Believe It or Don't!
 
   What if I don't believe, could I look it up?


     


           April 20, 1951

 
 

Hot & Cold!  I have 3 teams now that all stumbled out of the gate, falling early to 13 games below .500:

1. Babe's Cavalcade of Stars (MLB100338) started 23-36 -- since then have gone 47-27 to improve to 70-63.
2. Manny Mota & Friends (MLB100555) started 10-23 -- since then have gone 25-9 to improve to 35-32
3. The La Marr Hoyt Pickers (MLB100451) started 20-33 -- since then have gone 19-28, still stink at 39-61.

2 out of 3 ain't bad!

Believe It or Don't!

The regular season just ended for a team of mine in an 80M clone league.  I went with cheap home runs (a bunch of Dave Kingmans, a couple of Rudy Yorks, with two good OBP Eddie Stankys at the top of the order) and a deadball pitcher (Jack Quinn x 10) in a big HR park (Yankee Stadium III).  The plan was to overwhelm other teams with home runs and not allow many ourselves.

As it turns out, my team led the league in HR by a wide margin: we hit 247 (2nd place hit 153, 3rd 118, no other team over 100, the average was 67).  My all-Jack Quinn staff was also very successful at preventing HR: only 36 allowed, good for 7th best in the league. 

We hit about 7 HR for every HR we allowed.  Sounds good, right?

Nope!  We finished 81-81 and two miles out of a playoff spot!

Believe It or Don't!

What did you allow then, too many touchdown passes ?

A lot of things went wrong with this team.  With 20 games left we were 78-64 and 2 or 3 games out of a playoff spot -- then we went 3-17 down the stretch.  We were 13-29 vs. division rivals, which didn't help, either.

In a 24-team we were 8th in runs scored and 8th in ERA.  But we made a ton of errors and minus plays (that's what you get when Dave Kingman is playing 4-5 positions for you per game), so we gave up a lot of unearned runs.  

Finally, we were hurt by other owners' choice of  pitchers/parks.  The league was full of right-handed deadball pitchers and minus HR parks; of the 11 other teams in our league, 1 was HR neutral, 10 were HR negative (and usually very negative -- minus 3 or minus 4).   As many HR as we hit, we obviously needed to hit many more.  You really don't want your small army of Dave Kingmans facing Addie Joss in Petco...

At least he would strike out less. But the batting avg - ooh ! ugly eh ? 

Pretty bad -- .250 team average, 18th in the league.  Best SLG, though, and 2nd best OPS.

I'm in the playoffs now in a 90M theme league, facing an Alan Trammell-captained team (Trammell plus 24 teammates, no twisting).  At the start of the season I took note of this team because a) Trammell was one of my favorite players and b) I figured this team probably wouldn't make the playoffs, as the Tigers didn't  have any dominant starting pitchers from 1977-96.

Two of the SP's for this team were 1981 Jack Morris and 1981 Dan Petry.  In real life they had similar stats, but Morris was the better pitcher:

Morris:
ERC# 2.77
HR/9# .61
OAV# .222
WHIP# 1.19 
BB/9# 3.58

Petry:
ERC# 3.01
HR/9# .61
OAV# .227
WHIP# 1.24
BB/9# 3.67

In this league (which had a DH), Morris went 16-15 with an ERA of 5.39.  Considering this was an offensive league (average team ERA of 5.17) and the home park (Tiger Stadium), I think those numbers are reasonable.

Petry, on the other hand, went 20-8 with a 3.53 ERA -- nearly two runs a game better than Morris -- and finished 2nd in Cy Young voting!

Believe It or Don't!

Believe It or Don't

My OL team is playing out of its mind right now.  They can't seem to lose a game.  60-20 while getting a ton of playing time (26% of total PA) from my AAA.  I am enjoying while it lasts!

There's a team in my 1918 prog that ended its season with an 11L streak.  Nothing unusual about an 11L streak, especially in a prog where the differences in team salaries can be huge.  So what's special about this team and its 11L streak?  This team was the World Series runner-up -- it lost its final 7 regular season games, then went straight to the World Series (only 2 teams make the playoffs in this prog) and lost 4 more.

Believe It or Don't!

Here's a fun one...I have Nolan Ryan in a single season prog that just finished the 1973 season.  In '73 Ryan finished 10th in the NL in strikeouts. 

Nothing unusual there, you say?  Well, I meant he finished 10th among batters.  In 155 at bats, Ryan fanned 104 times in putting up a .077/.077/.116 line.  I've never seen a modern era pitcher finish in the top 10 in any batting category.

Oh, while he was on the mound, Ryan managed to strike out 504 opposing hitters in 408 1/3 innings.  The "+400 strikeout differential" may also be a record.

Deadball era progressive. My team leads the league in fielding percentage at .966. Leading 4-3 going into the 8th, this half-inning happens:

	C.Milan takes a pitch off the arm.
DPOD	R.Connor walks.
DP	H.Groh misplays a routine grounder and J.O'Rourke reaches on the error.
DP+-	P.Hines boots a routine grounder and F.Maisel reaches on the error. C.Milan scores.
DP	H.Groh fields the groundball but makes a bad throw to 1B. J.Rowe reaches on the throwing error. R.Connor scores.
DP	J.Connolly can't handle a flyball and E.Andrews reaches on the error. J.O'Rourke scores.
DP	R.Williams hits a laser beam into LF for a double. F.Maisel scores. J.Rowe scores. E.Andrews scores.
	R.Russell enters the game to pitch.
SH	L.Cheney lays down a sacrifice bunt to C. All runners advance.
II	N.Hanlon hits a groundball single to CF. R.Williams scores.
DP	C.Milan hits an infield single to 2B.
	S.Baumgartner enters the game to pitch.
DP	R.Connor grounds it past the mound into CF for a single. N.Hanlon scores.
DP	J.O'Rourke hits into a 4-6 fielder's choice. C.Milan scores.
	F.Maisel flies out to deep LF.

4 errors in a row. Believe it or don't. Imagine being a fan at that particular game. Ouch.

I've commished the Random Captain theme for 20 seasons now.  In the latest (20th) season, with no rule changes at all, team offenses went up dramatically across the board.  In fact, four teams from this season now hold down the #1, 2, 4 and 5 spots for most team runs in the history of the theme!  Believe It or -- wait, not finished yet.  All four of these high-powered teams finished under .500 and out of the playoffs!  Believe It -- hold on, not done.  The team that set the record for most runs in the history of this 20-season theme set one other record -- most losses, with 117!

Believe It or Don't!