April 24th, 1908: Boston (AL) at Washington

I technically played this game last night, but didn't have enough time to complete this writeup.
April 24^th, 1908

WASHINGTON—Cy Young, the veteran with over 400 lifetime wins to his credit, made short work of the Nationals this afternoon. Washington mustered but a single tally on all of three hits, as Young’s one-two punch of curve and fastball fooled everybody in the park.

Washington starter Falkenberg lasted only 5 innings, giving up 6 runs in all. As usual, the Boston attack was lead by Thoney and Wagner. The big blow came in the top of the fifth inning, when the Red Sox batted around en route to a 5 run burst.

The two teams complete their four game series tomorrow afternoon in Washington.

View boxscore here.

It's been a long weekend

Well, so much for having a big update over the weekend! I've been busier than ever before. I spent all day yesterday in class, and all day today doing little homework tasks. I'm still on pace to graduate in August, though it's going to take a pretty gutsy effort to get there. But don't worry -- I'll keep playing DMB, and keep updating this blog.

Speaking of DMB, I've decided to make a slight change to my season. My dad asked me this weekend why I didn't just make four leagues without an organization, and then just import the schedules for each league. I'm going to do this, though it means I won't use the 1933 schedule, mostly because I don't own that season. I'll use 1941 and 1934.

Opening day is tentatively set for April 15th. I might get a game in before then, but I'm not making any promises. I'll definitely get a game played by then, though.

Look for a big update coming sooner or later!

Dan Szymborski's DMB Playing Time Tool

I won't be using this for my replay (too many starts for too many players), but for those of you who create seasons, take a look at this tool.

April 23rd, 1908: Boston (AL) at Washington

I just got done revising my Japanese History research paper, and decided to reward myself with another 1908 Co-op game. By the way, for fans of 1908, I recommend you sit back and read this account of a 1908 APBA replay. JIMSCE sure wrote up a nice, readable replay, even though it is almost 2000 posts.

April 23^rd, 1908

WASHINGTON – Fred Burchell is synonymous with clutch pitching. With the bases loaded and the game on the line, Burchell induced Nationals leadoff hitter Milan to swing at a bouncing pitch, striking him out to end the game.

Burchell had no one to blame but himself for his predicament. With a two run lead in the bottom of the 9^th and one out, Fred proceeded to hit Warner with a pitch. After moving to second on McBride’s ground ball, Fred then proceeded to hit Shipke and give up a single to pinch hitter Altizer. What looked like a disaster was barely averted, thanks to Milan’s impatient batting.

Bonehead play by Delahanty almost destroyed Washington’s chances. First, a crucial error in the top of the 6^th inning allowed Boston to score their first run of the contest, destroying Burns’ whitewashing. Then, after reaching first on a single with one out, Jim foolishly tried to run before pitcher Burchell threw a pitch. Delahanty was thrown out in a rundown. On the very next play, yesterday’s hero Clymer hit a monstrous triple. Oh Jim, why couldn’t you wait? Were it not for Jerry Freeman’s seeing-eye single, Otis’ efforts would have been for naught.

Clymer later made his bid for the title of defensive hero, with a sliding nab of Burchell’s slicing line drive in the top of the 7^th. Unfortunately, it was not enough to stop the scoring barrage of the visiting Beantowners, who came up with 3 in their half. In the end, it was Heinie Wagner’s incredible nab of pinch hitter Ollie Pickering’s line drive that earned play of the day honors.

Click here for boxscore.

Team Preview: Tokyo Giants

I had a heck of a day today. The UPS guy came with my new Strat-O-Matic game the other afternoon, but nobody was home. Like a fool, I called up UPS and arranged to pick the game up at their warehouse. Of course, I have no car, which meant I had to rely on Utah's awful bus system, walk 20 blocks, then walk 20 blocks back while carrying a big package. It wasn't much fun, but I've got the game now, and that makes up for all the hassle.

I've been asked when I'm actually going to start playing games with this season. I'll start as soon as I finish inputting the schedule by hand, which hopefully won't take too long. I'll probably finish that before the team previews are done, which means I'll just have to do both at once (my blog's hits go way up every time I write one of these long entries).

Anyway, let's get on with the show. Today's team is the Tokyo Giants. I'll admit, I purposely made this team strong and full of nothing but non-white players. I thought it would be interesting to see how it plays out. As it stands, they are clear favorites to win their division.

Stadium
Thanks to my early morning antics, I've now seen two games from the Tokyo Dome on TV. It's refreshing to watch baseball in a park with a lot of foul territory, and I thought it was interesting to see fly balls die in the outfield. It's still a hitters park, but it's not as extreme as one would think.

Starting Pitchers
1. Bob Gibson
2. Juan Marichal
3. Satchel Paige
4. JR Richard
5. Minoru Murayama
SS. Yasuo Yonekawa
SS. Masahiro Yamamoto
SS. Tetsuya Yoneda

Can you say formidable? That's a pretty wicked starting rotation, clearly the best we've seen thus far. Still, Yonekawa, Yamamoto and Yoneda aren't exactly the cream of the crop. An injury to any of those five would be disasterous.

Masahiro Yamamoto's homepage is here.

Relief Pitchers
Shigetoshi Hasegawa and here
Hirotoshi Ishii
Mariano Rivera

Rivera is awesome, but, once again, his Japanese bullpen mates are a tad weaker. Remember, Tokyo will be playing in the 2001 Era, which means they'll likely wind up going to the bullpen more often than not. This may be their weak point.

Starting Lineup
1. Hank Aaron CF / Joe Morgan 2B
2. Oscar Charleston 1B / Shigeo Nagashima 3B
3. Barry Bonds LF / Oscar Charleston CF
4. Josh Gibson C / Barry Bonds LF
5. Hiromitsu Ochiai 3B / Hank Aaron RF
6. Shigeo Nagashima 3B / Josh Gibson C
7. Roberto Clemente RF / Tank Carr 1B
8. Ernie Banks SS

All I can say is this should be fun. I'll admit -- I couldn't stop myself from making one team as strong as possible. Parity is fine, but it's also fun to have a big Goliath team to root against (or for, if you like).

Reserves
Kevin Mitchell
Hiromasa Arai
Koichiro Yoshinaga
Yutaka Fukumoto
Yoshinori Hirose
Koji Akiyama
Mookie Wilson
Taira Fujita
Hiroyuki Yamazaki

Anyway, that's it for me today. I'm really tired. I'll post again tomorrow, and try to get a few more posts in this weekend.

April 22, 1908 Boston (AL) at Washington

Here's another game from the 1908 Co-op season.

April 22^nd, 1908

WASHINGTON – Nationals pitcher Charlie Smith made short work of the visiting Red Sox, striking out five en route to a 4-0 victory.

Boston scarcely put up a fight, collecting a mere five hits in the contest. Washington, on the other hand, won the game on eight hits total, including three from right fielder Otis Clymer. In the process, Clymer drove in one run on an eight inning double which put the game away for sure.

Boston starter George Winter couldn’t get the drop ball to drop correctly, and was yanked after six innings.

After the shutout, Smith’s ERA stands at 1.06.

View the boxscore here.

Quick post

Just a quick post to let you know that I'm still around. It's really been a long day. I didn't get home until 8:30, and then it was two straight hours of Chinese essay writing.

For your viewing pleasure, here are a few old APBA advertisements from the Sporting News to counterbalance the 1969 Strat ad I had up the other week:
This first one comes from a 1951 Sporting News issue. That's right, it's an ad for the famous original 1950 season, the one that you'll never be able to find anywhere. For goodness' sakes, there were APBA Journal articles as early as the 1970s, way before the vintage card boom, about miraculously finding a copy of this season at a garage sale. It's interesting to note that APBA advertised this game as being based on 20 years of research, an obvious reference to Seitz' work on the original National Pastime game.


Both of the above ads come from 1952.
This one's from 1957. Notice that the earlier emphasis on APBA not being a "game for children" is gone. This, of course, is after APBA came up with the X, Y and Z ratings -- hence the statement about pitchers acting just as they do in real life.

Finally, here's a National Pastime ad from 1930:
I love it: "Nothing like it on the market - new and fascinating."

Anyway, I'm tired. Oh, if you're an APBA fan, check out this EBay auction. Makes me wish I bought the 1995 season.