EC's South Island Recreation League

[Eugene Church]

This is probably the final dynasty league I will post... The South Island Recreation League is just a small league with the South Island Supreme League and the South Island Primary League... I will promote one team each year and relegate (demote) one team each year.

Just a 10-game schedule... Sunday afternoon games for 10 weeks, April to June... no playoffs.
This will be a league I can totally become immersed in... I will play out all the games... the graphics are very well done... most of the teams were chosen because the logos, jerseys and caps were top quality and had good contrast and designs that show up well in the game.

I think good graphics are 50% of the game's enjoyment... playing the games is the other 50%.

[Eugene Church]

THOSE WERE THE DAYS

Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way
La la la la
Those were the days, oh yes those were the days
(Songwriters: Boris Fomin and Gene Raskin)

Listen to the song here by Robert Goulet... it was a #1 Song for Mary Hopkin produced by Paul McCartney in 1968... I am an old retired disc jockey and prefer Goulet's version... it has a better feel of getting together with old friends and celebrating the good old days than Mary Hopkin's version... there is a joy in the song about the good old days, but there is also sadness, that times have changed, people have gone their own way, and the good old days will never be again... actually, we shouldn't live in the past... today is the best time of your life and you should celebrate it no matter what life has given you... today is a day our Creator has made... regardless of our circumstances, we all should rejoice and be glad in it... today is the first day of the rest of our lives... let's rejoice and enjoy it.

I still miss the good old days, my friend... but they are gone forever... but like the song it can be brought back for a short time... the familiar laughter in the last verse means we can still get together and reminisce and enjoy each other's company for old times' sake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozwOqIMAPxk

Ah, the good old golden days of 1955... sadly for most of us they did end... but the good old days still live on the pristine white beaches of South Island, situated on the beautiful blue waters of Terrebonne Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.

South Island is a little place that time has forgotten and the the passing decades cannot improve... where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking and can hit a curve ball... and all the kids are above average... it's a wonderful place to enjoy life and raise a family... and it's the home of the South Island Recreation League.

Keeler Garrison is the South Island League organizer... he and all of his high school buddies made sure the good old days of yore would live on... baseball was their great love... they had played it together on the sandlots and playgrounds of South Island, in grammar school, junior high and high school... some of them went on to go to college where most of them weren't good enough to play... returning home to South Island and family and friends, they needed something to do to fill the long, hot days of summer... they decided to do it with the South Island Recreation League.

1955 is the inaugural season the South Island Recreation League.

There are 12 small towns on the Island... Garrison proposed a recreational baseball league with one team in each town... every Sunday afternoon the old-timers would go at it again on the diamond just for the sheer fun and joy of playing the great American Pastime... not for money, not for the old high school, but just purely for the love of the game... old school rivalries would be revived, relived and refought again... there would be two leagues, the South Island Supreme League and South Island Primary League, with six teams each and a 10-game schedule... each season at the end of play, the bottom team in the Supreme League would be demoted or relegated to the Primary League and the best team in the Primary League would be promoted to the Supreme League... I know I should pick better names for the two leagues, something that indicated the premier league and the secondary league, but that would have meant I would need new league logos, and to be honest, I am tired of trying to get graphics done... so I just used what I found on the OOTP Mods Forum for the 12 teams.. it has gotten really hard to get anyone to do graphics anymore... but I found some very good ones and they are mighty darn good... txranger did the gorgeous Supreme League logo and I got lucky and the Primary League came out fairly well, too.

(Special thanks to Garrison Keiller and the Prairie Home Companion for some great lines that I stole from them)

[care4ameatball]

Looking forward to meeting the teams

[Eugene Church]

I have run many, many test leagues and the stats are just plain goofy... the worse I have ever encountered.

1955 is the base year... league batting should be .258... it's only .180 in my test leagues.... won't start until I get it right.

[jg2977]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

I have run many, many test leagues and the stats are just plain goofy... the worse I have ever encountered.

1955 is the base year... league batting should be .258... it's only .180 in my test leagues.... won't start until I get it right.

Batters need to spend more time in the cages! And lower the mound.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by jg2977

Batters need to spend more time in the cages! And lower the mound.

The key to making baseball more exciting would be to go to 3 balls and 2 strikes... the pitchers would have to throw it over the plate and the batter would have to swing at it... no more wasting pitches and no more driving up the pitch count... this would cut 45 minutes to an hour off a game and increase the action.

This works well in slow pitch softball... we used to play on a 1 hour and 10 minutes time limit... using 3 balls and 2 strikes with a third strike on a 2-strike foul ball.

Prior to the new rule we could only play 5 innings...rarely played 7 innings... afterwards we always played 7, sometimes even 8 or 9 in extra innings.

[Eugene Church]

Have almost finished the rosters... this is the second time I have done it... stats were unrealistic the first time around... deleted the league and created a new one... this time I manually put the players in so I could get good talent in the league... the AI did a crummy job when I let it do the initial draft... I created all the players using free agents screen.

Should begin playing the league in a day or so if I get realistic stats... league batting average around .260 would be fine... it was .185 in the first league.

[Eugene Church]

The History of South Island

It is thought that South Island had its first inhabitants around the year 1000... the Sawani Indians settled the area... "Sawani" means "fierce people"... and they were described by historians and researchers as war-like people... the Sawani were resistant to colonization and savagely attacked any explorers who came into their territory... the Sawani were fishermen, they did not farm... they used shells on the island for utensils, jewelry, tools and weapons... by the 1800s most of the Sawani had died out... many were lost in warfare, some sold as slaves, while others died of diseases such as smallpox, measles and malaria.

According to local folklore, pirates supplanted the Sawani tribe... in the early 1800s the island was named Captiva by a pirate captain Jose Gasparillo... he was notorious for holding women prisoners for ransom... with Captiva as their headquarters, the buccaneers and privateers became gun runners and blockade runners and thrived until the end of the Civil War... in the 1870s, Captiva was abandoned and uninhabited... a malaria epidemic decimated the island and its people.

In 1888, an Austrian by the name of Axel Stordahl was on a German freighter headed for New Orleans... the ship wrecked off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico and he washed up on the shores of Captiva... history tells us that Stordahl "survived for several weeks on what the unoccupied island had to offer, built a makeshift raft and got himself to the mainland and New Orleans"... in 1890 Stordahl became a naturalized US citizen and was allowed to homestead on Captiva... he was its only inhabitant for 10 years... beginning in 1900 Stordahl began to develop the island and changed its name to South Island... he felt a name change would be a good public relations ploy... on the mainland Captiva was known as a deadly place for malaria.

South Island is an isolated area located in the middle of Little Lake, about 75 miles southwest of New Orleans... Just a short ferry ride from Leesville, the closest mainland town on Highway 1, which is the main road northward... Stordahl wanted South Island to be a special community with planned townships and restricted development... no large factories or plants are permitted... he set in place strictly-enforced building codes... the towns today still look pretty much like they did in Stordahl's time... North Island is highly restricted when it comes architecture... the housing codes are severe in nature... architecture styles are from the early 1920s... development is nil... there is a feeling that time has stood still since then... and it has.

The Island, as it is called by its inhabitants, is a special place with blue waters filled with sailboats and wonderful pristine white beaches to frolic on to your heart's content... you can play in the sand, ride a bike, devour ice cream, indulge in delicious seafood and all at the same time enjoy the lovely ladies in their itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka-dot bikinis... or perhaps go to a ballgame, sing the national anthem, buy you some peanuts or Crackerjacks, a coke and a hot dog, sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"... then repeat every Sunday afternoon... life is good on the Island.

Life travels at a different pace on South Island... no cars are permitted... just bicycles to get around... in town all your needs are close by and within walking distance... the Island also has a highly-efficient public train system that runs between the 12 towns... the trains are quite busy every Sunday as the fans and teams travel to and from the games.

Stordahl himself planned each one of the towns... small cottages that were affordable, quite comfortable and durable, that needed little upkeep... Stordahl designed his "hurricane" house... a block house that could withstand a strong hurricane... he wanted South Island to be a picturesque retirement destination... and it began to flourish in the early part of the 1920s... Stordahl died in his 80s a very rich man in 1942.

[Eugene Church]

Map of South Island

[Eugene Church]

There are two new towns... Delta and Braxton... both towns and the team graphics were graciously given to me by DreamTeams... they were in his wonderful Metro League.

DreamTeams great league inspired me to create my dynasty leagues... the Islandian Pro Alliance and the South Island League.

Many thanks to DreamTeams.

[StLee]

I'm not sure where South Island is in relation to Timbalier Island, but I certainly want to head to Bar Harbor one day to watch some baseball. I think my brother-in-law and I can launch out of Coco Marina in Cocodrie and head out through Terrebonne Bay for some summer games on the isle!

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by StLee

I'm not sure where South Island is in relation to Timbalier Island, but I certainly want to head to Bar Harbor one day to watch some baseball. I think my brother-in-law and I can launch out of Coco Marina in Cocodrie and head out through Terrebonne Bay for some summer games on the isle!

I got season tickets... let me know and you can be my guests.

Maybe we can go have lunch at the restaurant in Cocodrie... my wife and I went there for lunch one time a few years ago.

[Eugene Church]

Something has gone goofy in my OOTP Leagues... I spent all day today reworking my South Island League, but when I played game the stats were totally out of whack... scores outrageously high.

I ran a quick test league using the Australian League quickstart... same thing happened there... scores outrageously high.

I have created the South Island League three times now... first time, the teams batting averages were .182 instead of .260... second time I redid the league, the scores were outrageously high.... and it happened again today.

I'm afraid the Islandian Pro Alliance may be corrupted, too.

[Eugene Church]

Screenshots from the Australian Baseball League quickstart... I just loaded it up and quick-played games.

Also played some South Island games... here are screenshots.

I'm sick and tired of the whole thing... really frustrating to deal with.

Gonna go to bed.

See what I do about it tomorrow.

[Eugene Church]

I have lost the South Island League... the stats are totally unrealistic... Matt Arnold tried to help me, but nothing worked.

I'll postpone the new South Island League until OOTP22 releases its final patch... last year I think it was in December.

Then I will try to create the new South Island League.

I think my OOTP saved games are corrupted... I'm afraid I will lose my Islandian Pro Alliance, too.

[StLee]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

I have lost the South Island League... the stats are totally unrealistic... Matt Arnold tried to help me, but nothing worked.

I'll postpone the new South Island League until OOTP22 releases its final patch... last year I think it was in December.

Then I will try to create the new South Island League.

I think my OOTP saved games are corrupted... I'm afraid I will lose my Islandian Pro Alliance, too.

Something fishy has seemed to happen with 22 that makes me hesitant to switch my leagues from 21. I hope you can save these leagues some sort of way.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by StLee

Something fishy has seemed to happen with 22 that makes me hesitant to switch my leagues from 21. I hope you can save these leagues some sort of way.

No, I don't think the game caused the problem... I think it was the way I tried to set it up... it was my game ignorance, I think.

But I will say it seems that OOTP22 is not as stable as the last few versions... I have no facts... just casual reading of the OOTP22 Discussions Forum.

I will wait until late in the year to convert my leagues completely... will do it after the final patch.

[jg2977]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

No, I don't think the game caused the problem... I think it was the way I tried to set it up... it was my game ignorance, I think.

But I will say it seems that OOTP22 is not as stable as the last few versions... I have no facts... just casual reading of the OOTP22 Discussions Forum.

I will wait until late in the year to convert my leagues completely... will do it after the final patch.

I'm about 3 patches behind now, the last one I installed has OOTP22 working fine for me. The last couple patches seemed to have some issues, including with people having problems with the 3D player models being distorted, so I'm afraid to install anymore patches until everything is repaired.

I do enjoy playing in the 3D major league and KBO ballparks, they look spectacular.