NL Champions League: Early Season Heroics

Warren Spahn takes aim at Sputnik
courtesy http://baseballhall.org/

Restless, and having multiple seasons left unexplored (1948, 1953, 1960, 1961, and 1967 among others), I decided to create yet another league. I gathered many of the National League pennant winners from the years 1948 thought 1964, tossed in a couple of sub-par, but personally interesting teams from 1967, and created the "NL Champions League." And, though the NL was dominated int the 50s by three franchises (the Brooklyn/LA Dodgers, the New York Giants, and the Milwaukee Braves won 9 of the 10 titles in the decade), there is a surprising variety of teams to choose from when one opens the window to as late as 1964: I've got every franchise but the hapless Chicago Cubs represented at least once in this 16-year era.

Here are the teams, broken up into the Fifties and Sixties divisions:

	Fifties
YEAR	TEAM
1948	Boston Braves
1950	Philadelphia Phillies
1953	Brooklyn Dodgers
1954	New York Giants
1957	Milwaukee Braves
1967	New York Mets
	Sixties
YEAR	TEAM
1960	Pittsburgh Pirates
1961	Cincinnati Reds
1962	San Francisco Giants
1963	Los Angeles Dodgers
1964	St. Louis Cardinals
1967	Houston Astros

The 1967 Mets and Astros are the obvious exceptions to the theme but a) it's always good to have some below-average teams to prevent an awful parity from settling in and b) they feature so many cool players (Tom Seaver, Joe Morgan, Jimmie Wynn, and Rusty Staub, for example).
Though I'm just a few weeks into this new league there have been several noteworthy games to share:

Pitching feats:

- Warren Spahn (BON48) outdueled Curt Simmons (PHI50) in the second game of the year in a 3-0 shutout. Simmons was undone by some poor defense and actually gave up just one earned run.


- Bubba Church (PHI50) came back the next day to fire a 1-hitter in a 1-0 victory over the Boston Braves. Jeff Heath's triple with one out in the 8th spoiled Church's attempt at immortality - he had retired 22 straight batters to start the game and Heath was the only baserunner he allowed. This close to a perfect game. Bill Voiselle (BON48) gave up 1 unearned run in 8 innings of stellar work.

- Johnny Antonelli (NYG54) and Carl Erskine (BKN53) locked horns for 11 innings, each giving up just one run. Whitey Lockman's 2-run HR off Clem Labine in the 12th won it for the Giants.

- Tom Seaver (NYM67) went 7 innings without giving up an earned run in his debut, but left on the back end of a 4-3 score, victimized by two infield errors, good for 4 runs.

- Billy O'Dell (SFG62) made an Orlando Cepeda HR hold up in the Giants' opener against the 1963 Dodgers.  Don Drysdale went the distance for LA and was the hard-luck, 1-0 loser.

- The next day, Sandy Koufax (LAD63) struck out 13 and made a first-inning run hold up against Jack Sanford (SFG62) to complete the twin 1-0 set of games.

Batting feats:

- Brooklyn scored 7 runs in an inning two separate times against the Giants in the Polo Grounds . . .  and it almost wasn't enough! A 7-run seventh in their second game was nearly wiped out by a 6-run Giants' 8th . . .Homers by Gil Hodges and Carl Furillo provided the extra margin in an 11-8 victory. In the finale, the Brooklyns jumped out 7-0 in the first, then hung on to win 8-7 thanks, again, to another Carl Furillo late-inning HR.

The Boys of Summer
courtesy http://www.thinkbluela.com/

- Dick Groat (STL64) recorded the league's first 5-5 game against the 1967 Houston Astros, leading the Redbirds to a 6-4 victory.

It's been lots of fun getting started in this league. I promise to post standings as it matures.

Big Picture Summary of My Strat Baseball Leagues

One of the beauties of this Strat hobby is the ease with which one can assemble an interesting group of teams to fill out a league. I sometimes go months thinking about a theme, or a set of teams, or a collection of players that intrigue me. Part of the fun, for me, is imagining teams which could come together to create a fun league. In the past few years, I've created several leagues that I rotate through, indulging in one for a month or two then moving onto another.  I'd thought I'd take a moment here to describe them each.

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. 

CFL Franchise Focus: Turn of the Century Hall-of-Famers

1896 Baltimore Orioles in their parlor loungewear.

This introduction to the 19th-century Hall-of-Fame team serves as both a salute and a farewell: brought in to the Classic Franchise League to provide some stiff competition for the classic franchises, they have proved to be OVERLY strong and, after some soul-searching, I have decided to remove the club from the league! After 60 games (15 games each against the 1954 Indians, the 1950 Yanks, the 1962 Dodgers, and the 1957 Braves), they are to be "retired" with a .750 winning percentage.  Before dismissing them, let's take a look at their performance:

Some notes about the batters:

- Ed Delahanty, he of the mysterious death in 1903, has been the overall hitting star. With so many great players, I didn't use a set lineup except for those players who pretty consistently delivered. He leads the club in double, homers and RBIs. Though an outfielder mainly, I mostly had him playing first base (for which he was an adequate "3"), providing some relief from an otherwise crowded outfield.

Big bad Eddie D. channeling Tony Kubek

- George Davis was my other mainstay. He played shortstop in his career, by and large, but split his time in this league between short and third.

George Davis and his awesome mustache

- Sam Thompson and Hugh Duffy got more time than deserved while Billy Hamilton's time was unfairly curtailed. To be fair, Hamilton's defensive rating (a '3' at all three OF positions) made me a bit nervous, particularly when installed in center.

- Cap Anson would have been a typical choice at firstbase except . . .  except I couldn't let go of my impression of him as being a prime instigator and enforcer of the so-called "color line" that prevented black players from playing alongside whites. So, I sat him. There. How do you like it, Cap? 

Pitcher observations:

- A 2.69 team ERA is awfully impressive against any competition and, of course, even more so given top-notch offenses these pitchers faced. In fact, their pitching dominance is what convinced me to pull the plug on this team just before they were about to face the 1962 Mets.

- Mickey Welch lost his last start after winning 7 straight. 

- Tim Keefe not only went 12-0 but fell one inning short of 12 straight complete games. Which shouldn't surprise anyone - in 1883 he started and completed 68 games while compiling 619 innings pitched. In one summer. I know the game was different then . . .  but c'mon! It must have been the 'stache:

Tim Keefe (left): inspiration for James Finlayson (right)?

So say "Hello!" and "So long!" to these 19th-century heroes (and Cap Anson). They were a fun team to manage and a victim of their own success. Had they won 2 of every 3 (as opposed to 3 of every 4) I quite likely would have kept them in the league.

CFL Franchise Focus: 1954 Cleveland Indians

A great team (their 111-43 regular season record was the best AL record for about 50 years), the 1954 Cleveland Indians are currently the hottest team in the Classic Franchise League. The Indians, as a franchise, did NOT follow the American League plan of the 50s, which is to say that they DID take advantage of the then newly-available talent in the black and Latino populations. By signing and fostering players like Larry Doby, Bobby Avila, Al Smith, and Mike Garcia, the Indians (well, they still have some work to do with respect to multi-culturalism, don't they?) assembled a team that, year-in and year-out, competed with the vaunted, and slow to integrate, Yankees. In 1954, Cleveland bested the Yanks by 8 games, easily outpacing the best record of the Stengel-era New Yorkers (their 103 wins that year was Casey's high-water mark). It is interesting to note that the only two non-Yankee pennant winners from 1949 though 1964 were both managed by Al Lopez, himself the son of Spanish immigrants. Lopez guided these Indians and the 1959 Chicago White Sox, Chcago being the other AL franchise that integrated aggressively.

So, what, exactly, do I mean by "hot?" They have just taken four of five from the 1962 Dodgers after taking five of seven from the very powerful 1957 Milwaukee Braves. In a league known for its parity (excluding the Hall-of-Fame 19th-century team and the hapless 1962 Mets), an 9-3 run is quite notable. Indeed, with a bit of luck, they could be on a very impressive 12-game winning streak; take a look at the three losses:

- a 5-4 loss to the Braves as Milwaukee exploded for a 4-run, 9th-inning outburst against the normally reliable Don Mossi,

- a 1-0 loss to Warren Spahn and the Braves,

- a 2-1 loss in ten innings to Don Drysdale and the Dodgers.

Some highlights from this run which has improved their record form 46-44 to 55-47:

- Bob Feller, by 1954 a shell of his former self and a spot starter, has revived and gone 7 innings on three occasions, never giving up more than 1 run. He lost to Spahn in the game mentioned above, striking out 8 in his 7 innings. Feller's contributions are the icing on an awesome cake - the 1954 Indians feature one of the great pitching staffs of all time, with top-notch starters Bob Lemon, Mike Garcia, and Early Wynn.

- Lemon has pitched well and contributed with the bat, going 2-3 with a walk, a double, and 4 RBIs in one game while adding a 2-4 plate performance in another.

(Bob Lemon photo courtesy of http://bleacherreport.com/)

- In one game, Garcia retired the first 22 Dodgers in a row, taking a perfect game into the 8th inning. Then he allowed his first baserunner, hit, and run in one blow - a homer by Ron Fairly to spoil the historic outing - but settled for a glorious 2-hitter against LA.

- Art Houtteman, the number 4 starter on this team, ran his record to 8-2 in a recent stint against Johnny Podres and the Dodgers.


(courtesy http://www.thisgreatgame.com/)

- What about the batters, you say? Al Rosen has been a beast throughout the streak, collecting 14 hits in the seven games against the Braves. In the finale, he went 5-5 with a walk while hitting for the cycle and driving in the go-ahead run in the 10th inning.


(Al Rosen showing how a 50s manly man can handle six bats.
Photo courtesy of http://www.dailyspeculations.com/)

- Second-line players like Sam Dente, Wally Westlake, and Bill Glynn have made critical contributions. Each has hit a go-ahead homerun during this streak. Of this group, only Westlake could be considered a power threat - his 11 homers in 240 at bats in 1954 were on par with his career numbers.

- These Indians know the value of a walk: two 8 walk-games and two 9-walk games led to three blowouts and a curious 5-4 loss. In that game, Braves pitcher Bob Buhl managed to give up 8 hits and 8 walks while still managing to limit the Indians to just 4 runs scored. Perhaps his 10 strikeouts had something to do with that.

As in real-life, the replay Indians have combined strong starting pitching, effective relief, and an "Earl Weaver" offense (one that features lots of walks and power up and down the lineup) to create a top-notch team. Even the weak hitters contribute: Check out the card for George Strickland, a .213 hitter who manged to wrack up 55 walks in about 360 at bats.

It's been great fun seeing 50s stars like Lemon, Rosen, and Doby (failed to mention his team-leading 20 HRs, 50 RBIs, and 56 runs scored, though he's been relatively quiet during this stretch) perform so admirably and a real treat to see timely support from the bench players. One of the pleasures of handling a Strat-o-matic team over the course of so many games (now over 100!) is the intimate knowledge one gets for virtually all players on the roster.

League Overview - Classic Franchise League Extended

So, here's a little background on one of my many Strat-o-matic leagues: The Classic Franchise League - Extended.

It's a funky league - a weird amalgam of two previous leagues along with an 'expansion' team. From March of 2009 to May of 2011, I had played a 59-game season, with these teams:

Even THAT league was funky as I started with several others and allowed some to drop out as I lost interest and changed focus. I also had a "60s League" that ran for some time. I folded that league as my desire to add in advanced features made this basic-only set of cards less and less attractive. Still there were some great teams and interesting players:

I grabbed 4 of the top 5 in the Classic Franchise League (not the 1962 Giants for reasons i can't recall!), added in the 1962 Mets from the 60s league, and created a Hall-of-Fame team (the aforementioned expansion team) with players from the 19th-century. I modified the basic cards to include error ratings and throwing arms. I allowed all of the previous stats to roll over, including wins and losses, and figured out a way to get all 6 teams to about 150 games each. In September of 2011, I began playing and, as of June, 2015, the standings look like this:

Each team gets walloped by the HOF team but gets healthier beating up on the Mets. I don't expect any team to outpace the HOF team but I am extremely interested in the 150-game stats that will, eventually, be generated.

Some highlights:

- Frank Howard (.336), Red Schoendienst (.333), and Tommy Davis (.333) are battling for the batting title.

- Hank Aaron leads the league with 34 homers with Howard a distant second at 24.

- Maury Wills has 61 stolen bases; about 1 every 6 at bats which puts him on pace for 100 in his 150 game schedule.

- Warren Spahn is 14-7, well on his way to a 20-win season. Which, if you're familiar with Warren Spahn, should come as no surprise.

- Tim Keefe, of the 19th-century HOFers, is now 11-0.

- Ed Delahanty, also of the 19th-century team, leads the squad with 37 RBIs, 15 doubles, 5 homers, and a .346 batting average. He has yet to meet the minimum number of at bats to qualify for the batting title.

- Bob Miller (6-6) and Al Jackson (5-9) have accounted for 11 of the 1962 Mets' 14 victories. That makes the rest of the staff 3-53 . . .  gulp. 

It's been great fun: my emerging familiarity of the stars of the 1800s, witnessing, first-hand, the trials and tribulations of the 1962 Mets, being caught up in the excitement of scrubs becoming white-hot for short, exhilarating spells, and so much more. Playing a long-term project like this can feel a bit daunting but, as the season slowly builds, there's a great sense of joy and fascination. 

Musings on Mets Mismatches - 1962 Strat Style

As most of you know the 1962 New York  Mets were a bad baseball team. Very bad. They lost 120 games and lost them in spectacular fashion.

(courtesy http://2guystalkingmetsbaseball.com/)

They were the by-product of a miserly National League draft system, allowing the existing NL teams to protect virtually any player of value and guaranteeing that the expansion Mets (and their brethren the Houston Astros, then called the Colt-.45s) would be bad.

Here's Casey Stengel, Mets manager and media distraction, showing the Mets infielders (Don Zimmer, Elio Chacon, Charlie Neal, and Gil Hodges) the way to the stadium. Photo courtesy of NY Times.

These Mets are an entertaining team to play in a Strat-o-matic league. Some players have some skills but, as a rule, they are a deeply flawed group of players. Elio Chacon can draw a walk but can't actually hit and plays a miserable shortstop. Richie Ashburn is a fine outfielder and can hit .300 but is at the end of his career, needs frequent rest, and can't cover ground in the outfield like he did in his heyday. They do not have a catcher who can hit or throw. Pitchers Al Jackson and Roger Craig were serviceable starters who had worthy careers but each needs a good defense behind him to win . . .they were backed by a terrible D and lost. A lot. It's not uncommon for a pitcher to need to get 4 outs in an inning with the 1962 Mets.

They are one of six teams in a long-running league that has morphed over the years to include the 1957 Braves (Aaron, Mathews, Spahn, etc.), the 1954 Indians (Lemon, Garcia, Wynn, Doby, Rosen, etc.), the 1950 New York Yankees (Dimag, Berra, Raschi, Lopat, Reynolds, etc.), a Hall-of-Fame team featuring players of the late 19th century (Ed Delahanty, Sam Thompson, Hugh Duffy, et al) and the 1962 LA Dodgers (Koufax, Drysdale, Wills, Davis, etc.).

Against this assemblage of talented teams, it's not surprising that the Mets are currently 14-68 for a .171 winning percentage. They are routinely mismatched but recently they faced perhaps the most lopsided pitching match-up I've ever seen:

Sandy Koufax vs. Jay Hook.
(11-6)                    (0-12)

That's Jay on the right. Koufax, of course, needs no introduction though one should know that his relatively modest W-L record is the result of the Dodgers having recently played 15 games against the HOF team - his record against the other teams in this league is something like 10-3.

It didn't go well.  The Dodgers jumped on Jay for 6 runs in 2+ innings, then mauled Mets relievers for 10 more runs as Koufax tossed a 3-hitter.  The final score was 16-2. The Dodgers slammed EIGHT homeruns and walked 10 times.

The next day it didn't get any better:






Don Drysdale (10-9)




vs.

Bob Moorhead (1-5)


Drysdale tossed a 5-hit shutout while the LA offense settled for single touchdown in a 7-0 win.

Up next for the Mets? Their 15-game set against the 19th-century Hall-of-Famers who currently sport a 45-15 record!  This could get ugly! Or, uglier . . .

Andy Carey's Best Week Ever!

One of the joys of Strat-o-matic baseball is that all kinds of fantastic things will happen; even to the most ordinary players. Like Andy Carey . . .

Andy Carey was a fine player - heck, he was a major leaguer which is more than 99% of us can say - but never an all-star, never a feared player. He had the good fortune of being drafted by the Yankees and playing for them in the 50s. Which meant, of course, that he was blessed - the Yankees routinely went to, and won, the World Series in the 1950s. Andy played third base on the days that Casey Stengel could remember his name. Strangely, he only played third base for Casey. I say strangely because Casey would take guys like Bobby Brown, Billy Johnson, and especially Gil McDougald and sprinkle them around the infield willy-nilly and expect them all to turn the DP. Which they did for reasons no one really knows . . .  some form of Casey magic, I suppose. Anyway, Andy played third, hit .302 one year, hit 11 triples to lead the league another, and only once compiled as many as 500 at bats. To summarize his career, I'll indulge in one advanced metric: his career OPS+, a relative measure of a player's value, was 97. An OPS+ of 100 is the average value. . .  Andy Carey was a perfectly ordinary major league baseball player.

Which is my point.


By 1962, Andy was finishing his career in LA with the Dodgers. He was 30 and hit .234 in 111 at bats. Ordinary. Those Dodgers are part of a long-running Strat league of mine and Andy has a card only because I made one for him. I wanted a larger roster than the 20 cards provided by Strat and Andy came to life along with Lee Walls, Tim Harkness, and Phil Ortega. In this league, there are daily and long-term injuries. The Dodgers were sent reeling with long-term injuries to Willie Davis and Ron Fairly and suffered several daily injuries in a 9-game set with the infamously bad 1962 Mets. Every day there were at least three regulars unavailable, forcing me to reach deep into the pile to find Andy Carey.

Andy made cameos in the first two games, pinch-hitting and making out in each game. He started the third game, went 2-3 with a homer, a walk, two runs scored, and three RBIs. Pretty good day for ol' Andy. But he was just getting started . . .

Over the course of the next six games, Andy had a career! He had the mojo workin' . . . Thirteen more hits! Seven more runs scored! Nine more RBIs! And, get this, four more homeruns, one each in the last four games of the series! (Please don't spoil it for him - or me - by pointing out that this was all accomplished while batting against one of the worst teams of all time . . .) Here's his complete line for the nine games:

15 hits in 32 at bats
9 runs scored
12 RBIs
1 double
5 HRs
3 walks

The impact of this week on his seasonal stats (the Dodgers are now 53-44) was to change his slash stats (average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage) from .188/.291/.292 to .308/.380/.577 which means, basically, that Ordinary Andy Carey became Willie Frackin' Mays for one glorious week, 53 years after he retired.

On a team with Maury Wills, Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Tommy Davis, and Frank Howard, Andy Carey was THE story for a remarkable seven-game run. I like to think that Andy was paying back Casey, sitting in the 1962 Mets' dugout, for not remembering his name more frequently!