QuickStart - Atlantic Baseball League (Atlantic Canada)

[rleb]

UPDATED STORY/FILE FOR NEWER VERSIONS


UPDATED LEAGUE INFORMATION / TEAMS LIST (link to relevant post in thread)

OOTP 23 version quickstart, dated May 2023! (Make sure to read the update in the link above, for a massive expansion of ABL Minor Leagues and High Schools)

[txranger]

That is one humongous file!

[jazzrack]

added to OOTPmods.com and OOTPwiki.info

Templates | OOTPmods.com

OOTP Community Wiki | Atlantic Baseball League quickstart

[Cork55]

This looks really good. Gonna give it a go.

[darkcloud4579]

Gonna check it out!

[rleb]

Paul Paulson
The Atlantic Baseball Weekly
HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA
April 17th 2015

After 38 seasons of play with a controversial reserve roster system, Commissioner Jim Smith has announced that the Atlantic Baseball League has come to an agreement to affiliate, purchase, and run four amateur senior AAA leagues in the atlantic provinces to serve as the ABL franchises' minor league affiliates.

The move follows several requests and complaints from players such as reserve pitchers Larry Rathwell (Charlottetown) and Andre Lefeuvre (Dieppe) who stated that they spent upwards of 13 years on the team's reserve rosters after being drafted without any call-ups or releases. With no other way to develop or maintain their skills, the players (and several others) played in local amateur hardball leagues, but without any significant contact or guidance from their ABL clubs. The players said they tried to play as often as they could, but the games were haphazard, the competition was only semi-competitive at best. "I have no idea at this point if my fastball can match those of the ABL of today." said Rathwell, "once a few years go by with no contact, it is hard as a player to keep a sense of perspective as to whether or not I am worthy of an ABL call-up". In the previous hardball leagues, only a handful of games were held per summer.

"This would benefit the ABL clubs too" said Lefeuvre, "they can keep tabs on who is a hot-shot prospect or a guy that is ready for the ABL. There won't be as many questions anymore. They can keep track of guys much easier."

The 4 new leagues (The Central, Northwest, Scotia and Avalon Senior Leagues) will provide players who previously sat on a reserve roster to play 48-50 games a season in a controlled envrionment, with affiliate coaches from the parent club to keep players in top form. The new leagues will remain amateur, and for that reason the affiliate clubs will either be stationed in towns near the parent club, or close to major cities for players to obtain employment in the area (with the help of associated guidance councellors) until/if the ABL club decides to activate them to the main club's roster. The Senior-Amateur leagues can hold 28 players on a roster, which is 10 more per team than the previous system, giving a chance to 240 more players to devellop at the Senior-Amateur level.

Note: TEAMS (ABL affiliates)

NORTHWEST SENIOR LEAGUE
---
CARAQUET VOYAGEURS (Bathurst)
DALHOUSIE NORTH STARS (Campbellton)
MADAWASKA VIKINGS, in Grand Falls (Edmundston)
MCADAM RAILERS (St. Stephen)
TRACADIE BREWERS (Miramichi)
WOODSTOCK EAGLES (Fredericton)

CENTRAL SENIOR LEAGUE
---
ALBERT COUNTY HUSKIES (Moncton)
AMHERST BRAVES (Truro)
CAP-PELE CUBS (Shediac)
KENSINGTON PANTHERS (Summerside)
MEMRAMCOOK EXPOS (Dieppe)
MONTAGUE DODGERS (Charlottetown)
SOURIS CAVALIERS (Iles de la Madeleine)
SPRINGHILL GREEN SOX (Pictou County)
SUSSEX SAINTS (Saint John)

SCOTIA SENIOR LEAGUE
---
BEDFORD RAMS (Corner Brook)
BRIDGEWATER ORIOLES (Halifax)
LUNENBURG BEACONS (Dartmouth)
WINDSOR MONARCHS (Annapolis Valley)
YARMOUTH PILOTS (Cape Breton)

AVALON SENIOR LEAGUE
---
BAY ROBERTS FLYERS (Gander)
CARBONEAR GRAYS (Grand Falls-Windsor)
MOUNT PEARL CAPITALS (Newfoundland)
TORBAY SHAMROCKS (Conception Bay South)

Due to the changes, Larry Rathwell and Andre Lefeuvre will make their long-awaited minor league debuts for the Montague Dodgers and Memramcook Expos, respectively, in early-June.

The Senior-Amateur season runs from the week following the draft in early-June, to mid-September. Affiliate Playoffs will conclude at the beginning of October.

The ABL seaon, meanwhile, runs nearly every day from the Victoria Day long weekend in May (Memorial Day for U.S. residents) to the end of August. Playoff action swallows up the month of September.

A website is planned for the 2015 season to keep fans and/or interested OOTP baseball fans up-to-date with the happenings of the ABL. Stay tuned.

[x12AiDeRx]

Is there a way to download and play this on OOTP 17?

[reds1869]

Originally Posted by x12AiDeRx

Is there a way to download and play this on OOTP 17?

You can install the quickstart in OOTP 15 and start a new game. Then import the saved game to OOTP16, then import it from 16 to 17. It takes a while but it works. You only need the demo versions of each if you don't have the older games.

[x12AiDeRx]

I started to do that last night but OOTP 16 doesn't let you import or do anything with the demo like 15 does :-/ do you have any work arounds?

[rleb]

To save a lot of people some headaches, I will post an OOTP 17 version, dated January 2017 (since I always stick to the current date!)

Stay tuned. Let's see how my little laptop digests this

By now, the ABL has blossomed to the following list of leagues :

Professional
Atlantic Baseball League - fully professional as listed above, 24 teams

AAA Baseball
Northwest/Central/Scotia/Avalon Leagues - amateur leagues, but affiliated to the ABL. 24 teams (spread out across the 4 leagues)

Amateur Hardball
MHU, or the 'Maritime Hardball Union' - A fully independent competitive league (added quirk: sponsored by local companies) which acts as a catch basin for anyone still playing who is not able to sign onto one of the 24 ABL teams' systems. A bit of a work in progress for now, but we will see how it goes! 12 teams.

High School Baseball
6 leagues across 4 provinces (New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have 'A' and 'B' leagues, based on school size). Another work in progress, but these are real, honest-to-goodness high schools here in Atlantic Canada, with real logos and team colors. 62 Schools are represented.

Quickstart to come...

[rleb]

Since we're on the subject, I will give a bit of a back story on this league!

(warning, this is a looooonnnnggg post)

Going back to my youth, and stretching back to the more primitive days of baseball video games, I always had this interest/idea of creating a simulated version of what pro baseball might look like in my home region (the Atlantic provinces of Canada .... Newfoundland/Prince Edward Island/Nova Scotia/New Brunswick, a region of 2.3 million people on the Atlantic coast of Canada roughly the size of New England which lacks actual pro baseball).

This idea started with Hardball III on the PC, spending an unhealthy amount of time trying to modify the player and team files. Then my idea evolved to NCAA Baseball 06/07 and MLB 2k11, until I finally stumbled upon OOTP a few years ago, and it was all that I always dreamed I could do: total creative control over a baseball universe, including logos, cities, players, story lines and everything else that didn't factor in hand-eye coordination.

So, the "Atlantic Baseball League" was finally born. It's history is a hybrid story of actual events/facts with a slight twist. Here is the story of the ABL:


THE FORMATION OF THE PRO LEAGUE



The story begins in the early 1970s, when amateur senior baseball was pulling fans by the thousands in many cities across Atlantic Canada. Despite the lack of a pro league, the area is a hotbed of baseball and, soon, meetings were held by officials of the local senior circuits in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island about the possibility of including pro baseball in the region. A pro league, although an expensive idea, would keep baseball flourishing and keep youth involved in the sport by giving them a legitimate way to earn a living playing the game.

In 1973, the initial proposal was for five local cities to apply to join American AA minor leagues, but this idea was quickly shot down. It was decided that a self-contained pro league with familiar teams and cities was needed to keep fans interested.

The second proposal was of an independent pro league in Atlantic Canada, seperate from MLB's "grid", pulling teams from the area's bigger cities, that would operate in such a fashion to offer players livable wages (that of a working man's salary). The league's idea was voted through and in October 1975, the basis and framework of the independent "Atlantic Baseball League" was formed.

Cities could bid to be admitted to the new league, which planned to start in the 1977 season, given they provided sufficient seating needed to house fans (stadia able to hold 2000 fans or more, and able to pull 1000 fans a game to be financially viable).

Eventually, 10 teams were selected to become the inaugural version of the ABL, split geographically in two "leagues":

The "Continental League" (or CL)

- Fredericton Royals : pop 80 000, white-collar provincial government town. 1/5th of the city population are university students.
- Saint John Alpines : pop 130 000, blue-collar industrial town. Home to the province's biggest oil refinery and sea port. Fredericton's bitter rivals.
- Chatham Ironmen : pop 30 000, city best known for it's salmon fishing and tourism. A quiet community that has been a baseball hotbed since the early 20th century.
- Bathurst Pirates : pop 30 000, northern New Brunswick's largest city, a hub of men's softball leagues, and the area's only serious hardball team.
- Prince Edward Island Lions : pop 65 000, the "friendly island"s only pro baseball team (for now).

The "Ocean League" (or OL)

- Amherst Blazers : pop 20 000, easily the smallest town in the league, known for it's blueberry harvesting in the area. From the beginning, they were a long shot to survive despite the town's baseball heritage.
- Truro Bears : pop 40 000, a railway hub, the team's baseball park was paid for by the Canadian National Rail, and a quarter-century later, it is still called "C.N. Baseball Park".
- Cape Breton Highlanders : pop 100 000, another industrial/oil/port city much like Saint John.
- Halifax Schooners : pop 250 000, the region's largest city, and cultural/media hub. The team's nickname is a hommage to the shipbuilding history of the city.
- Dartmouth Mariners : pop 120 000, Halifax's cross-harbor sibling, this town has a much more working-class and much less glamorous reputation. The name is also a nod to it's maritime history.

The format was a scaled-down version of the MLB. Due to the harsh Canadian winters, teams would play a 68-game season from June to August, and the two best teams from each league would play a best-of-7 "league championship series", followed by another best-of-7 "Atlantic Final Series" to decide a champion.

The league officially begins play on June 1st 1977, as Dartmouth defeats Truro 6-3 in front of nearly 3000 fans at CN Baseball Park in Truro.

Minimum salary is set at $7500 a season, comparable to a government-mandated minimum-wage salary at the time, and would increase accordingly over the years. A star player, then as now, can expect to make roughly 4-to-5-times this amount. To this day, "minimum wage" in the ABL follows the government definition of the term (20 000 a year, as of the 2015 season).

The league is an instant hit, and thrives in most cities. Game tickets sell for roughly 10$, and Newspapers and local radio stations are filled with the goings-on of each city's newly-minted pro sports team. In the first 4 seasons, 4 different teams win the Atlantic Championship. Cape Breton wins the inaugural title in 1977, followed by Fredericton (1978), Truro (1979) and Chatham (1980).

GROWING PAINS AND INITIAL EXPANSION

Unfortunately by 1983, the Amherst Blazers predictably struggled to keep up with the bigger towns. The '83 Blazers showed just how difficult it was to retain talent in such a small town, and that year's team would go down in history as the worst team in ABL history: a .147 win% and a 10-58 record. For 1984, the team would rebrand themselves as the "Cumberland Classics" to try and pull fans from out of town (Amherst is within Cumberland County).

Despite this, the ABL had their eye on expansion in the area's two biggest cities without teams: Moncton and St. John's.

Moncton, population 130 000, situated halfway between Saint John and Amherst, was a natural fit. A city with a long baseball history situated in the region's geographic center, it was also the area's transportation hub, with a railroad history dating back to the late-19th century. The city was added to the ABL's Continental League in 1984 with an appropriate name: the Moncton Express.

Unlike the "slam dunk" idea of a team in baseball-crazy Moncton, the idea of a team on the island of Newfoundland was a risky idea.

Even though it housed the second-largest city in the region, the island of Newfoundland was part of Great Britain until 1949, and thus did not share it's sporting heritage with the rest of the area. Over there, rugby is king, and baseball is not widely played. Despite this, local businessman Alastair Smith thought that the island could embrace the sport if the team was competitive. "People enjoy winners. No matter what sport. Especially a professional sports team. Newfoundlanders have never had a pro team of any kind before." he said. "I think it can work". So, the big gamble was in motion, and the "Newfoundland Reds" also made their debut in 1984 in the Ocean League, on the island's capital city of St. John's (population 190 000).

To owner Alastair Smith's delight, the Reds were an instant contender, and the team went on an unprecedented run of five straight Atlantic Titles from 1986-1990, backed by the high-flying offense provided by right-fielder Omar Guillaume and first-baseman Gah-Fat Man (yes, that is his real name). The instant success of their Reds did wonders for Newfoundland's baseball popularity, and local television and radio broadcasts of games garnered very good ratings, and little leagues sprung up all over the province.

MORE RISK, BUT POSSIBLY MORE REWARD

By the mid-80s, the league was in a comfortable position, but had pressure from two groups wanting to get in: fans from St. Stephen, and western Newfoundland.

The Reds, enjoying their new-found team and success, pushed the league to find them a provincial rival. Reds owner Alastair Smith offered to start up a team in Corner Brook, the second-biggest city in Newfoundland (population 25 000) at the opposite end of the island, to expand baseball and give each other a natural rival.

Meanwhile, St. Stephen, a tiny town on the border with Calais, Maine with a regional population barely over 20 000, had been pushing for a team since the league started. Why would the league be interested in such a town after watching the struggles of Amherst/Cumberland? Because this is St. Stephen; a town with a long and proud history of baseball excellence and fandom. Although unverified, it has been stated by many that the St. Stephen area has more baseball fans per square mile than anywhere else in Atlantic Canada. During the 1930s, the local team was provincial champion 9 times in a row from 1931-1939, and even hosted a Boston Braves game during this time. To show they were serious about a team, the town's most famous employer, the Ganong chocolate factory, paid for a brand new 2200-seat park to be built in 1985 on the town's picturesque waterfront, only a few hundred feet from the town's international border crossing to Maine.

In 1988, the two cities were added to the ABL: the Corner Brook Admirals in the OL (with 50% local and 50% Reds ownership), and the St. Stephen Bluebirds in the CL, raising the number of ABL teams to 14.

THE LEAGUE'S FIRST FAILED TEAM

In 1989, the impossible seemed to have happened: the lowly Cumberland Classics made a post-season run. This struggling, penniless team had scrounged just enough resources to put a competitive team on the field that year, and they finished 43-35; good enough for a second place finish in the OL and a playoff spot. This was a team quite literally playing for their survival: if they could not pull new fans with a playoff run, the team would likely be dead. The playoff push was a final gasp for a money-losing franchise. In the post-season, the Classics pushed hard, but ultimately lost to the mighty Newfoundland Reds in 7 games in the Ocean League Championship.
The Reds would go on to win a 4th consecutive title.

Over the next few seasons, it was clear that Cumberland's fanbase would not grow despite the run, and the team would once again slip to the bottom of the standings. The team finally collapsed after the 1992 season. The remains of the team were bought by the Sobeys grocery family, and the team was relocated near the company's headquarters in Pictou County (population 40 000), known for it's mining industry and several grocery-related headquarters. The new team would be known as the Pictou County Clippers.

By this time, the league expanded their schedule from 68 to 78 games, to coincide the season's start with Victoria Day on the third weekend of May: Canada's unofficial start to the summer season.

In 1993, another major event had an impact on the ABL's list of teams. The announcement of the Acadian World Congress in Moncton.

THE RISE OF THE FRENCH

The city of Moncton is linguistically split: The western half of town is of English-speaking British Loyalist heritage, and the eastern half (an area known as "Dieppe"), of French-speaking Acadian heritage. Acadians are the distant cousins of Louisiana's Cajuns, and, like their American cousins, are descendants of the original French settlers in the region in the 1600s. Although the Moncton Express have enjoyed good crowds since their introduction to the league in 1984, the French-Acadians had largely stayed away from the team, as it was seen as the town's "English team". With the Acadian Congress in 1994, a unified feeling among the french population was renewed, and the idea quickly escalated to a push for a cross-town rival baseball team to cater to the Francophone population.

Backed by a series of Acadian banks and insurance companies, the "Dieppe Aces" were added to the league in the CL for 1995. The team's name was chosen from a "name the team" competition, and has been popular due to the fact that "Aces" has the same meaning (and spelling) in both languages. The team would hire Ben Paull as the team's manager, and although no one knew it at the time, he would become the longest-tenured manager in league history. As of the upcoming 2017 season, Paull is still at the helm of the Aces, and has accumulated nearly 1200 wins over 21 seasons.

Another team to be added for the '95 season was the Annapolis Valley Thunderbirds (in the OL): a team from Nova Scotia's scenic "wine country" on the coast of the Bay of Fundy. It might as well be known as the province's "military country" for it's vast Greenwood military base that is situated nearby.

By 1996, the league kept growing at an impressive pace, with 16 teams now in place. It was decided that the regular season would stretch from mid-May to the end of August, thus extending the season to 96 games. The league also added an All-Star game on the first Saturday of July, giving the league a one-week break.

With the number of teams now at 16, the CL and OL were also split into East and West Divisions. Each division consisting of 4 teams, and the top finisher advancing to the league's championship series.

In 1997, after the town of Chatham amalgamated with other surrounding towns to become the much larger city of Miramichi, the city's baseball team was also renamed the "Miramichi Ironmen".

Despite the ABL's relative stability during the rest of the 1990s, more towns and cities pushed to enter the league.

By 2004, the league had expanded further from 16 to 24 teams, which is still the current number as of 2017.

Each division had now also grown to an extent where the two top teams would play to decide a Division Champion. Each champion would then move on to their respective League Championship Series.

Although the area does not have any big metropolitan regions, the abundance of medium-sized towns and cities makes it a perfect fit for an area needing a bit of entertainment.

Even today, as the league approaches it's 2017 season, players still make a wage similar to the average person : rookies make 20k/season, the average league salary is 45k/season, and superstars make between 75-100k/season. The league is a shrunken down version of the MLB, but local fans wouldn't want it any other way. They have their own version of Red Sox, Yankees and Mets to cheer for, and they like it just the way it is.

By tomorrow, I will post an updated ABL Quickstart, along with an updated ABL excel spreadsheet with the latest stats after 2016!

[x12AiDeRx]

So excited about this! I was reading the excel file this weekend while downloading the file and was all pumped to play until I realized it was a Ootp 15 file :-/ looking forward to it! Thank you ��

[pgd44]

This looks like a great quickstart !!!

[rleb]

For anyone else who wants to try it :

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bx...zdBS2NlMGVja2s

[Lord PichuPal]

This sounds really cool, even for somebody outside of the Canadian border. I might give it a look some time if I can, I've been getting really sucked in to these fictional quickstarts lately, and always find it cool when they have some built up history attached.

[Chomps]

Originally Posted by rleb

For anyone else who wants to try it :

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bx...zdBS2NlMGVja2s

I would like to try this quickstart. Does it work with OOTP 17?

What are the installation instructions?

Thanks.

[rleb]

Originally Posted by Chomps

I would like to try this quickstart. Does it work with OOTP 17?

What are the installation instructions?

Thanks.

Yup, that does work with OOTP 17!

1) Just download the .zip file in the link,

2) extract the "ABL Jan 8 2017.quick" folder to your Documents\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 17\quickstart_games folder.

3) Once you open the game up, and select "New Quickstart Game"



If something doesn't work as planned, you are more than welcome to send me an inbox message!

[JaBurns]

I was just thinking that this league format may set up perfectly for an attempt at a promotion/relegation league. Or am I wrong? Was thinking about trying this in 18.
Also interesting to me because my mother was born in Upper Musquodoboit.
Thank you for this league.

[JaBurns]

Tried to start the game today but get an error message something like "cannot download sqllite database".

[WillyW3]

rleb,

You gotta get this bad boy updated for 18!