mrpuna's Blog

Re: Integrated 1927 National League.

The hapless Phillies lost at Wrigley 10-7 in a game that they were losing 10-1 and lost Rap Dixon for 6 games.    The Phils had the first pick in the draft plus the bonus of Ed Delahanty and are just awful.    Maybe they will surprise me and go on some kind of winning habit.
Big Ed update-.390. 1 homer, and 7 RBI.
Another note from this game-Josh Gibson, who is having a very bad season, hit his first homer of the season.

Standings after 10 games:
Pittsburgh and St.Louis 8-2
New York and Chicago 7-3
Boston 4-6
Philadelphia, Brooklyn and Cinncinati 2-8

Re: Integrated 1927 National League.

The Giants, who will be awfully tough to beat at home, beat Boston 6-3.    When Hartnett in the lineup, which he now is not, they field 8 HOFs all with averages over .300 and all are able to gobble up those BP homers.    They, in my eyes, are the favorite in the league.

Re: Integrated 1927 National League.

The Reds held a 3-1 lead into the bottom of the 8th in Pittsburgh but the Bucs scored three in the 8th.    As great as the black hitters are the scores of the games tells the story-the black pitchers are turning the top of everyone's staff into greatness.   

Re: Integrated 1927 National League.

Bullet Bill Rogan and the Braves went into the Polo Grounds and held off the Giants 3-2.     Rogan is now 3-0 and also plays in the field when he's not pitching.     Hartnett went down for 7 games with an injury.    More thoughts of a 4 game restart after game 12

Re: Integrated 1927 National League.

Cards 4 Dodgers 2     Williard Brown hits triple first time up and then gets injured for 6 games his next time up.    Bucs beat Reds 4-2.    Big Bill Brown is now 3-0 for the Cards with a 0.67 era.    I have peeked at the 4 series after this one and-finally-it's winners-winners and losers-losers.    I am considering a 4 game reset after game 12 due to the mounting number of injures.

Re: Integrated 1927 National League.

Well, 8 games for each team have gone by now.    None of the top 4 teams have played each other so the standings are skewed both up and down.     Despite the talent differential almost all the games have been close and settled in the late innings.    Here are the standings:
6-2 Pirates, Cards and Giants
5-3 Cubs
3-5 Braves
2-6 Reds, Phillies and Dodgers.
I have become so wrapped up in this that I have been neglecting the other posts on the Site that I no doubt would have comments on-for this I am sorry.
Williard Brown is the hitting stat of the league with his .438 average, 5 homers, and 12 RBI.    Williard plays for the Dodgers and is just another example of how snakebit they have been.

I just peeked at the schedule for the next 4 games and still none of the teams with winning records play each other.    The stretch run of this league should be remarkable.     I must admit, though, that I wish there were some better matchups this time around.

Re: Integrated 1927 National League.

Despite getting homers 4 and 5 from Willard Brown the Dodgers went down to the Pirates 5-4 on a groundball A+ with on out and the sacs jammed.    Brooklyn, despite their 2-6 record, have been playing in hard luck and have yet to play a home game.

Re: Integrated 1927 National League.

In a game featuriing 6 homers the Giants crushed the Phils 10-5.    The more I play the more I see that this is anything but deadball era.     These teams crush the ball.

Re: Integrated 1927 National League.

Boston hammered Chicago 8-2 and each team has now played six games. Here are the standings:
4-2  New York, St. Louis and Pittsburgh
3-3  Boston and Chicago
2-4  Philadelphia, Brooklyn and Cinncinati.
Three players have 3 homers and 11 players have over .400 average.   
8 pitchers have ERAs under 3.00.
So far it has mostly been an offensive league and I see no reason why that will change.
Oh-Big Ed is hitting .458!

Re: Integrated 1927 National League.

The Giants, who have played only the Reds and Phillies, saw the Phils get 2 in the ninth for  a 6-4 win.    It looks like my fears that the Giants will run away with the pennant may not materialize.

Re: Integrated 1927 National League.

The Robins pounded out 19 hits behind Satchel Paige to defeat the Pirates 6-3.    Paige is now 1-0 and. if the Robins have nothing else, he'll win some ballgames for them.

Re: Integrated 1927 National League.

Thanks for all the responses!     I will try to keep up a good pace and will be happy to note the changes that the NL players are having on the league.    This is definitely not anything like deadball era baseball as many of the NL players have high batting averages and over 20 homers.     There has only been bunting in the 8th and 9th of close games and I have yet to hit and run.    The catchers are so good that stealing is uncommon and the runners have had bad luck so far.    On to day 6.

Re: Integrated 1927 National League.

After four games the standings are easy to give:
Pirates, Cubs, Cards. and Giants are all 3-1
Dodgers, Phillies, Reds. and Braves are all 1-3.
I am still uneasy with the Cubs giving up Gabby Hartnett for Chino Smith but so far, so good.      The quality of the games, as I keep saying, has been excellent.     Smith is hitting over .500 and got two hits in his Cubs debut in which the Cubs beat the Reds 6-5.     Dihigo moved from short to pitcher to pick up the save.    If you are following this I really appreciate it!

Re: Integrated 1927 National League.

Big news in the league.    Gabby Hartnett, buried on  the bench behind Josh Gibson, was dealt along with Guy Bush to the mighty Giants for Chino Smith and Fred Fitzsimmons.     Swap-O-Matic was used and approved the deal.     The Giants then went out and lost 5-2 to the Reds.    The Cubs didn't want to fill the Giants lineup with Negro Leaguers and HOF players but keeping Hartnett to sit on the bench made no sense when Chino Smith was out there for the taking.    I'll post stats after day 4 and no longer are the Giants alone at the top.    The more I play this league the more I want to just keep playing until I fall asleep.     The switch to the 2000HF for eligible players has elevated the play in the league to a very high level.     We'll see whether Hartnett is enough to give the Giants the pennant.

Re: Integrated 1927 National League.

The Phillies scored 8 runs in the tenth to leave get their first win.    At one point in this game the Cards let 4-0 with Pete Alexander on the bump.

Re: Integrated 1927 National League.

In the first game of the third day the Pirates scored 7 runs in the bottom of the ninth to win 12-11.      I still am uneasy about using the HOF 2000 cards for the players in that set.    I worry the Giants will run off and hide.

Re: Integrated 1927 National League.

I decided that being that the Negro Leagues are essentially HOF cards I went through the league and changed any player who is in the 2000HOF to that card.     This should even raise the level of play even further.    There were some players whose 1927  cards are better than their HOF cards but they had to change to their HOF cards too.     The Giants seem to have benefitted the most from this but we'll see what happens.    I hope I haven't made a mistake here.

Re: Spanning the eras

The 1911 Giants are a team that you would never manage as McGraw did.    Fred Snodgrass stealing 51 times in 100 tries.     All those outs wasted on the bases.     And it wasn't just him.    I've played some games with them and find myself depending on hitting and pitching a lot more than stolen bases.   

Re: Integrated 1927 National League.

After 2 days:   W  L  GB
St. Louis          2   0  :::::
New York        2   0  :::::
Boston             1   1    1
Brooklyn          1   1    1
Chicago           1   1    1
Pittsburgh        1   1    1
Cinncinati        0   2    2
Philadelphia     0   2    2
The quality of play has been truly excellent.    I can see a great pennant race on the horizon.     The Phillies, however, couldn't win if they had three Ed Delahantys.     The black players have been fabulous, which you would expect of the 40 greatest stars of the Negro Leagues.    Quite a lot of close games so far.

Re: Integrated 1927 National League.

That is Josh Gibson on the Cubs, not Biz Mackey...............

Re: Integrated 1927 National League.

Would you be happy if I just sent you the NL players on each team?    One puzzler is Biz Mackey with the Cubs relegating Gabby Hartnee to the bench.     My typing skills make full rosters impossible.    I'm getting ready to play some more of day two now!      By the way, it will be a 56 game league and I'll finish it if it kills me!

Re: Integrated 1927 National League.

When I held the draft for the 40 best Negro League stars I expected a large infusion of offense.    Instead 15 NL pitchers were drafted and only one white hurler started opening day.   Cinncinati picked 4 pitchers in an effort to get into the race.    Ed Delahanty was awarded to the Phillies as he plays is every league I run.    I'm got a lot of low scoring close games on opening day and it looks like this will be a great league.

Re: 1957 league w/drafts

It's great that you have players from so many eras.    Is Sudden Sam on the Tribe?     That Albert Belle '98 card is a killer.    How do you decide which card and what team to place the players on?    Avila is a player who Strat and Bill James differ on-Strat gives him a 3 or 4 and James touts him as a great fielder.     It's tough to say whether Cy will have enough starts to catch Malone.     Is Ted your MVP at this point?

Integrated 1927 National League.

I've decided to have a league with both black and white players that also most likely will have a pennant race.     I had a 5 round Negro League draft for each team and, being that they were the greatest of all time, will have a major impact on the league.    Willie Wells hit two homers on opening day and the Braves scored 5 in the 9th to beat the Pirates.    The winner was Joe Rogan.   It was nice to have a game with no flyballs dropped and only 2 errors.     I won't post every game but I will post periodic updates.    Oscar Charleston, the second pick in the draft, patrols center field for the Braves.

Re: Contracted 1894 season

In my efforts to desegregate the 1895 league is disappeared.     I give up.   I guess this league was not meant to be.    I'm going to start another league with Negro league stars included.     Sorry......