1974 Season Thread (Season File is up!)

[gstelmack]

Well that was a bad season. Except for August, we had a great August, but can't believe this team ended up under .500.

Looks like my lineup was okay, except for some young guys (backup C Chris Larsen and SS/3B Miguel Luna). 2nd in the league in all the key stats. But my pitching was 6th in the league, and John MacDonald was not the reason after all. Looks like most of my other starters slipped though.

At least I've got two SP in AA who look like they may be able to make the leap to the majors next year, although they may need one more year in AAA before doing so.

Alas, I really did not get much for the payroll I spent...

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

BTW, congrats to the league champs. It may be old hat to Alan, but you have to acknowledge the dominance his team has established. Truly the top dynasty there.

And, DC, I have to think this is the most satisfying season for you, with how long this has taken and from where Chicago was when you took it over. So way to go on finally completing your rebuild.

Good luck to you both in the FOOL Classic.

Thanks Chief. I appreciate it.

Yes, the champagne tasted REALLY great this time. You start to appreciate them more when it's this hard to get back, I say that much. Given where we started in '70 when I got here, I knew we could get this team together, I had no idea when though and I never expected I'd officially complete a top-to-bottom rebuild, but that's precisely what we've done.

It's really exciting and I'm anticipating the Classic like none other. I haven't won a ring since '64. Hoping '74 will be just as kind to me.

[Young Drachma]

I'm calculating the VOCLs for 1974. Coupling that with Win Window over the past three years now, should reveal something interesting, maybe. I might go back and do a more comprehensive study. I will say, that even though it's more "accurate" it's harder to measure the impact of the statistic from year to year with the modifier changing, than before when it was a static number, because each year the target wasn't moving.

But it's just not an accurate measure to do it that way.

I might be able to figure out some sort of way to adjust the VOCL for modifier changes from year to year, too.

I dunno, we'll see how ambitious I'm feeling.

[Young Drachma]

1974 TEAM VOCL
(Modifier: 324.7)

VOCLs / Win Window / Expected Wins (+/-)

Atlanta 156.8 / 1.213 (+ 4)
Valdosta 136.2 / 1.157 (+ 7)
Quad City 116.8 / .928 (0)
Boston 92.0 / .585 (-4)
Rio Grande 83.8 / .596 (-4)
Baltimore 80.5 / .575 (+ 1)
Columbus 62.3 / .522 (+1)
Toronto 0.6 / -.035 (-7)
Hartford -1.4 / 0.017 (+1)
Texas -20.3 / -.158 (+1)
New Orleans -44.3 / -.378 (0) 
Compton -45.3 / -.320 (+1)
Ann Arbor -124 / -.857 (+1)
Colorado -138.9 / -1.006 (+2)
Brooklyn -148 / -1.221 (+1)
New York -207.4 / -1.593(0)

I can't find a correlation between Pythagorean expectation and VOCL. Teams are all over the map on these things and I think really, the VOCL gives credence to the idea of intangibles that we aren't able to measure to reflect why some teams play well better than expected versus others. I actually like that about the stat. It assumes that once you're over the "championship level" (the modifier number) of that year, you are officially championship level, so anything that happens after that, is totally within the realm of possibility.

It's like the NBA draft when a team has a 0.6 chance of getting the number #1 pick and then manages to do it. It's effectively says "there is a small chance this might happen" and well, it's proven right each time, so far.

When a negative VOCL team wins a league, then we can officially protest. But I don't think we'll see that, although, last year's QCY team (With a VOCL just over 5.6) came close to pulling off that feat, I guess.

I'm going to do a OOTP Mythbusters post on this, because well..it's interesting information -- to me.

[Young Drachma]

I posted it out in the baseball forum too. Why let all of the FOF guys have all of the fun?

Immersinik, the text sim blog | OOTP Mythbusters: What’s luck got to do with it?

an interesting comparison would be to see how your VOCL maps out vs the Pyth. Record. One compares based on a grouping of player’s perceived performance over the league average while the other bases upon a team’s perceived performance over the league average. I wonder if the two would map out parallel or not, and if one would provide more insight to teams that played over their head.

First off, here's a definition of VOCL for those who don't know.

So today’s Mythbusters question is: Does pythagoraen record correlate with VOCL?

I decided to do a three-year study of a league to see if this was indeed something that could be correlated or not.

The Pythagorean expectation effectively tries to measure how lucky/unlucky a team has been in a year. VOCL has no interest in luck. It measures player performance over a year to determine whether the team has the “right stuff” to be the best in the league. It evaluates this — with the new formula — based on the relative strength of the league, ensuring its accuracy across the leagues.

Looking that the chart above, we see there is no correlation between expected record and VOCL. Some years, the teams at the top get “luckier” and some years, they are unlucky. One reason for the lack of correlation, is because VOCL doesn’t try to do as much as expected record does. VOCL simply says “once you reach a positive VOCL, you are championship level and thus, it’s not impossible for you to make the playoffs.”

That’s it. It doesn’t assume the winner and it means nothing if a team that has a VOCL well over 100, gets trumped by one with half that for a playoff spot. VOCL isn’t judging teams based on measures other than relatively performance by your players, coupled by performance on the field to really let you know whether you are a “pretender” or a contender. It allows you to “ignore the standings” if you’re a team that has a mysteriously magical season and finished just out of first place.

One good example of this is Quad City in 1973. We finished just 2.5 games out of the first place tie that occurred that year. Our VOCL was just a mere 5.6 and we played above our heads. I suppose if you looked just at expected record, you’d be able to say “well gee, we really played above our heads. We aren’t that good.” But I knew that team was rebuilding and it was part of the rebuilding process that we’d reached that apex of being competitive for an entire season.

VOCL told me “you’re on the right track. Keep building, you’re not done yet.” Expected record told us “you were way better than you were supposed to. You’re not there yet.”

It’s not the same message though and the real issue here is, it’s not a consistent message. Teams at the top of the standings aren’t given any indication of truly “where they stand” other than looking at the standings and seeing where they finished at the end of the year, in relation to their peers. In that way, expected record gives them nothing to go on.

VOCL, on the other hand, gives them a lot to work with. You can compare VOCLs from year to year to get a snapshot of how competitive your team is. Not just in relation to the rest of the league, but to yourselves. And you can detatch yourself from the standings or a fluke year, to really evaluate/measure what sort of things you need to do to your team to improve it or tweak it further.

So to answer the question: Does pythagoraen record correlate with VOCL?

The answer is MYTH.

[Alan T]

I disagree, I think it does look like it correlates some. Just not the way you think it does.

[Alan T]

Look at this year, VOCL shows that Atlanta performed better than Valdosta. You write it off as saying once you are above a certain level, you are playoff quality so the difference between 136.2 and 156.8 is minor at that point. I don't think that is true, I think the numbers show that Atlanta was clearly the better team over the course of the season.

How did Valdosta beat Atlanta out for the title then, by several games?? According to the pyth expected record, Valdosta played waaay over their heads (the +7 is the largest difference over your three year study). So by this Valdosta got really lucky (perhaps a pay back of the 1969 season where Valdosta statistically was the better team but lost out to Brooklyn in the same vein). Now I'm on record about my issues with pyth. record, and how I think bullpens affect that, and if you look at my bullpen, it was quite stellar this season, so perhaps some of it was I was lucky, perhaps some of it was I just had a good bullpen, and perhaps some was some other unknown quantity.

Look at last season, Baltimore was in the hunt, and finished ahead of Valdosta. According to your VOCL, Baltimore was not "championship ready" yet. Atlanta and Valdosta both played right around equal to their pyth record, where this time Baltimore had a +7 last season, which was enough to jump them ahead of Valdosta and almost take the title from Atlanta.

You can see the same thing with your Quad City team from last year where your VOCL shows that QC shouldn't have been anywhere near contention, well Pyth record shows that you played way over your head and got either lucky or also somehow beat the system (using bullpen or some other factor that skews pyth record)..

So I debate your answer of Myth, and actually contend that your stats there prove my point, they do correlate well together.

[Alan T]

I'm curious as to how, is all. I can't see the correlation you see. It makes sense why it would correlate, I just can't seem to make it do that. Do you think it's just regurgitated expected record and doesn't have any real value? (VOCL, I mean?) Like, do you think we can get the same information from the expected record? Or that it's a tool that indicates what the Pythagorean expectation does?

I find all of this pretty fascinating.

Well my initial gut feeling is that VOCL is moreso a neat and tidy way of wrapping up a team's entire season of production from their players into a package for us to view. I'm not sure how well it can predict anything for the future due to player movement and up/down seasons.

What I feel so far that it is doing is taking the eternal debate between which shows a player's "production" better? a stat like VORP or simply looking at how many runs they score/drive in? This is somewhat a team's version of that where it takes the sum of the players' VORP from the team and combines them with a factor added to it, while the pyth expected record is very heavily dependant on runs scored/allowed.

I think in the end it is because more production usually = more runs = more wins, that the two kind of work well together.

I think something interesting to look at is if between '72 and '74 you can take one team's VOCL and find another similar VOCL and see if it comes out with a pretty similar expected pyth W/L record.

[Tasan]

Well that was odd. My minor pitching changes went in, but my lineup was completely wrong. Oh well, there's always next week.

Has one team ever fallen so far in one season in this league?

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Alan T

Look at this year, VOCL shows that Atlanta performed better than Valdosta. You write it off as saying once you are above a certain level, you are playoff quality so the difference between 136.2 and 156.8 is minor at that point. I don't think that is true, I think the numbers show that Atlanta was clearly the better team over the course of the season.

How did Valdosta beat Atlanta out for the title then, by several games?? According to the pyth expected record, Valdosta played waaay over their heads (the +7 is the largest difference over your three year study). So by this Valdosta got really lucky (perhaps a pay back of the 1969 season where Valdosta statistically was the better team but lost out to Brooklyn in the same vein). Now I'm on record about my issues with pyth. record, and how I think bullpens affect that, and if you look at my bullpen, it was quite stellar this season, so perhaps some of it was I was lucky, perhaps some of it was I just had a good bullpen, and perhaps some was some other unknown quantity.

Look at last season, Baltimore was in the hunt, and finished ahead of Valdosta. According to your VOCL, Baltimore was not "championship ready" yet. Atlanta and Valdosta both played right around equal to their pyth record, where this time Baltimore had a +7 last season, which was enough to jump them ahead of Valdosta and almost take the title from Atlanta.

You can see the same thing with your Quad City team from last year where your VOCL shows that QC shouldn't have been anywhere near contention, well Pyth record shows that you played way over your head and got either lucky or also somehow beat the system (using bullpen or some other factor that skews pyth record)..

So I debate your answer of Myth, and actually contend that your stats there prove my point, they do correlate well together.

Thanks for laying this out.

The main quibble is, Baltimore was championship level. A positive VOCL is championship level. Win Window is the stat where the closer you are to 1.000, the more likely you are to be in your "win window". But with VOCL, anything positive indicates championship level.

I think you make a good point that I'm glossing over "luck" but I'm really not. I'm taking it fully into account and VOCL isn't intended to be predictive or retrodicitive, it's meant to be like you say in the post after it, that it's meant to be a "snapshot" of the season to help you figure out "ok, how did my boys do..." and to allow you to use that measure as you go forward.

I'm also agree that you can't go from year to year with it, especially now that I've recalibrated it. Though I'm about to create a stat to reflect that better and it might point more to what you're suggest vis a vis expected record and VOCL.

Good times.

[Tasan]

Originally Posted by Alan T

Maybe it is because I've played OOTP leagues with Chief since almost as long as OOTP multiplayer existed, but he's always been one of my favorite coaches. Some pretty huge shoes to fill coming in after Chief I think.

Yeah I don't think they quite fit. Chief, I'm sorry ;- )

Hopefully, I'll do something better next season. I don't really see where I messed up, except for the lineup stuff, which could really be the whole issue.

[Alan T]

Baltimore '73 VOCL = 89.6
Boston '74 VOCL = 92.0

These two are only 2.4 off in VOCL scores thus should be fairly similar performing teams correct?

In 1973, Baltimore went 91-63 finishing 2nd in the CL
In 1974, Boston went 76-78 finishing a disappointing 4th in the RL.

The catch is as previously mentioned, Baltimore in 73 played well above their head and their expected pyth record was 84-70. This season Baltimore also seemed to underachieve and their expected pyth record was 80-74. Fairly similar records, but the differential going the opposite way of expected.

Ann Arbor '72 VOCL = -0.3
Hartford '74 VOCL = -1.4
Toronto '74 VOCL = 0.6

Of the three, Hartford ended up doing the best finishing with a 79-75 record, but an expected record of 78-76 (pretty close to .500).

Ann Arbor back in 1972 finished with a 76-78 record which exactly matched the pyth expected record, and in 1974 Toronto finished with a 74-80 record despite having the best VOCL of the bunch. The catch is Toronto's expected pyth record was 81-73 indicating that Toronto seemingly underachieved but put them a little closer to where we would expect vs the other two teams' records (even if perhaps a game or two better than expected).

In Toronto's case, they appear to have a pretty decent bullpen, so why the much lower than expected record? Well they went 7-8 in extra inning games and 23-27 in one run games.. So maybe they did just get unlucky.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Tasan

Yeah I don't think they quite fit. Chief, I'm sorry ;- )

Hopefully, I'll do something better next season. I don't really see where I messed up, except for the lineup stuff, which could really be the whole issue.

I wouldn't worry about it. You would've come in 6th place in the CL. I think it was really just reflective of a really strong RL this year. With teams like Hartford and Columbus surging as they did, there were no easy wins in the league this year, as we might've had in past years.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Alan T

Baltimore '73 VOCL = 89.6
Boston '74 VOCL = 92.0

These two are only 2.4 off in VOCL scores thus should be fairly similar performing teams correct?

In 1973, Baltimore went 91-63 finishing 2nd in the CL
In 1974, Boston went 76-78 finishing a disappointing 4th in the RL.

The catch is as previously mentioned, Baltimore in 73 played well above their head and their expected pyth record was 84-70. This season Baltimore also seemed to underachieve and their expected pyth record was 80-74. Fairly similar records, but the differential going the opposite way of expected.

Ann Arbor '72 VOCL = -0.3
Hartford '74 VOCL = -1.4
Toronto '74 VOCL = 0.6

Of the three, Hartford ended up doing the best finishing with a 79-75 record, but an expected record of 78-76 (pretty close to .500).

Ann Arbor back in 1972 finished with a 76-78 record which exactly matched the pyth expected record, and in 1974 Toronto finished with a 74-80 record despite having the best VOCL of the bunch.

These two are only 2.4 off in VOCL scores thus should be fairly similar performing teams correct?

Actually, with the way the VOCL formula has changed to adjust the "championship level" threshold to reflect the average team VORP across the entire league, just looking at VOCL from year to year isn't entirely accurate.

What do I mean?

I ran into this problem when I started tweaking that it was hard to read VOCLs from year to year as we could in the beginning. So I new a new stat was needed to make it easier to understand.

It's called V#. (V Sharp) allows you measure VOCLs between years.

The championship level in '72 was 303.5
In '73, it was 323.2
In '74, it was 324.7

A team with a 0 VOCL in '72 and the same VOCL in '74 would've been -21.2

In 1973, Baltimore went 91-63 finishing 2nd in the CL
In 1974, Boston went 76-78 finishing a disappointing 4th in the RL.

The difference between the two (Baltimore '73 v. Boston '74 was actually 3.9 after adjusting. That's still not a huge difference. But it doesn't do, is account for the improvement/decline of particular teams.

V# from '73-'74
This tells what teams have improved/declined based on adjusted VOCLs

17.2	Valdosta Peanuts
-232.0	Colorado Rancheros
-64.3	Boston Settlers
-305.4	Brooklyn Brownstones
1.2	Rio Grande Roadrunners
-7.4	Atlanta Firecrackers
93.0	Quad City Thunderstorms
24.5	Compton Brothers
-115.7	Ann Arbor Wolverines
-27.3	Baltimore Terrapins
124.5	Toronto Atlantics
-29.3	New York Highlanders
81.2	Hartford Harpooners
15.6	New Orleans Rens
17.2	Columbus Crusaders
115.2	Texas Copperheads

[Young Drachma]

Sabermetrics in an online fake baseball league is the pinnacle of geekery.

I'm gonna go...I dunno do something manly like shoot a moose or something.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

Sabermetrics in an online fake baseball league is the pinnacle of geekery.

I'm gonna go...I dunno do something manly like shoot a moose or something.

[TeachEnEspanol]

Good luck with your manly moose shooting!

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by Tasan

Yeah I don't think they quite fit. Chief, I'm sorry ;- )

Hopefully, I'll do something better next season. I don't really see where I messed up, except for the lineup stuff, which could really be the whole issue.

Heh...no need to apologize to me. It's your team now.

Seriously, though, look closely at how your hitters performed, particularly in average. It's perhaps not the best stat for determining actual performance, but it's a great stat to get a snapshot of where your team was offensively in relation to how they should be doing. You had, what, eight or nine hitters hit .230 or lower? Maybe not that many, but it was a crazy number. John King hits .215? Never happen again, no way. Finch is up to 78 CON and he hit .228. Most of the guys who hit that poorly simply have better ability to make contact than they showed. Just the luck of the numbers, IMO. A lot of these guys will bounce back next year.

Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't do nothing. You do have some pretty solid kids looking ready to play, like Trujillo and Tamura. That will help the offense, too. And I think missing Bruce hurt (and that was my decision, not yours). Ortiz didn't really work out too well, but Mike Stewart might be ready for that #5 spot if his control goes a little higher between now and spring training.

So there's still plenty of promise on the team on the team and I think you will bounce back next year.

Don't forget, though, you have Lopez and Goodwin up for new contracts. And carefully go through the Possible Free Agent list, because it's easy to get caught by surprise when someone (particularly a prospect) is up for free agency.

[Chief Rum]

Oh, yeah, and keep an eye on two years from now salary cap. Davis, Beens and Victor Gonzalez all become free agents after the 1976 season.

[Young Drachma]

New address for the league HTML, you can reach it here. I don't upload news and box scores to cut down on the upload size, but all of the graphics ought to be there, along with player cards.

[Tasan]

So there is no export tonight, right?

[kaosfere]

Righto. Non-Classic teams get a night to try to figure out what went wrong before diving back into the flurry of exports.

[magic_number]

Just wanted to say congrats to the league champs & to all who did their best...I work weekends (7 a.m. sharp) so I'm playing catch up here. I will look into all the details later & get back to you guys tomorrow... we lost power here for a while & it's been nuts. I hope we do better tonight when "Hanna" swings by later.

[Young Drachma]

Stay safe and don't get blown away! We'll be here when you get back.

[Alan T]

Its raining like crazy here in Massachusetts with strong winds.. I'd hate to have gone through the actual storm!

[ekcut]

Originally Posted by Alan T

Its raining like crazy here in Massachusetts with strong winds.. I'd hate to have gone through the actual storm!

One of the benefits of being in the Great White North I supose...No hurricaines and no earthquakes. Of course in the winter if you take a leak outside it's frozen before it hits the ground...but no-one has ever died from that....I think

[TurnerONU22]

Wow, is really all I have to say about this season.

I thought that we had some talent and if we put it all together, that we'd be a good ballclub, but to have a chance down to the final week is amazing. I got some great pitching this past year from my young guys, Perreault and Lopez, and Patrick Bentley showed that he still has some gas in the tank.

For my hitters, "the Aruban Assassin" Anibal Ramirez, was his usual self this year, hitting about .300 and a VORP almost to 50. My two big signings from Valdosta in '73, Ruben Mendoza bounced back to earn his paycheck this season and Juan Reyes had a solid season as well. Young guys Jose Isla and Cory Wagner smashed 28 and 23 HR's respectively.

All in all, we had a wonderful season, our best season ever, and hopefully we can get that one guy that can put us over the top next season and bring the RL title to Columbus.

[Young Drachma]

I love looking at FOOL history.

New York has only had 1 guy whose ever played right field for them. When Fernando Spindola finally hangs 'em up -- and I suspect that'll be soon -- it'll be interesting to see how they go about replacing such a huge legend. He's like the Babe Ruth of our league and his career has lasted a lot longer than I anticipated it might.

Rio Grande has only had two guys ever play right field for them. A similarly intriguing feat to me. I'm looking forward to seeing how we view this phase of history a few months from now, after we've inducted guys into the HoF and can evaluate different years of players, etc.

If we continue this phase of 15 seasons per quarter (we took 2 weeks off between Seasons 3 and 4, to anticipate the release of OOTP9) we'll be in 1991 by December and 2021 by next June for the 1st anniversary of the league.

All presuming the grand experiment lasts that long. I'm just thinking about how crazy that is.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by TurnerONU22

Wow, is really all I have to say about this season.

I thought that we had some talent and if we put it all together, that we'd be a good ballclub, but to have a chance down to the final week is amazing. I got some great pitching this past year from my young guys, Perreault and Lopez, and Patrick Bentley showed that he still has some gas in the tank.

For my hitters, "the Aruban Assassin" Anibal Ramirez, was his usual self this year, hitting about .300 and a VORP almost to 50. My two big signings from Valdosta in '73, Ruben Mendoza bounced back to earn his paycheck this season and Juan Reyes had a solid season as well. Young guys Jose Isla and Cory Wagner smashed 28 and 23 HR's respectively.

All in all, we had a wonderful season, our best season ever, and hopefully we can get that one guy that can put us over the top next season and bring the RL title to Columbus.

I actually enjoy watching former Valdosta players do well for other teams as long as they do it in the RL and not for Atlanta! Alot of these guys I wish I could have kept but became salary cap casulties. Good to see that former Peanut Pat Bentley did so well!

I am suprised that Juan Reyes hasn't done better for you. I think I was more upset at losing him than I was at losing Edgardo Reyes that season. I just couldn't give him the cash he wanted!

Mendoza is funny, you know he is going to have a good year when he hits left handers better than right handers. For some reason, even though he is a lefty, he has always hit leftys better. One of the interesting things about OOTP I guess. I know some players in the MLB do that as well, so a neat touch I guess that it also happens here.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

I love looking at FOOL history.

New York has only had 1 guy whose ever played right field for them. When Fernando Spindola finally hangs 'em up -- and I suspect that'll be soon -- it'll be interesting to see how they go about replacing such a huge legend. He's like the Babe Ruth of our league and his career has lasted a lot longer than I anticipated it might.

Rio Grande has only had two guys ever play right field for them. A similarly intriguing feat to me. I'm looking forward to seeing how we view this phase of history a few months from now, after we've inducted guys into the HoF and can evaluate different years of players, etc.

If we continue this phase of 15 seasons per quarter (we took 2 weeks off between Seasons 3 and 4, to anticipate the release of OOTP9) we'll be in 1991 by December and 2021 by next June for the 1st anniversary of the league.

All presuming the grand experiment lasts that long. I'm just thinking about how crazy that is.

My positional register is a mess. Look at the revolving door that is 1B for me ever since Palmer left. At what historically is an easy to get position for a big bat, I've been singularly unable to get anyone long term there.

[Cringer]

So as I look at other guy's minor systems, I pretty much know now I suck at drafting I guess. Or I have horrible luck. Or both. I wish I had time to do some good solo play just so I could get 'practice' at it, not sure I could squeeze that in though.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Cringer

So as I look at other guy's minor systems, I pretty much know now I suck at drafting I guess. Or I have horrible luck. Or both. I wish I had time to do some good solo play just so I could get 'practice' at it, not sure I could squeeze that in though.

I can't imagine your minor leagues are worse than mine

[Young Drachma]

The minors are in transition now, as "super players" are leaving and we're being left with "average Joes" that aren't steroid enhanced. The 80s are gonna be reeel interesting.

[Cringer]

Originally Posted by Alan T

I can't imagine your minor leagues are worse than mine

In a quick glance, I would probably take yours over mine. I have VERY little in my minors. And the guys I do have with some stars are questionable on if they are actually going to develop so far. One of my top pitching prospects had 19 losses last year in AAA. The other one is already 25 and isn't close to being ready for FOOL play. Hopefully I have some surprises coming to me, but I am not holding my breath.

[Cringer]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

The minors are in transition now, as "super players" are leaving and we're being left with "average Joes" that aren't steroid enhanced. The 80s are gonna be reeel interesting.

Yes it will start to move that way for sure, though we have really only had one 'normal' draft so far. I don't have much to show for those steroid drafts.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

The All-Star Game is October 4th, after the Classic. We'll be even more like the NFL now.

Just making sure since this post made me have some doubt. The FOOL Classic is being pushed back 5 days before starting like it has in past years correct?

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Alan T

Just making sure since this post made me have some doubt. The FOOL Classic is being pushed back 5 days before starting like it has in past years correct?

No. It's a 3-day break. The Classic was only ever pushed back because of the All-Star Game. Now that it's out of the way, we could go with the way the AI has already set it up. But to give guys a few days rest before the weekend after the season makes sense. So it's setup like a regular TV schedule.


The schedule will be:

19: @ Valdosta
20: @ Valdosta
21: @ Quad City
22: @ Quad City
24: @ Valdosta
25: @ Valdosta
27: @ Quad City
28: @ Quad City
30: @ Valdosta

[magic_number]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

As an Angels fan, I can't really see anything wrong with this statement.

Hey, magic number, last month I made it a point to fly out to New York to catch a game at Yankee Stadium before they tear it down. I had a blast, lots of fun, although New Yorkers need to figure out that plain yellow mustard is pretty good on hotdogs, too--you don't need to only have spicy brown everywhere (oh, yeah, and where's the m'f'n relish?!?).

If I ever figure out how to upload my photos from the trip, I'll put up some shots here from my trip there. I know you have seen it all, but I think a couple of my shots are pretty neat. The Yankees fans I met were great, although it helped me blend in that I was wearing a Yankees cap.

Only downer was the Yanks absolutely blasted the Royals that day, so the game was practically over by the 2nd inning.

I sorta regret not going to Shea, but if you want to tease your friend, tell him you know someone who specifically made a trip to see Yankee Stadium AND stayed at a place that was literally a couple blocks away from Shea--and yet I did not catch a Mets game (not even sure they were in town, actually).

Oh no, not an Angels fan! You guys have been spoiling it for the Yanks in this century. I can't even see a monkey without breaking out in a cold sweat. How do you feel about the name change, I kind of liked the way it sounded before, too many LA teams anyway.

Thats probably why I hate relish and love spicy mustard. I put the spice on everything. You should look into NY consumer law, there maybe a class action suit in it for you.

Shea stadium is no match for the cathedral, I've always hated their orange seats. I'll be sure to zing it along to my bro, but he's used to it by now. I wonder if the Mets will be crying for a new stadium "just to stay competative". I'm sure the big apple can afford it.

If you can, post your pics, I'm always down to gaze upon her again. I'm glad you had a good time there and I'm sure the cap helped. In all fairness, most fans are pretty cool but you do get the occasional asshole here and there. If I see something getting out of hand I'm quick to get the crowd to boo the offender and that usually does the trick. Families come to this stadium and people should act correct. Security is much better these days anyway. I hope to make down there one more time b4 it's all over. I'll be great if I can ever go to LA & catch some games...how manys teams play within a short distance of each other? Must be like a dozens.

Peace

[magic_number]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

Shocking stat of the season that I have seen so far: 7.

As in 7 SBs...for an entire team for a whole season! Compton! Geez, magic number, did you have that team on strict orders to go station to station or what?

Well I knew my pitching was going to suck so I was counting on the big inning to save my butt. I knew I was going to get a bunch of homers and strikeouts so I kept my guys from running me out of a rally. My starters are real slow and I didn't have any reference point to set their steal attempts so I played it safe. Too bad my leadoff man, who I just signed to a three year / 23 mil. deal sucked big time this year. I was hoping for better. Well trial and error, it's a risky business indeed. I plan to steal many more bases this year, say about 10 just to be crazy .