SimNation: Fictional world, real baseball

[Hendu Style]

In 1960, the SBL decided to turn the tables on its players. Feeling that players were exploiting their teams by enlisting so they could be granted a form of free agency, owners pulled the plug on incentivizing before the start of the '60 season. Volunteerism plummeted. Only 13 active players decided to enlist in the military, far short of the 30 that SimNation required as part of its agreement with baseball. SimNation had no choice but to draft an additional 17 players -- all minor leaguers -- giving both players and owners a black eye. Players were painted as selfish, unwilling to sacrifice a year of their careers for the good of the country. Owners were cast as money grubbers, raking in the money while SimNation was entrenched in World War II.

Be that as it may, below are the 13 brave players who put their baseball careers on hold to serve their country:

Carlton Arnold - 1B Lucky Palms
The two-time All-Star was entering the twilight of his career, hitting a respectable .262 with 19 homeruns, but Arnold had long wanted to serve his country and felt so inclined in 1960.

Carl Guthrie - RP, Santo Cielo
Guthrie had just turned 39 when he enlisted, stunning the baseball world with his decision to serve. He had won 12 games in relief for the Seals the year prior, and was an All-Star pitcher for Irontown in the 1940's (going 18-9 with a 2.64 ERA and 178 strikeouts in 1948). Guthrie never returned home, dying in combat one year later at age 40.

Jacob Knowles - 2B, Lunar Lake
Knowles was a 2-time Tiberium Glove winner at second base and played in his first and only All-Star game in 1953, when he hit .280 and scored 82 runs.

Rex "Mad Dog" Bennett - 1B, Bayouville
John Brust - SP, Westwood
Chris Christ - 3B, Maxis City
Benedict Davidson - SP, Rocklyn
Bobby Ewers - RP, Appaloosa
Shane Owen - 3B, Motor City
Cordell Ritter - 3B, Seaside
Kenny Smith - RP, Dullsville
Eli Turcotte - CF, Irontown
Jeremy Wood - RP, Northgate

[Hendu Style]

The 1950's may have belonged to the pitchers, but a precocious outfielder named Sandy Chapman fired the opening salvo in favor of the hitters to start the 1960's.

"Hit Squad," as they called him, tied and then broke Jet Orlandi's single season hits record, a mark that had stood since 1914. Chapman accomplished the feat in just his third big league season with the Fort Dodge Federals, after registering a total of 311 hits in his two previous seasons combined. He would go on to lead the Federals (104-58) to their first Sim Series title since 1949, beating the Maxis City Heroes in six games.

Meanwhile, JP Youngblood was still the toast of the town in Arcopolis, leading the Pioneer League in ERA (2.18) and strikeouts (363) while winning 18 games. Remarkably, the ERA was his first above 2.00 since 1955. The 18-win campaign also snapped a streak of four straight 20-win seasons, though in fairness, not a single Pioneer League pitcher reached 20 wins in 1960. Youngblood also garnered his fourth career Stormy Boyd trophy that season.

[Hendu Style]

Interest in the SBL was waning in the early 1960's. Attendance was down. Fans who had been inspired by Buck Kinsella's and other players' decision to fight for their country did an about-face when players and owners quibbled over potential free agency. The sport that prided itself on being a game was clearly become a business.

Hoping to spark interest in their teams, owners hastily approved trades that didn't necessarily improve their rosters, but brought household names to their fields. Lifelong Patriots pitcher Hook Jensen, who had just notched his 3,000th career strikeout during the 1960 season, was traded by Freeport to the foundering Atlantis Neptunes in exchange for a haul of prospects.

Those desperation trades couldn't mask the fact that baseball had become, well, boring. The SBL had seen just one 40-homerun season since 1951 (Rocklyn's Lee Dillard hit 43 in 1958), and no player had come close to approaching Sam Crowley's record of 50 set in 1934. Fans appreciated the masterful pitching performances by JP Youngblood and Jack Johns, but were missing those majestic homeruns that had powered the sport in the 1930's and 40's.

The SimNation Baseball League knew it would have to do something dramatic to bring attention back to the national pastime.

[Hendu Style]

The end of World War II marked the beginning of a new chapter for the SBL. As world leaders were drafting a peace treaty in Twikki'i, owners were looking for a way to expand the game's reach worldwide while also sparking interest in baseball domestically.

In the late winter of 1961, just days after World War II ended, the SBL announced that it would open its doors to the world. International players could be signed by SBL ballclubs. To curb spending, teams were limited to a budget of $200,000 to sign international free agents per year.

Joey Vega, who would retire at the end of the '61 season, remarked, "Maybe I would've been better off being born in Puerto Rico. At least those guys have a choice on where to go."

Though the SBL finally started seeing signs of life from long-scuffling power hitters (Arcopolis catcher Harold Walk drove in the second-most runs in history with 143 RBI while hitting 40 homers in 1960), it was still unquestionably a pitcher's world. Batterymate JP Youngblood hurled the second perfect game in baseball history on his way to a triple crown season (25-5, 1.83 ERA, 368 strikeouts). Meanwhile, in the Pioneer League, the Fort Dodge Federals (111-51) would go on to beat the Dixie Dukes to claim their second straight SBL title.

On a separate note, Maxx Kinsella (my grandfather), finally got his big break and was named the pitching coach for the Irontown Black Sox at the age of 59. He had worked tirelessly in the Sox farm system for the previous 11 years, with stops in Ramblewood, Lincoln, and Woodland Beach. His first season in the bigs would pay off, as Irontown won 87 games and finished with a 4.01 team ERA, fifth-best in the league.

[Tyke]

Really pleased that Maxx got his shot in Irontown, and wish him the best for the future. Also, is Joey Vega likely to go into coaching - or, indeed, do you have any other former players that became coaches or managers?

[Hendu Style]

For the first time in its 91-year history, the SBL featured not one, but two .400 hitters.

Rocklyn's Jim Eckard, who had fallen short of the mythical .400 mark three times prior (.391 in '61, .393 in '58, .398 in '57) finally eclipsed that mark with a .401 campaign. Some contend that he took the easy route, nursing a broken thumb for the last few weeks of the season so as not to blemish his batting average. But the record will show that Eckard did not return for the playoffs as his Railers defeated the Dixie Dukes in the Sim Series, 4 games to 1.

Arcopolis, meanwhile, was a hotbed for rising talent. It already had legend-in-the-making JP Youngblood on the hill, who would win a 6th Stormy Boyd that season with a masterful 23-7, 1.94 ERA, 343 K campaign. It also had a young slugger in 23-year old outfielder Gary Carnell, who belted 42 homers that year. But Jim Williams stole the show, hitting a blistering .414 in 1962, the second-best mark in SBL history, trailing only Jim "Candyman" Lintz. How that star-studded Rocket team finished third behind Dixie and Dullsville in the Colonial League is beyond me.

[Hendu Style]

Originally Posted by Tyke

Really pleased that Maxx got his shot in Irontown, and wish him the best for the future. Also, is Joey Vega likely to go into coaching - or, indeed, do you have any other former players that became coaches or managers?

I made Joey Vega a coach, but he hasn't caught on with anyone yet. I'll let you know if he does. Thanks for following! Sorry for the long break, but I wanted to recharge my batteries for a while.

[Hendu Style]

While no one hit .400 in 1963, several offensive records did go tumbling down that season.

Clay Dowdy, known more for his defensive skills at shortstop, took the SBL by storm with a record 259 basehits for the Lunar Lake Electrics, eclipsing Sandy Chapman's mark set in 1960. He finished the season with a .348 batting average and .365 on-base percentage, walking just 10 times in 744 at-bats.

While Dowdy dinked and dunked his way into the record books, Gary Carnell obliterated Sam Crowley's RBI mark that had stood since 1939. The Arcolopolis outfielder drove in 167 runs during the '63 campaign, beating Crowley's old mark by 20. He also swatted 47 homeruns in an epic homerun chase with Dullsville's Glenn Casey, who also finished with 47 homers that season, 3 short of Crowley's single-season record.

There was no doubt about it. The game was changing, and sluggers like Carnell were leading the charge.

[Hendu Style]

The 1960's were quickly becoming the decade of the hitter, but JP Youngblood reminded the baseball world just how good he was in 1964.

The single-season strikeout king went after two more records in '64, chasing the wins (31) and ERA (1.55) marks. While his victory total of 26 would fall short, his ERA of 1.01 was easily enough to rewrite the record books by more than half a run per 9 innings.

"I'm just glad he was on my team and I didn't have to face him," recalled Gary Carnell, who hit 49 homeruns that season for an Arcopolis squad that season that was swept by Rocklyn in the Sim Series. "If we weren't on the same team, I think I would've struck out at least 200 times a season. 50 of those strikeouts would've been against JP."

[Tyke]

Good to see more installments, Hendu Style. As I've said elsewhere, the dynasties I enjoy most are the ones with more unusual backgrounds / backstories, and this is definitely up there, for me. KUTGW

BTW, Did you ever include a map of your Sim Nation? I checked back over the first few pages and couldn't see it. I'd love to get a look at it.

[Hendu Style]

It's said that JP Youngblood brought baseball north of the border. Who am I to argue?

Youngblood, fresh off leading the Arcopolis Rockets to their first-ever Sim Series title and already baseball's new all-time strikeout king (3,857 and counting), was just part of a growing number of Canadians to find fame and fortune in SimNation as a professional baseball player. Recognizing this untapped well of talent, the SBL expanded into Kokanee in Canada before the 1966 season. The "Kings" (named after the Kokanee River's legendary king salmon and the "King of K's," JP Youngblood) joined the Cape Crowley Hooks as the newest members of the Pioneer League, while the Colonial League welcomed its two newest members, the Tropico Thunder and Winterhaven Warriors.

In all, there were now 12 teams in each league. As part of this new expansion, two new divisions were created in both the Colonial and Pioneer Leagues:

COLONIAL:
East Division:
Atlantis Neptunes
Dixie Dukes
Freeport Patriots
Maxis City Heroes
Sim City Capitols
*Tropico Thunder

West Division:
Arcopolis Rockets
Bayouville Barons
Dullsville Ducks
Irontown Black Sox
Motor City Racers
*Winterhaven Warriors


PIONEER LEAGUE:
Coastal Division:
*Cape Crowley Hooks
Granite Falls T'jacks
Lucky Palms Aces
Santo Cielo Seals
Seaside Pirates
Westwood Stars

Inland Division:
Appaloosa Bucks
Fort Dodge Federals
*Kokanee Kings
Lunar Lake Electrics
Northgate Knights
Rocklyn Railers


Existing owners of SBL franchises were adamant that expansion teams be sent evenly throughout the four divisions for competitive balance. The ironic part is that Harley Gardner Jr. was the one who spearheaded that campaign. He had just inherited the Black Sox franchise from his father who had passed away, and his Irontown team had performed very much like an expansion squad, having not reached the postseason since 1901.

Nonetheless, these four new teams were ready to give the old guard a run for their money. And for the first time ever, that didn't just mean Simoleons for folks in SimNation, but also Canadian Simoleons north of the border.

[Hendu Style]

This concludes Part I of the History of SimNation. Part II coming soon...

[Hendu Style]

A burgeoning network of interstate highways and affordable air travel allowed SimNation baseball owners to ponder interleague play. And in the winter of 1966, the owners voted unanimously to break down the walls between the Colonial and Pioneer Leagues, finally letting teams from opposing leagues to play against one another during the regular season. Baseball purists cried foul. It was bad enough that the Pioneer League had instituted a designated hitter rule... now how would leagues with different rules co-mingle?

The answer was relatively simple. The DH rule would be enacted in Pioneer League ballparks, while pitchers would hit in Colonial League stadiums. Just as they had during the Sim Series. This did little to placate the purists, but at least it was a reasonable resolution.

Through all of this change, baseball's most revered milestones remained out of reach for all except for a select few. On the summer of 1968, Jim "Sweetness" Eckard became just the fifth member of the 3,000 hit club. At the time of his membership, the Rocklyn Railer first baseman's lifetime .352 batting average ranked third all-time, trailing only Hall of Famer Jim Lintz, and Arcopolis outfielder Jim Williams, who had accrued a preposterous .363 lifetime average.

1968 also saw a new inductee into the Hall. Burton Anthony, who was a 10-time All-Star and 5-time Stormy Boyd Award winner, was a first ballot inductee. Though he failed to reach the 300 win milestone, his mark of 286-161, along with his 2.72 ERA and 3788 strikeouts were more than enough to sway voters.

While the accomplishments of Eckard and Anthony were noteworthy, it was dwarfed by baseball's lovable losers finally claiming a championship.

[Tyke]

Nice to see this is still going - I might have to return to the start to get up to speed again!

[Hendu Style]

No team in the history of the SimNation Baseball League has suffered more than the Irontown Black Sox. One of the SBL's founding four, the Sox claimed two championships in the league's early days: 1884, and 1901. Since then, Irontown had not been to the postseason, much less won a Sim Series. That was, until 1969.

Boasting a batting order with nothing but double digit homerun hitters, the famed "Eight Ballers" bashed their way to the Colonial League East Division title with a SBL-best 189 homers during the regular season. Michael Fenton, a pitcher with a career win-loss record south of .500, emerged as the team's unlikely ace, went 20-9 with a 2.25 ERA. He had walked 117 batters and lost 18 games the season prior.

The Black Sox managed to rally back from a 3-2 deficit in the CLCS to beat the mighty Freeport Patriots in Games 6 and 7 to advance to their first-ever Sim Series. Now all that stood between Irontown and a championship was the Santo Cielo Seals.

Santo Cielo had won more games (96) than any other team in the SBL during the regular season. Eventual Pioneer League MVP Anthony "Sharky" Hendershot (.358, 30 HR, 111 RBI) powered the Seal offense, while Elvis "Birdbrain" Taylor and his merciless changeup led the Santo Cielo rotation. It had all the makings of a Santo Cielo sweep. But someone forgot to tell the Black Sox.

After dropping Game 1 in Santo Cielo, the Sox rallied to win three straight and take a commanding 3-1 Sim Series lead. Hendershot, though, hoisted the Seals on his shoulders in Game 5, manhandling the Irontown pitching staff with a 3-hit performance, including a 2-run eighth inning homer off of Stephen Johnston (who wound up giving up 15 hits in the defeat). The 6-5 win set the table for a crucial Game 6 in Santo Cielo. If the Seals were to win, they would have the series in their hands in a winner-take-all Game 7. But Benjamin Bottoms was never going to let that happen.

Two years before Game 6, Bottoms had lost 20 games while posting a 5.06 ERA. The young righthander was the poster child for the losing atmosphere in Irontown. But somewhere along the way during the 1969 season, Bottoms figured out how to pitch. After going 5-10 during the first 3 months of the season, the 25 year-old got better command of his mid-90's fastball. He won 4 games with a 2.19 ERA in July. In August, he was 3-2 with a 2.63 ERA. By September, he was simply unbeatable: a 3-0 record with a 1.70 ERA. So the fate of Irontown rested in Bottoms' hands in Game 6. Dancing in and out of trouble, he willed his way through the Santo Cielo lineup. Admitting after the game that his shoulder was in serious pain, he fended off the Seals in a 5-2 victory.

The 1969 championship belonged to the Black Sox.

[Hendu Style]

Originally Posted by Tyke

Nice to see this is still going - I might have to return to the start to get up to speed again!

Not sure if you noticed, but I also rolled the dice and imported it into OOTP 15. I'm really looking forward to taking this to the next level.

[Hendu Style]

1971 saw the end of an era in the SBL. J.P. Youngblood tearfully announced his retirement at the conclusion of the '71 season. The Arcopolis Rockets immediately asked for permission from the league to retire Youngblood's #6, and the pitcher became the game's first player to receive such an honor.

Youngblood left an indelible mark on the game. Besides being the charter member of the 4,000 strikeout club and the third member of the 300-win club, he managed to set 22 records in his 17-year playing career.

Season Records: (11 total)
ERA - 1.01 (1964)
Shutouts - 11 (1956)
Strikeouts - 400 (1957)
Walks + Hits / IP - 0.76 (1964)

Career Records: (10 total)
ERA - 2.16
Winning Percentage - .671
Shutouts - 79
Strikeouts - 4,889
Walks + Hits / IP - 1.00

He also set a playoff record with 16 strikeouts in a 9 inning game, October 3rd, 1966.

Youngblood won 8 Stormy Boyd Awards during his career, and was 12 times a Colonial League All-Star. Just as it had with Sam Crowley, the SBL waived the 4-year waiting period for Hall of Fame induction, making him the 13th pitcher to be immortalized.

There will always be debates who was the best hitter of all-time in the SBL. But there was and never will be any question about who the best pitcher was. The question needs no answer.

[Tyke]

Yeah, I wondered if the arrival of OOTP15 was what kick-started things - but for whatever reason, I'm pleased. And it looks really good.
What a career for Youngblood! And great that you can now retire his number. Isn't it wonderful how things come together? Synchronicity!

[Hendu Style]

There are moments that define a sport. That certainly happened in the winter of 1972, when a federal judge decided to repeal the "Reserve Clause," ushering in the Free Agency Era in the SimNation Baseball League.

Up to that point, baseball teams owned the rights to players. Unless a player was released from the team, he had no choice as to which team he would join. The end of the Reserve Clause changed that. From this point forward, players would be free to sign with teams of their choosing, provided they had six seasons of SBL experience.

Keith Teeter, a slugging rightfielder with the Lucky Palms Aces, became the first-ever player to take advantage of free agency, signing a 4-year, $1 million to play for the Seaside Pirates. 5-time All-Star and 1966 Colonial League MVP Wally Johnston followed shortly thereafter, leaving the Motor City Racers for the free-spending Freeport Patriots, earning a substantial $100,000 a year increase on a 5-year, $1.65 million contract. Even Gary Carnell, who had spent his entire 13-year playing career in Arcopolis, couldn't resist the temptation of free agency, taking his 425 career homeruns and 4 Pioneer League MVP's to Granite Falls to play for the Timberjacks.

But while veteran players were getting their millions, a scrappy player by the name of Sam Kinsella was trying to earn a spot on a big league roster. My father, who had been selected by the Northgate Knights in the June, 1972 Draft, was traded to the Arcopolis Rockets just as the inaugural free agency period began. If you would like to read about Sam, there is ample information on his playing career, and subsequent days as a front office executive.

The landscape of baseball had completely changed. Loyalty was thrown out the window. Bidding wars had broken out, the likes of which had never been seen before. For better or for worse, baseball would never be the same.

[Hendu Style]

The early 1970's may have ushered in free agency, but Dullsville didn't miss a beat in 1973. Riding a lineup of three 30-homerun hitters (Brian Shaw - 40, Chuck Webb - 38, and Terry Pegues - 31), the Ducks rolled to a sixth playoff appearance in seven years, claiming the franchise's eleventh championship with a 4-2 Sim Series win over the Seaside Pirates.

Free agency was changing the game in an unexpected way. Ace pitchers were a hot commodity, and were treated as such. The days of 9 inning,complete games were fading fast. Teams had to protect their investment. And those teams that could not afford to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a Stormy Boyd contender had to make compromises on the pitching staff. The solution was rather simple: the bullpen. Long a forgotten element of the game, more and more teams began building up their bullpens, to take the burden off of their prized arms, and to also eat up innings in a less expensive manner.

The result was broken save records. Esteban Millos had saved a record 30 games for Granite Falls in 1955. The record had stood more than 15 years, until it was broken 13 times in a two-year span. Year to year, it wasn't a question if the saves record was going to be broken. It was just a matter of who would break it, and by how many. In fact, Greg Tarbox became the first SBL reliever to win the Stormy Boyd Award that season, when the Dixie Dukes reliever saved 27 games while posting a record of 18-6 in 72 relief appearances.

Fortunately, the integrity of the game still remained intact. 20 wins still had the same meaning. So did 30 homeruns. And the seemingly unattainable .400 batting average remained just out of reach, when Seaside's Spoon Caplinger went 1-for-7 in his last two games to fall below .400 to a season-ending .397.

Rocklyn's Ryan Bartlett almost became the first-ever 40/40 man during the '73 season. Not 40 homeruns/40 stolen bases, but rather 40 homeruns for a 40 year-old. He finished with an astounding 35 homeruns and 114 RBI, to become just the eighth member of the 400 career homerun club. Gary Carnell, recently signed with Granite Falls, had maintained a furious career homerun pace throughout his career and seemed destined to become just the second member of the 500 club, but seriously injured his ankle in '73 to finish with a career-low 16 roundtrippers. His total of 441 at the end of the 1973 season ranked 4th all-time, trailing only the recently retired Glenn "Count" Casey (452), Cal Thomas (468), and Sam Crowley (619). The 35 year-old Bartlett was also closing in on the mythical 3,000-hit milestone, which had been achieved by just five players at that point.

A reminder of just how much pitchers had dominated the past couple of decades came during Hall of Fame announcements, when pitchers Jacques Chauvin and Aaron Jones were inducted, while a surprising HOF drought for hitters continued. A batter hadn't gained HOF induction since Carl Boose in 1966... a span of eight years. But clearly, a new batch of hitters were padding their resumes for that inevitable day.