1897

[spark240]

Having read A Game of Brawl recently, and being entirely dissatisfied with the faked-up 19th-century structures provided with OOTP9, I'm thinking about working up a more genuine 1897 world. I want the 12-team National League with real players, real ballpark factors, and real schedules, plus the Ban Johnson Western League and at least some of the other independent minor leagues of that year.

Before I plunge into this work, I just thought I'd ask... has anyone done, or planned on doing, anything along these lines?

[swampdragon]

Originally Posted by spark240

Having read A Game of Brawl recently, and being entirely dissatisfied with the faked-up 19th-century structures provided with OOTP9, I'm thinking about working up a more genuine 1897 world. I want the 12-team National League with real players, real ballpark factors, and real schedules, plus the Ban Johnson Western League and at least some of the other independent minor leagues of that year.

Before I plunge into this work, I just thought I'd ask... has anyone done, or planned on doing, anything along these lines?

It would be a bit of a challenge, although the information is available to do most of those things from. The hardest thing, IMO, would be to do the minor leagues, including the Western League, accurately. I have no idea of how to normalize the stats and figure the MLEs of the Western, International, Southern, or Texas Leagues. And of course, the farther down the system you go the harder that gets with no equivalent to the Lahman database for those players. Paper of Record with the Sporting News could help, and there are decent books on the higher minors with rudimentary stats.

[spark240]

Originally Posted by swampdragon

I have no idea of how to normalize the stats and figure the MLEs of the Western, International, Southern, or Texas Leagues. And of course, the farther down the system you go the harder that gets with no equivalent to the Lahman database for those players.

I'd be satisfied with a fairly rigorous recreation of the NL, plus reasonable facsimiles of a couple other leagues. I'm okay with using realistic-for-era fictional players in the minors, and even some of them jumping into the NL, as long as it looks right. I do want something to go on for the relative strengths of the leagues, though.

[swampdragon]

Originally Posted by spark240

I'd be satisfied with a fairly rigorous recreation of the NL, plus reasonable facsimiles of a couple other leagues. I'm okay with using realistic-for-era fictional players in the minors, and even some of them jumping into the NL, as long as it looks right. I do want something to go on for the relative strengths of the leagues, though.

The Lahman database plus a decent encyclopedia should be able to provide most of what you need for the NL, in that case. That will get you rudimentary park factors, which I imagine is all that are available unless you have access to some SABR work I don't know about. Paper of Record even has most of the boxscores from the season.

You may be able to create an historical league and assign players to their original teams instead of holding a draft. Then you'd move four teams from the American League the game created over to the National League and delete the American League. After that, you'd have to input the as-played NL schedule from Retrosheet into the game manually. It's time-consuming, but doable. Remember to uncheck the automatic expansion option. I think that will give you a good 1897 replay, but I'd make no representations about whether the league would survive into the 20th century without crashing. You'd almost certainly need to manually handle the franchise changes in preseason for 1900 and 1901, and even then I have no idea of what the effect will be. Let me know if you try it and how it turns out.

I guess something else you could try that might be a little more stable would be to rename the American League to the Western League and expand the National League to add the four extra franchises. You'd still have to rebuild the National League's part of the schedule, but you could turn off playoffs and let the two subleagues operate independently. Then you could just contract the National League in 1900 down to eight teams. You could even use Paper of Record to find out who was in the Western League in 1897 and import those guys manually. It sounds like fun, but very challenging and time-consuming to set up.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by swampdragon

After that, you'd have to input the as-played NL schedule from Retrosheet into the game manually.

No need to do that. I have the original schedules for the NL all the way back to 1877. Alternatively, if you wanted to use the as played schedules, an import of the Retrosheet game log for that year into Excel or similar spreadsheet app and a little tinkering therein will result in a file which can be easily converted for use in OOTP.

As to the Western League, I've already got its schedules back to its start in 1894. I know the Southern League and Texas League schedules pre-1901 were published in The Sporting News. I have a list of the specific issues if needed.

Originally Posted by swampdragon

I guess something else you could try that might be a little more stable would be to rename the American League to the Western League and expand the National League to add the four extra franchises.

That is historically correct since the Western League became the American League in 1900, and then declared itself a major league in 1901.

[ashantewarrier]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

No need to do that. I have the original schedules for the NL all the way back to 1877. Alternatively, if you wanted to use the as played schedules, an import of the Retrosheet game log for that year into Excel or similar spreadsheet app and a little tinkering therein will result in a file which can be easily converted for use in OOTP.

As to the Western League, I've already got its schedules back to its start in 1894. I know the Southern League and Texas League schedules pre-1901 were published in The Sporting News. I have a list of the specific issues if needed.

That is historically correct since the Western League became the American League in 1900, and then declared itself a major league in 1901.

So the release of these schedules are imminent? Like today?

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by ashantewarrier

So the release of these schedules are imminent? Like today?

Sadly, I'm afraid not. I've been jammed up with non-OOTP matters of late.

[spark240]

Originally Posted by swampdragon

You may be able to create an historical league and assign players to their original teams instead of holding a draft. Then you'd move four teams from the American League the game created over to the National League and delete the American League.

But you can't have the game assign players historically before 1901, right? I have a version saved now with the correct 1897 NL structure and correct players on each team, but I had to do it with forced "trades" to get everybody in the right place.

Originally Posted by swampdragon

I guess something else you could try that might be a little more stable would be to rename the American League to the Western League and expand the National League to add the four extra franchises. You'd still have to rebuild the National League's part of the schedule, but you could turn off playoffs and let the two subleagues operate independently. Then you could just contract the National League in 1900 down to eight teams.

Right, but then the Western League gets treated as a full major (a subleague equivalent to the NL) from the get-go. I don't want that.

[ashantewarrier]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Sadly, I'm afraid not. I've been jammed up with non-OOTP matters of late.

understood.