Real 19th century simulation (NA done)

[AESP_pres]

While I'm waiting the end of summer to play seriously I've decided to simulate the 19th century as it was for real. First thing to say it's an hard job to manually move the teams and the players each seasons

Of course it isn't 100% accurate as I use the game developpement engine, but I use the real teams, the schedules as played and all the players play for the team they were with each years. Also I simulate the game as I don't manage any team myself (I just do the moving part wich is quite enough).

The last season played is 1879, so the complete National Association history is done and the National League is started (BTW it took me a couple of retry before starting it in 76).

So some results on this fictional National Association history. If you want to know about particular players, teams or something else just ask... at least it could be interesting for the very few of us who like this period

Best team for each season (there was no playoff)

1871 Boston, Red Stockings
1872 Baltimore, Canaries
1873 New York, Mutuals
1874 Philadelphia, Whites
1875 Hartford, Dark Blues

Some screen captures

[David Ball]

Is Jim Britt turning into a superstar, as he always seems to do when I have development turned off? Maybe Britt really was better than he looks, but the 1872 Atlantics were not a really terrible team, and it seems they should have been able to do better than 9-28 with decent pitching.

Otherwise, these results look pretty good. The Golden Gloves look quite reasonable, except maybe Higham (but catchers are difficult to judge statistically) and some of the right field picks (but I think right was often the place for a team's ninth man in the early '70's, so the best right fielder may not have been too good).

[Spritze]

Originally Posted by David Ball

Is Jim Britt turning into a superstar, as he always seems to do when I have development turned off? Maybe Britt really was better than he looks, but the 1872 Atlantics were not a really terrible team, and it seems they should have been able to do better than 9-28 with decent pitching.

Keep in mind that Mr. Britt was only 16 years old when he went 9-28. So he was most likely way better than you think.

[AESP_pres]

Originally Posted by David Ball

Is Jim Britt turning into a superstar, as he always seems to do when I have development turned off?

Usually he would as he was one of the best pitchers of the 19th century in my OOTP 11 dynasty, but in this one I use the retire as happen in real life. I want to recreate the baseball history almost as it happen with this (without recalculation because I like to have some surprise). So he played only two seasons, but it was effective.

I wonder what happen with this guy for real since it disapear quite fast very young. Seem to me that if a guy start in the major at 16 years old it must be very talented, unless he burned his arm completly wich is more than possible...

[David Ball]

I don't know enough about him to say exactly what happened, but I would suggest:

(1) he may not have been 16. I wouldn't suspect a deliberately falsified baseball age, but we may just simply have his birth date wrong.

(2) I don't know anything about his repertoire, but he appeared on the scene just as the curve ball was becoming the big rage. If he threw a curve, he might easily have worn his arm out, especially if he threw the curve a lot at a young age. If he didn't have a curve ball, which is probably likelier, he would sooner or later have found it difficult to survive, no matter how precocious he might have seemed in the spring of 1872. Al Spalding couldn't learn to throw a curve and couldn't survive without one, and it would be no surprise if the same thing happened to Jim Britt. Most of the precurve pitchers did not disappear until 1876 or 1877, though.

(3) He was the subject of some allegations that he had thrown a game with the Atlantics, which might have encouraged them to drop him. Other, more suspect players sailed right through with their careers, though.

(4) In a few years he moved to San Francisco, and that would have ended any chance of his playing major league ball.

In San Francisco he played some baseball and worked as a plumber, and he became a union activist and city official. His son Jimmy Britt was lightweight boxing champion for a little while early in the twentieth century.

[Spritze]

Originally Posted by David Ball

(1) he may not have been 16. I wouldn't suspect a deliberately falsified baseball age, but we may just simply have his birth date wrong.

His long-form birth certificate shows he really were 16. I double checked with the Donald.

[plannine]

Originally Posted by AESP_pres

Usually he would as he was one of the best pitchers of the 19th century in my OOTP 11 dynasty, but in this one I use the retire as happen in real life. I want to recreate the baseball history almost as it happen with this (without recalculation because I like to have some surprise). So he played only two seasons, but it was effective.

I wonder what happen with this guy for real since it disapear quite fast very young. Seem to me that if a guy start in the major at 16 years old it must be very talented, unless he burned his arm completly wich is more than possible...

The odds are against him burning his arm out. They did not pitch overhand at the time.

Most likely, he found a better paying job.

[hfield007]

Jim Britt, two years in the MLB, both seasons led in losses and put up a 4+ ERA... Yeah I'm gonna say he found a better job haha.

[David Ball]

Britt is supposed to have pitched a little for the Atlantics as early as 1870. I have a note from the Brooklyn Eagle showing that by the beginning of September, 1873 it was known he would be at liberty the next season, and he was included in a number of players available for a newly forming professional club to be based in New York (it fell through). In 1874 he pitched for the Nameless, a semipro Brooklyn club of the first rank that, depending on your perspective, either had one of the best team names ever or didn't have a name at all. Henry Chadwick of the Eagle commented in December, 1874 that he had not pitched as well for the Nameless as he had previously for Atlantic.

In February, 1875 Britt was reported before the season as having signed with the NA club New Haven Elm City as second pitcher and general substitute. Serving as a substitute for Elm City would have been about as unimpressive a job as you could get by professional baseball standards. For some reason, he doesn't seem to have played for Elm City, though. By 1878 at the latest he was living in San Francisco.

Those Atlantic teams he played for had very bad records, but looking at them more closely I now realize that in general terms their rosters were really pretty respectable, and the infield defense was very strong for the most part. A pitcher couldn't ask for much more than Ferguson, Dehlman and Burdock could give him. With due consideration to his age, I ahve to say the likeliest explanation for the Atlantics' propensity to give up runs was Britt's pitching.

[AESP_pres]

Originally Posted by David Ball

(3) He was the subject of some allegations that he had thrown a game with the Atlantics, which might have encouraged them to drop him. Other, more suspect players sailed right through with their careers, though.

It was a regular thing during this period no? I'm sure I've read previously that many game were "fixed" and by some big name too, mostly because of the low salary...

Originally Posted by hfield007

Jim Britt, two years in the MLB, both seasons led in losses and put up a 4+ ERA... Yeah I'm gonna say he found a better job haha.

Maybe but he was a kid playing against adult. I guess it was quite talented or Brooklyn wouldn't have notice him. Pichers like George Zettlein, Cherokee Fisher and Bobby Matthews were available when their teams were "dismantle" after the 71 seasons (Brooklyn was certainly a biggest market than Troy or Baltimore) and they bet on a 16 years old pitcher.

Like previously said I'm sure his arm was destroyed wich was usual at the time.

[AESP_pres]

A little question for those who know far more than me...

Many players had played during the 1875 seasons for more than one Philadelphia team wich I find odd. So did all the teams had the same owner or was one dismantled during the season and the players move to one of the two other teams (The Centennials being the dismantle team)?

[David Ball]

Did anybody play for two Philadelphia teams other than Bechtel and Craver? I actually published an article about those two some years ago. They are generally considered to have been the subjects of the first player sale in history. Actually, sales were nearly impossible under the NA's rules, because a player had to wait sixty days between playing for one club and playing for another. However, that requirement would be waived if a team disbanded.

What probably happened is that the Athletics paid the Centennials not directly for Bechtel and Craver, but rather they paid the Centennials' debts as an incentive for the Centennials to disband, and once that happened they stepped in and signed the two players they wanted. In this way they were able to get the men they needed for immediate use.

Of course, the real purpose of the payment was to acquire Craver and Bechtel, not just to get rid of the Centennials, so it's reasonable to consider this the first trade. But the peculiar form of the deal indicates how rare player purchases were at the time, because the circumstances had to line up just right. If the Centennials had done better financially, they wouldn't have wanted to quit. And if they had been doing worse financially, they would have quite without any payment from the Athletics.

[AESP_pres]

As you said Craver and Bechtel from the Centennials to the Athletics, I think I've confused this season with another one (probably 72 where almost all the Troy players did move to the Brooklyn Eckfords, kind of odd since the team disband not that long after).

BTW the Centennials players did move to those teams (in fact more players moved to New Haven than Philadelphia)

Tim McGinley (New Haven)
John Abadie (Brooklyn)
Ed Somerville (New Haven)
Bill Craver (Philadelphia, Ath)
George Trenwith (New Haven)
Fred Warner (nowhere)
Charlie Mason (Washington)
Fred Treacey (Philadelphia, WS)
John Radcliff (nowhere)
Len Lovett (nowhere)
Sam Field (Washington)
George Bechtel (Philadelphia, Ath)

Maybe a newbie question but when the National League was founded in 76 did all the NA players became free agent? I ask because many star players (Barnes, Spalding, Anson,...) didn't start with the team they were with at the end of the National Association even if their team survive (Philadelphie, Boston, Hartford, St. Louis and New York)

The more I play this era the more I find it fascinating (It's the first time this year I simulate the reality)

[David Ball]

Yes, in 1872 the Eckfords signed a number of Troy players after Troy folded. I had forgotten about Treacey signing with Philadelphia after the Centennials went under. As far as we know, the Philadelphias were able to do that after the Athletics had paid for the Centennials to disband, so the Phillies got a freebie. However, it wouldn't be surprising if the Phillies also kicked in some money to get the man they wanted while the Athletics got their two. All three clubs seem to have been on pretty good terms with one another, and there were interrelationships among their management, which no doubt facilitated such a deal.

The Centennials were founded as a third team in Philadelphia that was to be based on cheap young local talent, of which Philadelphia had a lot. There was to be a big festival in Philadelphia the next year to celebrate the centennial of the Declaration of Independence, and they hoped to draw tourists coming to the festivities to their games. From one newspaper item I've seen, it looks as though the idea may have been to play through 1875 with a cheap team and then strengthen in 1876, when receipts would presumably increase. In the event, the centennial celebration did nothing positive for professional clubs in Philadelphia, all three of whom were gone by the end of the 1876 season, and the conventional wisdom ended up being that, rather than bringing in more potential spectators to town, the centennial had distracted attention from baseball by providing counterattractions.

At any rate, the Centennials did not make it to 1876, and besides the youngsters, they wound up signing the veterans Craver, Bechtel, Treacey and Radcliffe, and it's probably not coincidence that all four of them were suspected of game-throwing and among them had a rich history of contract jumping, drinking, etc., etc., etc., and were near the end of their careers. The Centennials must have been one of the co-op teams, that is, a club that paid its players a percentage of the receipts rather than a salary. Established players did not like playing for a team like that if they had an alternative, but the veterans the Centennials got were all men that strong teams would have stayed away from, so they didn't have a lot of alternatives.

Before the season the Centennials were considered the best of the co-ops, probably a reasonable assessment of their quality -- if I remember correctly, they won their one game with New Haven pretty handily. But they mostly scheduled the best teams, Boston and their Philadelphia rivals and as a result got blown out pretty regularly. They were the first team to fold and had players of talent who were of interest to the other weak clubs, so they scattered pretty widely.

This was before the era of the reserve clause, so pretty nearly all the players were free agents at the end of every season. In the summer of 1875 Chicago staged a big raid on the Boston roster and signed four star players for the next season, and they also signed Cap Anson from the Athletics, so that accounts for some of the turnover, but there wasn't anything different in principle from what had happened in previous years. In order to provide stability, Boston did make a practice of signing some players to multiyear contracts, and other teams did at least a little of this, but not a lot of information survives. In any given offseason, though, the great majority of players must have been free agents.

It helps, by the way, to refer to the Athletics by that formal name, rather than calling them Philadelphia, which causes confusion with the team officially known as the Philadelphia club. If you're interested in the NA, I would strongly recommend William Ryczek's history of it, Blacklegs and Stockings.

[AESP_pres]

Originally Posted by David Ball

In order to provide stability, Boston did make a practice of signing some players to multiyear contracts.

So it's the reason why the Red Stockings keep the same group of players during all the National Association existence... It's probably a sure bet to guess they were the richest club in the league (just by the ammount of all-star players they had)...

Thanks for the book suggestion David! I won't be here in august, but I will ask one of my US friend to order it for me and send it back here in september (less costly than buying it here in Canada).

You don't happen to have a blog or a website where you write on this subject? You sure have a lot of knowledge.

[David Ball]

I have no blog, no website, but I do have a project that will be coming to fruition in a little while. What I find fascinating about professional baseball in the 1870's, and to a considerable extent still in the '80's, is that it was a brand new enterprise, and they were just making things up as they went along. It's full of interesting experiments that didn't work out, and ideas that seem pretty obviously bad in retrospect but must have looked good at the time. Things like making a 16-year-old your regular pitcher.

Don't know if Boston was the richest club, but they were the best run. They had Harry Wright, the most competent and experienced manager around. A team like the Atlantics but was just a social club trying to run a business. The earliest clubs were just clubs of men who liked to play baseball for exercise, and some of them wound up going bigtime and fielding professional teams. The Atlantics were probably the strongest team in the 1860's but they fell behind in the '70's. They sat in a big market but probably had very little cash in reserve and a divided and contentious management -- sort of like an internet discussion board given full control of a team. By 1875 the club secretary, a man named Van Delft, seems to have pretty much run the club himself, as best I can tell.

[AESP_pres]

I also like how some team appears and disapear in city who weren't certainly big city like Elizabeth, Rockford, Mansfield (if the uniform I have is their real one it was sure one of the most original of that time) or Keokuk.

[CONN CHRIS]

Great posts David! Thank you, I've enjoyed this.

[AESP_pres]

Almost ready to start the American Association (I did set the league tonight and did the players transfer).

The league sure looks to start with a lot of scrub players (based on the fact I don't have a facegen file for a lot of them). I just hope all will be fine untill the AA and NL merging as I start the league as a fictional one based on the 1882 modifier with automatic modifiers adjustement after each season.

To be honest I would have prefer to do the merging in 82 as playoff interaction between the two league was in place in 84 (even if nothing was official untill 1903). But a lot of work would be necessary to merge the two schedule (I'm lazy, maybe I'll try it this winter).

Also I've a problem with the "miss seasons according to history" feature. Some players are sign by the AI even if they aren't suppose to play, this happen with those who missed more than one season. I guess it's an 19th century limitation (even if I don't see why...).

[fhomess]

Originally Posted by AESP_pres

The more I play this era the more I find it fascinating (It's the first time this year I simulate the reality)

I found this to be true when I tried simulating this era a few years ago. I'd love to see an online league try to recreate the chaos of that era - requiring teams to pay to join the league, folding them if they're not financially viable, etc.