-League.

My first table-top game was Statis Pro with the 1981 card set. I replayed the Yankees-Dodgers World Series probably 50 times. I loved that game.

dunningrb · 02-13-2017, 09:18 PM

1985. All four division races went down to the last week, and the post season gave us 20 out of a maximum 21 possible games. And of course, the greatest blown call in World Series history.

cheo25 · 02-14-2017, 09:33 AM

Favorite year to play historical: 1975. I was 4 and I have faint recollections of a trip to the Astrodome and watching games on TV. So I'm fascinated learning more about that year, especially with the dominance of the Big Red Machine.

Favorite year personally: 1980. First year the Astros made the playoffs in a thrilling pennant race where they tried to blow it on the final weekend of the season in LA only to win a one-game playoff.

I also like 1979 because of the colorful uniforms of the Pirates (who hooked me into adopting them as a second team) and because it was the first legit pennant race I could remember the Astros having a chance in my lifetime (blew a 10-game lead they held on July 4 and lost by 1 1/2 games to Cincinnati).

And 1986 was a blast, even if it ended badly for the Astros. Most of the '80s were fun for me, though, because I graduated high school in 1989. Great time for baseball on the field, in my opinion, despite all of the off-the-field garbage (strikes, drugs, etc.)

Puckett guy · 05-27-2017, 12:02 AM

Not surprisingly, I will always go with 1991. The Twins and Braves go from worst to first in their leagues and then play in an absolutely classic World Series. Baseball at its best.

thehef · 05-27-2017, 03:08 PM

1975. As a kid I'd get sent to bed and would then secretly listen to Dodgers games & Kings (hockey) on a small radio (Vin & Bob Miller will always be like family). And then even though the '75 Dodgers were too injured to challenge the hated (by me) Reds (a lot of family members were big Reds fans), it was the Epic '75 Series (El Tiante, Bernie's two pinch-hit 3-run blasts, MVP/ROY Freddie Lynn, rain-rain-rain, some catcher hitting a long-forgotten game-winning homer off a foul pole

... and of course Lee throwing one too many bloopers, Johnson bringing in Burton instead of Cleveland, Jim Rice's unfortunate & likely-series-altering injury, the villain Larry Barnett, Yaz so disappointingly ending it with a weak pop-out...) where I really got hooked. And while the Dodgers were (and are still) my favorite team, for many years the Red Sox were second...

At any rate, I can totally identify with...

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamTeams

1981

Strange, I know, to select that weird strike year. But, after those heartbreaking defeats in '77 and '78 at the hands of the Yanks, it was so sweet to watch my Dodgers exact revenge in '81 to take the Series.

Would have to give the 1988 (Improbable Dodgers over the might, mighty A's) season a very close second, though.

The Yurpman · 05-27-2017, 07:16 PM

As a Red Sox fan I enjoy starting in 2003. The year before they won it all. I love to try to end the drought in 03 instead of 04 and send home (bunch of curse words) Aaron Boone.

I very rarely play historical so when I do it's just a fun thing to past the time. Every game in 2003 when we play the Yankees, I purposely hit Aaron Boone every time he comes up to bat.

It's little things like that which make OOTP wonderful.

buckeye22 · 05-27-2017, 08:14 PM

2006, for 2 reasons.

1 and most importantly, the Tigers get to the World Series. Not just that, but it was their first playoff appearance in my life and the first winning season that I was actually old enough to remember.

2 I graduated HS. I like to go back to 2006 and create myself as an 18 year old draft eligible prospect and see what happens.

YachtRocker · 05-28-2017, 03:39 AM

1984 for me. I was 12 and the Cubs were having a really good year and won the NL East. This is the year I remember really getting into baseball and baseball cards, this year always stands out for me. I was a big fan of Jody Davis, Leon Durham and Keith Moreland, but of course Ryne Sandburg too.

02-12-2017, 12:30 PM	#21
DawnBTVS Major Leagues Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: USA Posts: 416	1996 is a favorite of mine. Steroids/Power baseball is in full swing all over but both sides of the ball are fantastic. It's not quite the obscene 1998-2001 years but not the pitching dominant 1988-1992 years either. Young pitchers like Andy Pettite, Mike Mussina, Hideo Nomo, and Pedro Martinez are battling it out with wily older veterans like Kevin Brown, Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, and Tom Glavine. Even near the end pitchers like Orel Hershiser and Jimmy Key are still pitching. Relievers are loaded from Mariano Rivera to Jose Mesa, Rob Nenn, and Trevor Hoffman. Even Todd Worrell and Randy Myers are still going. Offensively you have a 39 year old Paul Molitor going nuts and Tony Gwynn. The Colorado Rockies power bats are peaking. Mark McGwire, Ken Griffey Jr, Frank Thomas, Juan Gonzalez, and Albert Belle are centerpieces of the home run slugger. Dual threats are appearing more commonly with Barry Bonds as a 40/40 player and guys like Ellis Burks are flashing 40/30 seasons. Sammy Sosa was 2 steals away from a 40/20 season. Even infielders are becoming stars as Barry Larkin puts up a 30/30 season. A-Rod, Chipper Jones, Raul Mondesi, Derek Jeter, Nomar, and Pudge Rodriguez are debuting or just came onto the scene and quickly making their names known immediately. Last edited by DawnBTVS; 02-12-2017 at 12:31 PM.

02-12-2017, 04:03 PM	#26
DreamTeams Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 2,522	1981 Strange, I know, to select that weird strike year. But, after those heartbreaking defeats in '77 and '78 at the hands of the Yanks, it was so sweet to watch my Dodgers exact revenge in '81 to take the Series. Would have to give the 1988 (Improbable Dodgers over the might, mighty A's) season a very close second, though. __________________

02-12-2017, 06:00 PM	#28
jpeters1734 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2014 Location: Juust a bit outside... Posts: 6,294	'98 for me. I was a late bloomer to baseball, as I was 13 at the time, but that was the first season I actually paid attention to baseball through the whole summer and fall. Big Mac will always be my favorite player. __________________ "Cannonball Coming!" Go Bucs!! Founder and League Caretaker of the Professional Baseball Circuit, www.probaseballcircuit.com An Un-Official Guide to Minor League Management in OOTP 21 Ratings Scale Conversion Cross-Reference Cheat Sheet

02-13-2017, 01:47 AM	#31
Silent_Thunder Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: Upstate NY Posts: 235	1919. It's perhaps right one of the more major turning points in the league to start right before. No Ruth to the Yankees, No Black Sox taking the best and brightest of Chicago away forever, no Ray Chapman death, etc etc. Those few years after it never happening makes a massive difference, and can have a massive knock on effect to baseball's history if you aren't using historical player assignments. Last edited by Silent_Thunder; 02-13-2017 at 01:51 AM.

02-13-2017, 03:38 AM	#32
kq76 Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2002 Posts: 12,035	It's 1985 for me as well. I'm not sure the exact year I started watching baseball a lot, it was probably a couple years later, but I'm pretty sure it was 1985 when baseball first started to enter my consciousness. Of course the Jays had maybe their first great regular season, but the WS was one of the best, and there were a number of great seasons by exciting players like Henderson, Raines, McGee, Smith and Coleman. It's the season I most like to start with. I guess I wish I watched more of it when it was playing out. __________________ My OOTP Wishlist \| My FAQ List OOTP Wiki \| Your Recommended Team Nicknames, By City (A Crowdsourced Project) For Beta/Devs: Full screen (1920x1080)

02-12-2017, 01:37 PM	#24
tward13 All Star Starter Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 1,965	1969 because the Mets are such a crazy team to control. All that young pitching and platoons at half the positions. Lots for a manager to do.

02-12-2017, 03:41 PM	#25
r0nster Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2006 Location: Michigan Posts: 3,082	mine is 1984 Detroit Tigers many memories of that season and yet hard to replicate via OOTP a challenge to say the least .... Wire to wire Bless you Boys team.

02-13-2017, 09:18 PM	#34
dunningrb Minors (Double A) Join Date: May 2010 Location: Durham, NC Posts: 154	1985. All four division races went down to the last week, and the post season gave us 20 out of a maximum 21 possible games. And of course, the greatest blown call in World Series history. __________________ -- Rodney Dunning

02-14-2017, 09:33 AM	#35
cheo25 All Star Starter Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: Louisiana Posts: 1,340	Favorite year to play historical: 1975. I was 4 and I have faint recollections of a trip to the Astrodome and watching games on TV. So I'm fascinated learning more about that year, especially with the dominance of the Big Red Machine. Favorite year personally: 1980. First year the Astros made the playoffs in a thrilling pennant race where they tried to blow it on the final weekend of the season in LA only to win a one-game playoff. I also like 1979 because of the colorful uniforms of the Pirates (who hooked me into adopting them as a second team) and because it was the first legit pennant race I could remember the Astros having a chance in my lifetime (blew a 10-game lead they held on July 4 and lost by 1 1/2 games to Cincinnati). And 1986 was a blast, even if it ended badly for the Astros. Most of the '80s were fun for me, though, because I graduated high school in 1989. Great time for baseball on the field, in my opinion, despite all of the off-the-field garbage (strikes, drugs, etc.)

05-27-2017, 12:02 AM	#36
Puckett guy Major Leagues Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Near Lake Wobegone Posts: 306	Not surprisingly, I will always go with 1991. The Twins and Braves go from worst to first in their leagues and then play in an absolutely classic World Series. Baseball at its best. __________________ "...and we'll see you tomorrow night!" - Jack Buck, October 26, 1991, HHH Metrodome, Mpls, MN

05-27-2017, 07:16 PM	#38
The Yurpman Major Leagues Join Date: Jul 2012 Posts: 320	As a Red Sox fan I enjoy starting in 2003. The year before they won it all. I love to try to end the drought in 03 instead of 04 and send home (bunch of curse words) Aaron Boone. I very rarely play historical so when I do it's just a fun thing to past the time. Every game in 2003 when we play the Yankees, I purposely hit Aaron Boone every time he comes up to bat. It's little things like that which make OOTP wonderful.

05-27-2017, 08:14 PM	#39
buckeye22 Major Leagues Join Date: Jan 2014 Posts: 322	2006, for 2 reasons. 1 and most importantly, the Tigers get to the World Series. Not just that, but it was their first playoff appearance in my life and the first winning season that I was actually old enough to remember. 2 I graduated HS. I like to go back to 2006 and create myself as an 18 year old draft eligible prospect and see what happens.

05-28-2017, 03:39 AM	#40
YachtRocker Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Mar 2017 Location: Illinois Posts: 27	1984 for me. I was 12 and the Cubs were having a really good year and won the NL East. This is the year I remember really getting into baseball and baseball cards, this year always stands out for me. I was a big fan of Jody Davis, Leon Durham and Keith Moreland, but of course Ryne Sandburg too.