Sunday, February 24, 2008

Schedule and League Setup

After completing some homework, spending time chatting with my wife, and sifting through EBay auctions promising to help me earn $70K/year online, I'm ready for another post.

My league setup is quite simple. I'm creating two leagues, with two divisions each, 8 teams per division. As I am obsessed with China, most of the fictional teams will be located in Chinese cities. I'll write more about the cities and teams later.

I'm a big fan of uneven, erratic schedules. I've always liked the thought of teams having to deal with an inordinate number of doubleheaders, especially late in the season when things are on the line. I've never really been a big supporter of balanced scheduling. Thus, for my season, I'm not going to use DMB's automatic schedule creator.

In addition, I like the idea of not having any interdivisional play. In this league, a team will face the teams within its division exclusively, as if each league had its own pre-1994 American / National League setup. I figure this will allow divisions to take on their own personality, and will make postseason games more meaningful.

These factors force me to import schedules by hand. Inputting schedules by hand is one of the biggest weaknesses of Diamond Mind Baseball. The game input method is anything but intuitive, especially when it comes to inputting doubleheaders. I'd much rather use APBA's schedule editing program, but it's too late for that. Due to my unique divisional setup, the program does not allow me to import old schedules automatically. For that I would have to create two separate organizations, which would further complicate everything else. It's just easier to input the schedule by hand.

I've decided to use the 1933 schedule for one league, and the 1934 for another. 1933 is one of my favorite seasons to read about, primarily because of the awful storms that knocked out huge stretches of games in April.

I once found an interesting poem written by the oft-forgotten John Kieran, sports columnist for the New York Times in the early 1930s. This is from the April 20, 1933 Times:

(The Lost Battalion).
When they open the gates by Coogan's Bluff
And the Giants step out to do their stuff,
(If it doesn't rain or sleet or blow
Or the call the game on account of snow!)
There are some who will watch with vacant stare
A host of players who aren't there,
There are some who will close their eyes and gaze
At the Lost Battalion of Other Days
They will see McGinnity, Dan McGann,
Gilbert and Dahlen and Bresnahan;
George Van Haltren, who broke his leg;
Redtop Murray - and could he peg!
Devlin and Donlin - those are names!
Dummy Taylor and Leon Ames;
Georgie Burns - could you ask for more!
Snodgrass, Shafer and Josh Devore.
Big Jeff Teareau, mighty of limb,
Arthur Fletcher and Heinie the Zim;
Out on the mound a figure tall,
Big Six; Matty, the king of them all!
Down by the far off right-field wall
Pep Young leaping to spear the ball.
These will be seen through memory's haze:
The Lost Battalion of Other days.

More later.

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