Best name in OOTP yet ... is this the launch of women in baseball?

[jksander]

https://atl-02.statsplus.net/multive...ayer_1709.html

The league I'm in that's doing the fantasy draft isn't using facegens, to keep the file size down, so I think I'm going to draft her and break the gender barrier in our league's opening year. She'll be the female Jackie Robinson.

[Reed]

6 foot and 200 lbs.. The boys won't be pushing her around.

[jksander]

Crafted some backstory, as our league is launching in 1982 as if pro baseball stopped existing after WWII and went strictly amateur / semi-pro.

---

In the 1960s and 1970s, a remarkable and little-known chapter in the history of baseball unfolded in the heart of Texas. It was during this time that an underground baseball league emerged, featuring an extraordinary group of women who defied societal expectations and shattered gender barriers, known as the Lone Star Diamonds.

Founded in 1962 on a shoestring budget, visionary Evelyn Bennett saw the Diamonds as a platform where talented female athletes could showcase their skills and passion for baseball. In an era when women weren’t allowed to run in marathons or even play college sports due to outmoded ideas about their own bodies, Bennett gathered a group of talented players from all walks of life who shared her dream and made it come to life despite facing numerous challenges. These included playing their games under the cover of night, away from the prying eyes of a society that deemed sport to be the province of men.

In a short matter of time, the league gained a reputation for its electrifying games, attracting fans who were drawn to the sheer determination and skill displayed by these extraordinary women -- very quickly the league moved from the underground and became a family-friendly exhibition of raw athletic talent drawing fans from around the state. The league's success inspired other women across Texas to form their own teams, sparking a revolution that, with the founding of the Federal League, hints that the day has come for women to join the men in professional sports, competing on equal footing.

That’s certainly what inspired outspoken oil baron “Big Tex” Sanders of the upstart Texas Copperheads, who agrees that that it’s past time for “major league” baseball to be open to anyone who has the talent to play. The baseball world was shocked this week when, in the 25th round of the league-wide draft, the Copperheads picked Úrsula Loureno, a 24-year-old right fielder from El Paso, Texas, by way of Venezuela. She spent the last six seasons playing with the West Texas Windtalkers, one of the longest-standing teams in the Diamonds system, and though her talent level is not yet up to major league standards, Sanders believes she has the potential to work her way up through the newly developed minor league system to become a Copperheads starter one day.

It all starts with one player. Will Loureno become the first female player to make an impact in a male-dominated sport? Scouts say she has the knowledge of the game to make it, and she has the eye and discipline to avoid strikeouts and hit through the gap, while being a potent defensive presence.

One thing Sanders wants fans of the new league to know: “This ain’t no circus act I’m puttin’ on here. I made my money by keeping my eyes open and by being willing to take a risk when the risk needs takin’ ... and this kid’s the real deal. Come check out a few games this coming spring and tell me I’m wrong. But I ain’t wrong.”

[italyprof]

It is a great name.

[jksander]

Originally Posted by italyprof

It is a great name.

Agreed Tbh, I'd love it if the game had an engine for developing female players, if only as a historical sim thing. Would be amazing to be able to set up the AAGPBL and have it continue alongside the MLB after the color barrier was broken.

[Leo_The_Lip]

[jksander]

Originally Posted by Leo_The_Lip

She definitely came up in the Discord chat lol ...

[PSUColonel]

Why is the younger generations obsessed with having women’s’ sports in video games? I’m just saying..I mean I’m not sexist or anything like that…but why is it so necessary for the younger generations?

[kidd_05_u2]

Why are the younger generations obsessed with having dark-skinned people in baseball? I'm not racist or anything like that... but why is it so necessary for the younger generations?

[jksander]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Why is the younger generations obsessed with having women’s’ sports in video games? I’m just saying..I mean I’m not sexist or anything like that…but why is it so necessary for the younger generations?

I'm 42, so I'm hardly the "younger generation" ... but I always found that era of baseball interesting, and, in an era where womens' sports are making a greater impact than ever, I just don't see a reason the option shouldn't be included for those who choose to. OOTP allows you to play out baseball pre-1947 with the color barrier on or off if you choose. I don't see why, in a game where we can create literally ANY baseball world possible, there shouldn't be the option for a world where women play as well.

[AESP_pres]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Why is the younger generations obsessed with having women’s’ sports in video games?

Prepare yourself for a lot of bashing... but on the other hand I agree with you. Is there one single woman who ever played major league professional baseball? What no... case closed.

[20_range]

A lot of people play ootp nostalgically, staying in the period they watched growing up. But some people play utopianly into the future. I also always have someone break MLB's gender barrier. There's always been plenty of customers who would be glad for additional gender options, and not just to recreate A League of Their Own. I really think the developers should add it to the game, togglable.

[20_range]

Originally Posted by AESP_pres

Prepare yourself for a lot of bashing... but on the other hand I agree with you. Is there one single woman who ever played major league professional baseball? What no... case closed.

Literally now, yes, three. There were three women who played in the Negro Leagues, which are now classified as Major League Baseball.

[AESP_pres]

Originally Posted by kidd_05_u2

Why are the younger generations obsessed with having dark-skinned people in baseball? I'm not racist or anything like that... but why is it so necessary for the younger generations?

This is what we call whataboutism...



Is there "dark-skinned people" in professional baseball? Yes and since the 19th century so what's your point? One is real and the other is fairy tales non sense...

[AESP_pres]

Originally Posted by 20_range

Literally now, yes, three. There were three women who played in the Negro Leagues, which are now classified as Major League Baseball.

they weren't Major League Baseball, professional league I'm fine with that but they were never part of the MLB. Rewriting history to correct something that was wrong doesn't change the reality.

[Thundercrack]

Originally Posted by 20_range

A lot of people play ootp nostalgically, staying in the period they watched growing up. But some people play utopianly into the future. I also always have someone break MLB's gender barrier. There's always been plenty of customers who would be glad for additional gender options, and not just to recreate A League of Their Own. I really think the developers should add it to the game, togglable.

They should make pronouns more varied too. I can’t wait until the first they breaks into the league

[kidd_05_u2]

OOTP is a baseball sandbox. Out of the box, you can create a high school league with 5,000 teams based in the Vatican City, population 700. But, as far as I know, you can't create a women's league even though women: make 50% of the world population, many of them love baseball, many of them play/played baseball.

Asking for the possibility that the gender that accounts for 50% of the world population gets represented in sports games like this one should be just natural and obvious. I guess the younger generations are obsessed with creating a fairer world.

Oh look, a fairy tale on the MLB's website: https://www.mlb.com/news/japan-ayami...r-in-the-world

[jpeters1734]

Originally Posted by AESP_pres

they weren't Major League Baseball, professional league I'm fine with that but they were never part of the MLB. Rewriting history to correct something that was wrong doesn't change the reality.

"Major League Baseball" as we know it today is actually pretty new. The National League and the American League were separate until they officially merged in 2000 to form one unified MLB. So, MLB wasn’t a single league until then. This makes it completely fair to recognize the Negro Leagues as a major league. It’s not rewriting history but giving credit where it’s due, acknowledging the amazing talent and competition of that era alongside the American and National Leagues.

[jpeters1734]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Why is the younger generations obsessed with having women’s’ sports in video games? I’m just saying..I mean I’m not sexist or anything like that…but why is it so necessary for the younger generations?

The younger generation wants women's sports in video games because they care about fairness and representation. It's not an obsession; they just believe women athletes should get the same recognition as men. This inclusion helps make games more diverse and relatable for everyone, showing respect for all athletes.

[locuspc]

Originally Posted by jksander

I'm 42, so I'm hardly the "younger generation" ... but I always found that era of baseball interesting, and, in an era where womens' sports are making a greater impact than ever, I just don't see a reason the option shouldn't be included for those who choose to. OOTP allows you to play out baseball pre-1947 with the color barrier on or off if you choose. I don't see why, in a game where we can create literally ANY baseball world possible, there shouldn't be the option for a world where women play as well.

There are practical reasons. All the text in the game is written assuming male athletes, and the facegen software they use doesn't handle feminine features very well. Implementing female players would be an awful lot of work for something surely less than 10% of their userbase would ever even touch and less than 1% would care deeply about.

If women ever started making inroads into MLB, those numbers would change. Black players are implemented because there are tons of them in real MLB and almost every user who purchases the game will expect them and use them regularly. Even Asian players are implemented, though their numbers in MLB are not nearly so high. If female players began participating in MLB in any meaningful way, female players would stop being just a fun fantasy feature and start impacting the 90% of the userbase that just plays MLB sims. I imagine that's what it would take to get the devs to buckle down for the tedious work of implementing female players.