First up, the Classic Franchise League that has been the focus of my play and my writing in the past few weeks:
OPENING DAY: March 3, 2009 (my oldest, most mature league)
MOST RECENT GAME: July 31, 2015 (430 league games played)
THEME/PURPOSE: The CFL started out as a vehicle for a 2003 All-Star team I wanted to play with. The 2003 Stars played four of these teams (Cleveland, LA, Milwaukee, and the Yankees) and a few other great teams from Strat's terrific 42 Old-timer Team set. After a while, I was more drawn into the "classic franchises" than I was the 2003 Stars. I retired the Stars and played an 8-team league through a 59-game schedule. The Dodgers won the initial incarnation of this league, ending in 2011, and I thought I was done. Then, however, I got creative: I selected the four teams mentioned above, added in the Mets (from another defunct league), and the Turn of the Century Hall-of-Fame team, and re-started the league with wins, losses, and statistics carried over. I was drawn into the idea of having these great teams complete a season of 150+ games. In a nutshell, this has been an evolving league with several themes along the way! (For an even more complete overview of the evolution of this league check out this post.)
QUICK THOUGHTS: By playing .750 ball, the Turn of the Century team has been dis-invited! The remaining five teams will play an amended schedule that will get each to about 154 games each. Unless I change my mind . . .
I've also got a Depression Era League with a Dust Bowl Division and a Pre-War Division:
OPENING DAY: February 21, 2012
MOST RECENT GAME: May 17, 2015 (120 league games played)
THEME/PURPOSE: I wanted to explore the 1941 and 1934 seasons which, at the time, had been recent purchases of mine. Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams are the obvious stalwarts of the 1941 set and the 1941 Dodgers are one of my favorite teams of all-time! The Depression Era division has some fun teams with those Cubs, Athletics, and Tigers teams all among the most powerful offenses ever.
QUICK THOUGHTS: The Dodgers are rocking, the Senators are flailing, and everyone else is treading water. These teams make lots of errors, have little pitching depth, and can knock the cover off the baseballs - lots of high-scoring games where no lead is safe!
A more mature league, in terms of games played, is my "Johnson-Nixon" league with teams from 1964 populating the Johnson Division and 1971 teams comprising the Nixon Division:
OPENING DAY: June 17, 2011
MOST RECENT GAME: July 14, 2014 (230 league games played)
THEME/PURPOSE: The 1964 and 1971 seasons are filled with interesting teams. Even the bad teams are fun to manage - I'm loving those 1964 KC A's! One of the most fun blend of teams I've ever assembled. The Expos were once 14-15 before hitting some tough times.
QUICK THOUGHTS: The 1964 Twins are ahead of schedule - in real life, they won the American League pennant in 1965 but were also-rans in '64. Not so here. Good league to be a pitcher named "Jim:" Jim Bunning, Jim Maloney, Jim Hunter, Jim Palmer, Jim Grant, Jim Kaat, Whitey "Jim" Ford . . . okay that last one is a joke but the rest have been terrific. A definite pitchers' league. Now dormant for over a year but I can truly say I have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of these teams and will return to them sometime soon.
I put together a number of teams from the 1920s (and a few teams from earlier than that) to create a "Roaring Twenties" league:
OPENING DAY: February 9, 2014
MOST RECENT GAME: February 2, 2015 (120 league games played)
THEME/PURPOSE: I wound up purchasing, through Strat and an active Strat second-hand market, the 1911, 1920, 1924, and 1927 seasons in quick succession. The style of play is sooooo different. for example, there are many guys with 20 stolen bases and more than 20 times caught stealing. Those 1911 Giants are crazy that way with one guy (I think it's Fred Snodgrass) with 51 steals in 100 attempts. That kind of percentage is clearly understood by today's analysts as being worse than never trying for stolen bases at all. But, back then, it was a healthy sign of "aggressiveness" or a display of smart, "inside" baseball and managers tolerated a lot of runners being thrown out on the bases. Of course, no one was hitting homeruns so you had to generate runs somehow.
QUICK THOUGHTS: I've adapted to the times - letting runners go even when my modern mindset knows it's a bad idea. This is a league with Tris speaker, Walter Johnson, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Grover Alexander, and Rogers Hornsby all at their peaks - tremendous fun!
A league that receives scant attention is called the Cross-Era League. It features teams from across the century and three teams made up of players from Strat's Baseball Heroes set (excellent, but not quite Hall-of-Fame players).
OPENING DAY: October 23, 2011
MOST RECENT GAME: August 22, 2014 (126 league games played)
THEME/PURPOSE: I wanted to explore the Baseball Heroes set and created this league to test them out. You'll note each division has a Heroes team, a team from the early part of the 20th century, a 1964 team, and a 2004 team. The Heroes players are selected by region of greatest fame: Don Mattingly is on the East, as an obvious example, while Randy Johnson was placed on the West team given his fame and accomplishments in both Seattle and Arizona and ignoring his time in Houston and New York.
QUICK THOUGHTS: Now dormant for about a year. Maybe there are too many teams, maybe the heroes haven't gelled yet with team identities. . . whatever it is, I'm certainly more drawn to the other leagues. But, who knows? Maybe this will capture my fancy one day and I'll go on a several month flurry of games. Until then, they'll sit in their gallon baggie, tucked away in a drawer, ready to be rolled out at a moment's notice.
