Which Database Do You Use?

[BeachBum]

Which Database do you use?

1. Gambo
2. Lahman
3. Arod23/Garlon

[plannine]

I use all of them, but for most historical replays I use Gambo, but if im just letting the computer play them out without interference (which seems to be rather often), i use arod23/garlon. I only use Lahman for a single season replay.

[jenifer25]

I'm using Sean Lahman's baseball database version 5.3 , but they released the new version so soon I update the latest version 5.4

[bp_]

I use the Gambo DB where the players appear in their correct draft class year rather than when they hit the majors.

[Nukester]

Every time I use the Gambo or Arod/GArlon DB's I get the sign and release bug, so I just gave up and started using the original Lahman DB (I always start in1903, so i dont know if its an issue in later years). I dont know why those two DB's would give me more trouble than Lahmans, but thats what has happened to me. Actually I wrote a program to create random databases with the press of 2 buttons, and I havent used a regular DB since. Its been quite fun watching Yogi Berra, Joe Morgan, Mark Grace, Bobby Higginson, Mike Kurkow, Mel Ott, etc all playing against each other

[ctorg]

I usually use Lahman, particularly now that there is the option to have yearly recalculation. I've used custom ones I've built for myself over the years plenty of times. I don't usually play historical leagues, though, so my use of databases has been sporadic.

[Ragin Cajun]

Originally Posted by Nukester

Every time I use the Gambo or Arod/GArlon DB's I get the sign and release bug, so I just gave up and started using the original Lahman DB (I always start in1903, so i dont know if its an issue in later years). I dont know why those two DB's would give me more trouble than Lahmans, but thats what has happened to me. Actually I wrote a program to create random databases with the press of 2 buttons, and I havent used a regular DB since. Its been quite fun watching Yogi Berra, Joe Morgan, Mark Grace, Bobby Higginson, Mike Kurkow, Mel Ott, etc all playing against each other

Hey Nukester, just curious how do you do the random db thing? That might be interesting to do.

[Nukester]

Originally Posted by Ragin Cajun

Hey Nukester, just curious how do you do the random db thing? That might be interesting to do.

I wrote a little program in Visual Foxpro, but you dont need Foxpro to run it. Basically, you copy whatever database you want to use into a folder, then run the program. Press a button and the game will create a new database. Press another button and the game will export the database into .csv files. Then you copy the new .csv files wherever your game is looking for them, then start a new historical league. However, the way it is set up now, you should start the league in 1903, and you must have an inaugrial(?) draft.

The program creates new debut years for every player in the database, between 1900 - 2006 (I dont have the code in front of me, so Im going by memory) , even the players from the 1800's (of course you could remove them from the original DB first if you dont want to use them). The it goes through and updates birthyears and adjusts the years in the batting, pitching, fielding, and fielding OF files.

The reason you should start in 1903 is because that will give you 3 years of players to use for the initial draft, pretty much insuring that you have enough players to fill the teams. You also need to do an initial dump of players into the FA pool, then release them for a draft. You need to do this because the game will only put in the initial draft players whos teams are actually in the league for that year. So any player that isnt on one of the 16 teams of 1903 will not show up for the initial draft. This program gets by that by assigning all players one of the teams that were around in 1903. You must dump and redraft though in order for all teams to have players (I think I have all players whos last name starts with A,B, C, and D on the Reds for example).

It is really quite simple and takes about 30 seconds to run the program. It takes longer to copy and paste the files to wherever the game is looking for it. Also, it creates a different database everytime it is run, so one time Babe Ruth may debut in 1910 and the next he might debut in 1979. So far the game is handling the stats very well, except for the first season. It tends to want to give big power numbers in 1903, so you have to play with the league totals alittle for that first season so that everything doesnt get out of whack. The game straightens itself out after a couple of seasons though. For instance, my HR leader for 1905 was Morgan Ensberg with 12.

I may go back and modify it so that a user could choose the range in years for the debut. Its working prefectly for my own purposes as it is though, so I havent really been focusing on that yet

[Kelric]

If you can figure out how to tweak those league totals for the first year or so, that'd be a great utility to release in the mod forum.

[rwd59]

I didn't buy 2006 and used Ankit exclusively for 6.5. I have recently bought 2007 and use Lahman for it. I set up 1 season with gambo and it took almost 2 full days to import the season. I tried a couple of times and it was taking forever and just decided to let it go to see how long it would take. A liitle over 40 Hours! Lahman never takes anywhere near that long. Anyone got any idea why? With the recalc on there is really no need for anything other than lahman but without it on Lahman always creates problem. For example, Rick Sutcliffe imports as a rookie with a 5 endurance making sure he will always be a reliever. I can change with the editor but I don't want to look up every rookie every year to make corrections. Therefore my desire to use a modified DB when I play without recalc on. I wish Ankit was still around to update his DB.

[Jason Moyer]

Is there a version of the database that's simply the Lahman one with the Federal League taken out of it? I hate how many star players in historical leagues are guys whose ratings are high because of a year or two in a farcical minor league.

Edit: N/m made my own.

[RJolley]

Nukester, did you release this program?

[Nukester]

Originally Posted by RJolley

Nukester, did you release this program?

No I havent. As I said above, it works great, but there is still some cutting and pasting and stuff in the game that needs to be done before it will work. I was not going to put it out there as is because it is still alittle crude, and I didnt really want to go through the hassle of supporting it, and Im the only one that ever used it, so it really hasnt been tested outside of my use. If your interested in it though, I could get it to you somehow. Once I get home, I can check my laptop to see how big the file is and see about emailing it or something. Somewhere around here Sandman wrote a random utility also, but Ive never used it so I cant comment on it or the way it works

Here is a readme I started for my utility, just so you can see whats involved in getting it to work in the game

Random Debut Generator for Lahman Database by Keith Newcomb

This program will give a random debut year for all players in the Lahman database (or equivelant modified databases). I have not attemped to normalize anything in this go around. This program only changes debut years, batting years, pitching years, fielding years, and birthyears accordingly.

The program is currently designed to create a new random debut year between 1900 and 2006 for all players. Idealy your league should begin in 1903 but I suppose you could start in any season from 1903 on. I choose 1903 because of the stability of the Major Leagues as far as team relocations. Thats just my personal preference. In the future I may modify the program to allow the user to choose the starting and ending date of the new random debuts.

The way OOTP works, only players already assigned to teams that exist in your league for the year of creation (ie: 1903) become part of the draft pool for an inaugural draft, after "releasing all". Also if too many players are assigned to a team, not all of them will show for an inaugural draft. The game seems to take players from each team by alphabetical order. Most of the time this is not a problem, but if you have 200 players assigned to a team, chances are they will not all show up. For this reason, all players are assigned to a team that has been around since 1903 (currently Cincinnati, Boston, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Detroit) when getting their new debut years. Because of this, your league should start with an inaugural draft in order to work correctly. Players will not be on their correct teams after importing. Delete all career stats and league stats after releasing all players for the inaugural draft.

In the original Lahman database, most players debuting in the 1800's have a different format for the debut year than players debuting in the 1900's (yyyy-mm-dd as opposed to mm/dd/yyyy). This program will modify all players to have the same format debut field, so players from the 1800's will be used by your league.

The program contains the .csv version of the Lahman database found here http://www.baseball1.com/ but you should be able to use any modified database, as long as the debut field is in the same format as the original Lahman database.

To start a league using this program:

1) Unzip the files to your C: drive. This should create a directory called "C:\RandomDebutApp" with subdirectories "original" (where the original .csv files are), "results" (where the new modified files are placed), and "tables" (used by the program to modify the database), along with the .exe file and a few other necessary files.

2) Run the randomlahman.exe file

3) Press the "Create Database" button

4) When the new database is created, click OK

5) Press the "Export" button

6) When the files are exported, click OK

7) Go to the C:\RandomDebutApp\Results directory and copy all files to whatever directory your OOTP game uses for importing into a new historical league (the program only modifies the master, batting, pitching, fielding, and fieldingOF files, but all files are needed for import into the game)

8) Start OOTP

9) Start a new historical league. Do check the "hold inaugural draft" option (you can check the option after the league is created too, but before doing anything else). Also make sure you allow foriegn players in your league.

10) Erase ALL career stats of all players (this should erase minor league player stats too)

11) Erase entire league history

12) Release all players to the free agent pool. If you have minor leagues enabled, you must release the players from the minor leagues also.

13) Run inaugural draft (the number of players eligible for the draft should match the number of players shown in the game\database info screen under "number of players"

I hope this works for you and you have fun with it !

[HuachucaThunder]

I am attemtping to load the Lahman Db so i can get some real players to start a historical league. Unfortunately I cannot get anything to work. I have attempted to follow the steps that Nukester put out here but that does not work for me as well.

I know the extracted files have to go somewhere for the files to be read and usable. I have tried putting the CSV files in the /data file, in the /text file and even the /tables file. But when I am prompted to select the CSV file I am looking to load, it does not allow me to do anything.

Is there an easy way to import the Db into the OOTP game so real players can be used?

Any help would be GREATLY welcomed

Thanks, HT

[Nukester]

What I posted above was to get a random debut league running with a utility I have. To get a historical league going, follow the steps in this thread

Getting ready to make history

[Mr. Capo]

I mostly use Arod-Garlon's random debut database. They've already done the work described above. I made a database routine similar to that described, but since I don't start a new league all that often, I've been satisfied with Arod-Garlon.

I remain puzzled that more people are not into what I call "cross-era" play. To me, it is by far the most fun way to play OOTP. When I tell people that I have this cool baseball simulation game, one of the first things many people will say is something like: "oh, so you can have Ruth face Clemons," or "you can have the '27 Yankees play the '61 Yankees" ...etc. It seems like what the game was made for, yet I see relatively little enthusiasm or support for it on these boards.

[DWK]

I used Gambo's DB to create my league I too like the fact the players appear in their correct Draft class.

[The Wolf]

Lahman 5.5

[DWK]

Can you switch Datebases after you created a league?

[The Wolf]

Why would you want to?