Import before 1900?

[HFBL]

How about adding the ability to import from the Lahman database starting in 1871?

[swampdragon]

Originally Posted by HFBL

How about adding the ability to import from the Lahman database starting in 1871?

I would love to see this as well, but there may be something about the database that makes that impractical. Puresim also limited historical leagues to 1901 and after. But if it's doable, it's near the top of my list as well.

[efgn]

Well, I think it only can export players via creation from Laxman database...

[BruceM]

I asked this question when 2007 was first announced:

Originally Posted by BruceM

Will we have the ability to import from Lahman pre 1901 historical leagues or are we still stuck with 1901 and forward?

And here is the reply from Markus:

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

At the moment still 1901+ ... but I am looking into the issue, so maybe I'll find a solution.

[Comedian2004]

I think they are trying to do that, but it would be low priority. You have to remember that the rules changes would really screw things up and be a LOT of work. Some of the things are:

You would strike out on a foul ball with 2 strikes
I think the number of balls to get a walk changed too.
At one point, the batter would call what pitch he wanted.
Batters were not awarded 1B when HBP.

I think there are some databases available that give you a solution to doing the import.

There are also so many missing stats from that time, not to mention that the teams sometimes had 3 or 4 man pitching staff, with the same guy pitching every other day.

[swampdragon]

Originally Posted by Comedian2004

I think they are trying to do that, but it would be low priority. You have to remember that the rules changes would really screw things up and be a LOT of work. Some of the things are:

You would strike out on a foul ball with 2 strikes
I think the number of balls to get a walk changed too.
At one point, the batter would call what pitch he wanted.
Batters were not awarded 1B when HBP.

I think there are some databases available that give you a solution to doing the import.

There are also so many missing stats from that time, not to mention that the teams sometimes had 3 or 4 man pitching staff, with the same guy pitching every other day.

The American League did not have the foul-strike rule until 1903. We can all pretend the rules were the same. The one and two man rotations were accounted for in OOTP2006. The missing stats, however, do seem to create anomalies in importing some 19th century players. I thought OOTP2006 did a little better on this than prior versions did, though.

[btheflash]

Originally Posted by Comedian2004

I think they are trying to do that, but it would be low priority. You have to remember that the rules changes would really screw things up and be a LOT of work. Some of the things are:

You would strike out on a foul ball with 2 strikes
I think the number of balls to get a walk changed too.
At one point, the batter would call what pitch he wanted.
Batters were not awarded 1B when HBP.

I think there are some databases available that give you a solution to doing the import.

There are also so many missing stats from that time, not to mention that the teams sometimes had 3 or 4 man pitching staff, with the same guy pitching every other day.

There have been all kinds of rule changes. The game takes the rules changes into account by adjusting the league totals, right? So in the 1800's there were hardly any walks, you can set the totals so there are 10 walks for every 1000 at bats(or whatever the stats are). This is how the game has always worked, isn't it? or am i wrong about this?

In ootp2006, you could have 1, 2, or 3 man pitching rotations I think

[Comedian2004]

There maybe other reasons that he has not done it that are code related.

I see on baseball-reference.com stuff like this:

At some point in the 1880's the pennant winner in the NL and presumably other leagues was changed from the team with the most wins to the team with the highest winning percentage. We make this changeover in 1883.

And this:


1887 - During this year, Major League Baseball and the guides reporting on that season decided that a walk was equivalent to a hit. This was the only season in which this was true. Total Baseball, the official encyclopedia of Major League Baseball, has at different times decided to honor and at other times has decided not to honor this scorekeeping method of the time and compute a player's batting average with walks as hits and at bats for that season. I had originally decided to go along, but now have changed my mind and have changed back to the standard method of computing batting averages and other stats. 1876 - Additionally, TB has at times recognized the convention that a walk was a charged at bat in 1876, so a player with four walks in four plate appearances will be credited with an 0 for 4 batting. I have decided to backtrack on this as well and restore the stats to as they were previously.

It is easy now to say that we can ignore the rule changes, but people would be screaming that it is not historical correct. As you can see, even Lahman is having troubles on how to JUST display the stats. We also have historical schedules for 1901-2006 and I am pretty sure that we do not have the schedules for pre-1901 anywhere.

Originally Posted by swampdragon

The American League did not have the foul-strike rule until 1903. We can all pretend the rules were the same. The one and two man rotations were accounted for in OOTP2006. The missing stats, however, do seem to create anomalies in importing some 19th century players. I thought OOTP2006 did a little better on this than prior versions did, though.

[Comedian2004]

Yes, you are correct, but as shown in my previous post, some of the rule changes would effect the pbp game of the aspect, like the walks, hbp, strikeouts, plus the endurance of the pitchers. I even remember reading somewhere that players from the other team have filled in for hurt players on the OTHER team.

I am not saying that it not do-able, but I know it would require a LOT of extra coding. The other baseball games that use the Lahman database also start in 1901.

And don't forget about the fielding. They just barely had gloves back then, if you can call them that. IMHO, the way the AI works before 1901 would have to be completely re-writen for the way the game was played back then.

But, Markus is an amazing programmer, so you never know what he will do with that part of the game. He wants it as complete as you do.

I will promise you this, the enjoyment you get from playing 1901-2007 will make you soon forget they played with bats and balls before 1901.

Originally Posted by btheflash

There have been all kinds of rule changes. The game takes the rules changes into account by adjusting the league totals, right? So in the 1800's there were hardly any walks, you can set the totals so there are 10 walks for every 1000 at bats(or whatever the stats are). This is how the game has always worked, isn't it? or am i wrong about this?

In ootp2006, you could have 1, 2, or 3 man pitching rotations I think

[Curtis]

Originally Posted by Comedian2004

We also have historical schedules for 1901-2006 and I am pretty sure that we do not have the schedules for pre-1901 anywhere.

Le Grande Orange has them back to around 1877, but whether he has the schedules as scheduled or the schedules as played (very different) I couldn't tell you. He could, though.

Originally Posted by Comedian2004

I will promise you this, the enjoyment you get from playing 1901-2007 will make you soon forget they played with bats and balls before 1901.

I'm athinkin' no, but we'll see.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Curtis

Le Grande Orange has them back to around 1877, but whether he has the schedules as scheduled or the schedules as played (very different) I couldn't tell you. He could, though.

Original schedules from 1877-1900, including for the third major leagues UA and PL. As played schedules from 1871-1876 (the NA didn't have fixed playing schedules, and there wasn't a fixed schedule published for the NL in 1876 as far as I can tell).

I've also got the 1894-1899 original schedules for the Western League (the forerunner of the American League) as well as the original schedule for the 1900 American League.

[The Wolf]

I'm a historical gamer and I'm perfectly happy with 1901 as the start year.

[JHruska]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

I'm a historical gamer and I'm perfectly happy with 1901 as the start year.

I'm a historical gamer, and I'm not.

[Comedian2004]

Who do you think you are LGO, Mr. Scheduler? OH, wait, you are.. never mind..

I was thinking last night that it would be nice to play that time of baseball, especially with all of the triples, but I really enjoy the 1901 forward quite a bit.

Even if you are not happy with not being able to play pre-1900, don't weigh your decision to check the new game out, as you will be missing a lot of fun.

Is there anyone that lurks the Puresim forum. I would be curious what their answer to the pre-1901 issue is.

[btheflash]

One of the problems was baseball was a big mess before 1900. In 1871 you had the National Association which started with nine teams and teams were added and dropped every year until it folded in 1875. Then the National League started, again teams were added and dropped out every year. Then there's the American Association which only lasted 10 season. And leagues like the Players union and players league which only lasted a couple of seasons.

You probably wouldn't want someone who is doing their first historical league to start before 1901 because of all the chaos. Maybe you could just have "unoffical" support for pre-1901 baseball. Only people who have some idea what they are doing should play pre-1901.

Also, I think Retrosheet has all the schedules, as played, for 1871 and beyond.

[JHruska]

The thing is, we've been finding ways since at least v4 to workaround the limitation and make the 19th century work. So why can't we just get one or two of the workarounds eliminated, get the ability to import (with full import options, which is impossible with the workarounds) and save hours of work? I don't give a damn if the pbp still has 3 strikes for a K and 4 balls for a BB any more than I need it to recognize underhand stiffarmed pitching motions. I just want the BB and K totals to come out to realistic numbers for that era.

[scprideandms]

My educated guess is it's not the rules changes, etc but the fact that whatever programming language / database / file system is running under the covers just plain doesn't understand date type fields. back before I got on a REAL computer with a large # of REAL programming languages with a REAL integrated db we accomplished exactly what we need for ALL dates by making them 8 digit numeric fields i.e. 18710501 for May 1, 1871 then wrote the necessary code to do date manipulation (duration between 2 dates etc).

Now I got it easy the db has actual data types for dates and times and built in fuctions in any # of languages and SQl to do the manipulation

Jsut my 2 cents worth of programming 25+ years

[Comedian2004]

Very good point sc*.

I think we will see it one day, as if anyone can do it, it would be Markus..

[Le Grande Orange]

There's also a lack of certain statistical data for pre-1901 players as well (and really there's a lack of certain statistical categories for a number of years even after 1901).

[Curtis]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

I'm a historical gamer and I'm perfectly happy with 1901 as the start year.

There's an awful lot of good players you miss out on entirely by bleeping over the 19th century, and others for whom you only get the tail ends of their careers. How can you live without watching Silver King bat cleanup?