Complete Universe Facegen Pack

[LansdowneSt]

Perhaps the saddest stories [of WWII ballplayers] are those involving highly touted youngsters whose careers were derailed. Consider the Cardinals’ Johnny Grodzicki. A 24-year-old pitcher of promise, he appeared in five games (winning two, losing one) with a 1.38 ERA in 1941. While serving as a paratrooper he injured his leg and was never the same on the mound. He returned for three games in 1946, but after 18 appearances in 1947, his big league career was over, though he continued as a minor leaguer through 1952. - Hardball Times, March 19, 2020

Redid the facegen. Looks like a mere coloring problem but when you load the facegen, it's in worse shape than it appears.

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by LansdowneSt

Perhaps the saddest stories [of WWII ballplayers] are those involving highly touted youngsters whose careers were derailed. Consider the Cardinals’ Johnny Grodzicki. A 24-year-old pitcher of promise, he appeared in five games (winning two, losing one) with a 1.38 ERA in 1941. While serving as a paratrooper he injured his leg and was never the same on the mound. He returned for three games in 1946, but after 18 appearances in 1947, his big league career was over, though he continued as a minor leaguer through 1952. - Hardball Times, March 19, 2020

Redid the facegen. Looks like a mere coloring problem but when you load the facegen, it's in worse shape than it appears.

Grod, blessed with great stuff but cursed with poor control, has shown glimpses of both with my CAG so far in a middle relief role, going 1-2 / 4.00 in 9 IP with 4 BB and 7 K. No global conflict in the 1947 AtHoL universe, so let's see how he goes with no service obligations to consider.

[LansdowneSt]

Harvard grad Walter Clarkson made his debut in the majors in 1904 with the New York Highlanders, pitching 78 games exclusively in the American League. His finest season would be 1906, when he was 9-4 with 3 shutouts and a 2.32 ERA in 32 games and finished his career with the Cleveland Naps. He was born many years after his brothers Dad and HOF John Clarkson, neither of whom was still in the majors when Walter broke in. -bRef Bullpen wiki

The facegen I had used the same picture plus one of the texture packs to clean up the blemishes. I de-oranged it but, in the end, decided just to redo it and gently smooth away the spots. I like the texture packs when I have to use them but as I do more and more facegens, I find myself avoiding them if I can to avoid a sense of "sameness".

[JerseyDan421]

Has there been any new updates to this lately? Especially with current players.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by FancySkunk

The odd part is that from what I can tell, I did many of my Negro League facegens nearly a year ago (Torriente's file is dated September 2020, for example), so they should be from well before the BBRef overhaul earlier this year. As far as I know, the Negro League players have always had historical minors IDs on BBRef because prior to the overhaul the Negro Leagues were considered to be a minor league.

I'll see about messaging Lukas on the subject to get more info on how the game is handling them vs. what we're expecting.

The game does not particularly use B-Ref ids for Negro League players, a lot of players we use completely different id's which I think Spritze originally came up with back in the day.

Those are the ones with the 49's and 99's. For other Negro League players we do use B-Ref id's (but the old ones from before they changed things around). There's no real rhyme or reason to which players have which id's.

It's on the list to sort this all out and use the B-Ref ids for everyone, but that will be part of the much bigger project of combining the historical and roster db's, whenever that ends up happening.

[LansdowneSt]

Lukas, I don't envy that task at all - but it will be great when it's done

JerseyDan421, there are some recent players and prospects that have been done but if there are some key ones missing you'd like, let us know so they can be put on the list of ones to do. When done you can either download them immediately from the thread or wait for the next update. I think FancySkunk is aiming ofr the end of the week for the next zip file upload.

[FancySkunk]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

The game does not particularly use B-Ref ids for Negro League players, a lot of players we use completely different id's which I think Spritze originally came up with back in the day.

Those are the ones with the 49's and 99's. For other Negro League players we do use B-Ref id's (but the old ones from before they changed things around). There's no real rhyme or reason to which players have which id's.

It's on the list to sort this all out and use the B-Ref ids for everyone, but that will be part of the much bigger project of combining the historical and roster db's, whenever that ends up happening.

Interesting. I noticed there's some inconsistencies as well between the main game and perfect team. Torriente was mentioned previously as having a 049 ID, but on the perfect team side, he uses the BRef accurate 001 ID. But on the other hand, Satchel Paige uses an incorrect ID in perfect team, but has an accurate ID in the main game.

At the end of the day, it will be nice when it's finally all sorted out whenever that comes around. All the workarounds we've had to do with facegen naming has certainly been something.


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Has there been any new updates to this lately? Especially with current players.

I did a small amount of work on the 2021 draft class a while back that will be included in the update.

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Quick update on the work I've been doing with the 1998 season: I've got the first 7 teams completed (MLB and reserve rosters). For the most part, I'm getting some nice quality improvements, though I'm sure some of these could be made even better. The number of facegens I'm trying to get through means that I'm not spending as much time on each one as I could be.

[LansdowneSt]

Jack Flater pitched five games for the 1908 Philadelphia Athletics, posting a 2.06 ERA. He was three years older than teammate Eddie Collins.

"Pitcher Jack Flater, of Williamsport, who during the early portion of the season was the hard-luck twirler of the team, has struck his stride." - Sporting Life of August 8, 1908, about a month before Jack made his major league debut. - bRef Bullpen wiki

Didn't have a facegen for him so I used the first one here and then tweaked it to align closer to the picture to the far right.

[LansdowneSt]

Harry Eells pitched for the 1906 Cleveland Naps, going 4-5 with a 2.61 ERA, 35 strikeouts, and 48 walks in 86 and 1/3 innings pitched. His nickname was, for what it's worth, "Slippery".

Same facegen but was tough to colorize as the creator didn't greyscale the yellowish bRef photo making it harder to adjust. Did my best with it.

[LansdowneSt]

Catcher Harry Curtis played 7 games with the New York Giants in 1907. He then returned to his Notre Dame where his 1908 Fightin' Irish (featuring five soon-to-be big leaguers) went 20-1 and and were declared "Champions of the West". - Notre Dame Baseball Greats

Redid the facegen from a modified bRef photo.

[LansdowneSt]

After playing for Notre Dame in 1900 (eight years before Harry Curtis would take the helm), Burt Keeley began playing organized ball. He then...stopped. Keeley dropped out of Organized Baseball for the next seven years. He worked at a bank in Chicago, played weekend semi-pro ball for the Gunthers of the Chicago City League. In 1908, at the age of 28, he made his MLB debut with the Washington Senators where he went 6-11 with a 2.98 ERA but, for context, that was a 76 ERA+. In 1909 he was sent down to Omaha and was injured in a freak train wreck.

On the morning of May 29, 1911, the Omaha and Denver clubs were traveling westbound in dense fog en-route to Denver, when the train smashed head-on with an eastbound train a half mile west of Indianola, Nebraska. The Indianola Train Wreck caused 18 deaths and 32 injuries. Amazingly, no ball players were severely hurt. Keeley, the only Omaha player injured, “…had just left his berth when the collision occurred and was hurled the length of the car, sustaining what he thought was a sore right shoulder.” He pitched the next day but left due to shoulder pain. Reportedly diagnosed with a small broken bone and told he would never be able to play baseball again, he filed suit against the Burlington Railroad in August to the tune of $25,000 in damages. - SABR bio

Redid the facegen.

[LansdowneSt]

After graduating from UNC, Fred Stem began playing ball professionally. He played two years for the Boston Doves and was their regular first baseman in 1909. A published court case from 1908 (appearing at 81 S.C. 100) states that in 1904, an eighteen-year old Stem and other ballplayers had boarded a train to go to a baseball game. Stem and a couple ballplayers named Wilcox and McLean went to sit on the cupola of the caboose. The caboose derailed, throwing the players to the ground. McLean died.

Redid the facegen. Had to plum him up in the facegen software to get the face non-gaunt. bRef and OOTP have him at 6'2" and 160 lbs which makes a non-thin facegen result in-game tough.

[LansdowneSt]

Harry Pattee was a star at Brown University, played in the minors and majors, and then came back to coach at Brown from 1912-1921, posting a record of 117-42-1. His one year in the majors was as the regular second baseman for the 1908 Brooklyn Superbas. He hit .216 and led the team with 24 stolen bases. - bRef Bullpen wiki

Redid the facegen.

[FancySkunk]

Showing off a quick example of some of the work happening on my end.




On the left are facegens I made in the past for Roberto Alomar and Bret Boone; on the right are ones made in my recent (ongoing) sweep through of the 1998 season. I feel like I'm getting a better understanding of maintaining personality in facegens now, and no longer creating the excessively neutral ones that, in retrospect, were a bit on the soulless side.

1998 Progress:
* Anaheim, Arizona, Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago (A), Chicago (N), and Cincinnati are complete (MLB and reserve)
* Cleveland is in progress
* I most likely won't have every team finished by the time I want to push a pack update out, but I'll be including the work done to this point in the release on Thursday.

[LansdowneSt]

Oscar Westerberg played at least four seasons in the minors. He made his Major League debut on September 5, 1907 and played his final game on September 7, 1907. In that time, he appeared in two games, collecting two hits for the Boston Doves.

Kept the facegen and elected to tweak it slightly and de-purple it.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by FancySkunk

Hey everyone. LansdowneSt happened to catch me on Twitch and reached out, expressing that there's been some concern. I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm fine and that nothing bad has happened to me beyond the standard burnout that I wind up with.

I don't have a lot in the way of work to show over the last few months - mostly just touch-ups made here and there. I haven't even begun to look at the pages and pages of work that you guys have done in my absence. I feel like I owe the community more than I am capable of repaying. I also genuinely feel terrible about how poorly I've handled this project since I took over responsibility for it.

Please don't beat yourself up for all your hard work in trying to get all of this together. Bit by bit, we're getting there, and you're a huge reason why.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

Please don't beat yourself up for all your hard work in trying to get all of this together. Bit by bit, we're getting there, and you're a huge reason why.

"We're". Silly me. You guys are getting us there. I'm just along for the ride.

[LansdowneSt]

Harry Krause made an immediate impact in the major leagues. He started out 1909 with a 10-game winning streak, which included six shutouts. He finished the season 18–8 with a league-leading 1.39 ERA. It is the lowest ERA ever for an American League rookie. He had arm trouble early in 1910 and struggled over his next few years, returning to the minors in 1913. - bRef Bullpen wiki

I thought this facegen was mostly fine. Tweaked it ever so slightly, luckymann. There is a mugshot of him on the internet (it looks post-Remini app) that I considered using but the result looked too generic and I like a little character when I get it. There's a light on his chin but I thought it was okay. Hopefully this is better than what you have and which generated the request to redo him...

[LansdowneSt]

Charlie Roy was a White Earth Ojibwe who was raised on the White Earth Indian Reservation. In his early teens, he started school at the Morris Industrial School for Indians and while there he became a key member of the school's baseball team. After graduating from Morris in 1904, he began study at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in 1905 and 1906. Charlie was the captain of the Carlisle baseball team (a team which produced professional baseball players Chief Bender, Frank Jude, Chief Johnson and athlete Jim Thorpe) and the star pitcher for the team. The school newspaper called him "the best college pitcher in the country today." He pitched 18 and a third innings for the Phillies in 1906 then a year in the minors. Thereafter, having deep religious convictions, Roy explained that he would "never again sign a contract which required him to work on the Sabbath." - Wikipeida

Same facegen but adjusted to look more like the photos.

[LansdowneSt]

Elijah Jones made his major league debut on April 13, 1907 and appeared in several games for the Tigers that year, recording a complete game and what would count today as a save for a pitcher. Jones would make more brief appearances with the Tigers in 1909, but would also become pals with Tigers legend, Ty Cobb. He retired from baseball in 1913 and opened an automobile garage and Buick dealership.

Same facegen, just tweaked.