America's Game no more: The Globalisation of Baseball, 1919-???? (OOTP Baseball 18)

[IceAgeComing]

Baseball. It may not be the best bat and ball sport in the world; but it is the only one to have a truly great management game for it. The Out of the Park Baseball series is the only game of the genre to really challenge Football Manager in terms of how accurately it handles its sport, in terms of depth of gameplay and in terms of replayability - in some ways it goes further, as seen below. It goes far beyond anything that Cricket has; both games, while being quite fun have serious drawbacks which is a huge, huge shame: if there was a game like this for Cricket I'd play the shit out of it, its fab!

You see the best bit of OOTP 18 isn't the great match engine, or the intuitive scouting system or the boatload of useful stats it tracks. Two key features sell me on the game: firstly the ability to play any historical MLB season dating back to 1901 (they claim back to 1871 but before then its a bit dodgy and not at all historical) including the full minor league system from 1915 (when the Texas league, the first thing resembling a modern minor league) was formed and in the new version, the Negro Leagues which contained a large number of great non-white players whose race barred them from the all-white MLB. Secondly, you can create from scratch a Baseball League system from any country you wish and it'll generate large chunks of stuff for you (backed up by an historically accurate financial and player creation system which ensures that the game tracks how the game developed through time): made better in the new game by the addition of international competitions and an automated promotion/relegation system, which helps to make simulating this sort of thing easier.

So that's what I'm doing: starting from 1919 I'm going to load in the historic US leagues; add in fictional leagues from a variety of countries through time (starting with England and Scotland at the moment, more will develop as time goes on) and I'll let the thing run and talk about it. After a few years I might jump into a team that's not doing well and try to lead them through the ranks to the top, but that's not going to be until things settle down a little in the game first. I don't know if this will be particularly interesting to anyone but I'll stick with it for a while and if it gets traction, fab! The next post will be a little bit of historical background, then I'll start with the 1919 season (which is actually already done and was simulated before I actually planned to do this, so things will end up a little vague - I'm actually through to the 1920 Olympic Gold Medal game which inspired me to do this).

 

[IceAgeComing]

The Origins of British Baseball, until 1919
(Source: )

At the time of the . The fact is that Baseball, while developed into the game that we know today in the late 19th century, was based on a game called Base-ball that was played in England in the eighteenth century. There's a long tradition of bat and ball sports in Britain; with games such as "stoolball" (a game still played in some parts of Sussex which resembles Cricket) being popular in different areas across the UK. The common belief that Baseball developed directly from rounders is likely to be incorrect, with new evidence suggesting that both games were regional variations of each other. The first reference to a game called "base-ball" is in a book published in 1744, containing a rhythmic description and a woodcut picture resembling the modern game to a remarkable degree. The first recorded game of "bass-ball" took place in 1749 in Surrey, and featuring the Prince of Wales as a player. Its now believed that this form of the game was transported to Canada and from there to America, the first reference to the game over the Atlantic was in the laws of the town of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, banning the playing of the sport within a certain distance of the new town hall. A version of Baseball played to this day in parts of Wales is similar to the older versions; using poles for the bases and banning over-arm pitching.

In some respects, the reason for the popularisation of the game in the British Isles resemble those as to why Baseball grew so popular in America. During the American Civil War, Baseball was adopted by a large number of people to replace Cricket (then the most popular sport in the country) since it was more practical to play in a short amount of time. The same thing happened in Britain during the war: with Cricket almost entirely suspended (unlike Football which retained more casual regional leagues in place of the Football League major competitive County Cricket was stopped entirely during the War) an alternative summer sport could develop to replace it: and so Baseball began to grow in popularity. While the game (in its edited form) had returned to the United Kingdom pre-war. These edited versions of Baseball played wherever space could be found, and more organised games were hastily organised. By 1916 regional competitions had begun to form, held between the work places of those men who were not fighting at the front for whatever reasons. Women also played the game at this time, with inter-factory games between war workers seen as a way to build moral during the difficult middle years of the war.

A large number of the Football Clubs; especially those in the North of England and Scotland saw the opportunities that this game could present to them. It'd provide them with another sport to present to fans during the simmer months; perhaps give their players an opportunity to stay fit during the summer although quickly both sports stopped sharing any players. This led to a meeting of the executives of most Football League clubs in early 1918, proposing that upon the completion of the war and as soon as practical, a national Baseball league be set up along the lines of the Football League. Although there were arguments against such a league by those with some kind of involvement in Cricket, the league was approved later that year, and would go ahead in 1919. The debate in Wales was more complex and mostly about what code of the rules to adopt, with "American" Baseball and "Welsh" Baseball being the predominant code in different areas of the country. Although a "Welsh Base-ball Association" was formed, it spent most of its first five years deciding what game to officially sanction. The political situation in Ireland made officially organising any type of sport politically difficult, and the political climate in most of the country made the arrival of this invader unwelcome amongst major political leaders.

On the first Saturday of April 1919, teams across England met for the first games played in the English Base-ball League. The League was made up of two divisions of 20 teams, with every team bar one (Leeds City; formed in 1918 and with no relation to the former Football club) linked to either a Football League or Southern League Football team. The Scottish League (at this point a single division of sixteen teams, expansion considered a possibility) held its first games a month later. Although the rules were identical between the sport wherever it was played: there was one key difference, ball parks in the UK were much, much smaller. While many of the grounds used in America were very large by modern standards (up to 600 feet from the plate to the centre field wall in some cases), British teams often had parks with similar sizes to modern grounds and with much lower walls - the latter remained the case until seating was installed in many of them. This would lead to the English game appearing a lot more attacking than the American one still struggling through the dead ball era: and would explain the major style differences between the two leagues. One other component of this was the "1/2 rule" which would remain an integral part of the rules of British Baseball until the Kolpak and Bosman rulings, in which teams would only be allowed now foreign pitcher and two foreign batters. Designed to prevent a potential influx of American players, the economic conditions of post-war Britain made this a very unlikely prospect.

Whilst this new sport was kicking off: amongst the criticisms levied against it for being a sport from afar and that its vulgar professionalism might kill off the more gentlemanly Cricket (which of course has not happened: while club Baseball remains more popular than county Cricket; International Cricket outdraws most Baseball teams, with international Baseball incredibly limited) one thing was made clear: that this was the latest fad, a flash in the pan sport that would fizzle as soon as it appeared. The 1919 Baseball season, however, would go a long way in making sure that did not happen.

(Not 100% happy with this but it will have to do; I'll go through 1919 tomorrow - its a really interesting season in one place)

 

[Targaryen]

@IceAgeComing, it was quite interesting. Will this be continued in near future? Really excited to see more of this game and it's simulation.