Atlantic City and All-Stars

 

I apparently enjoy gaming out various scenarios for this league and making ballparks for it as much as I do playing it.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.  As seems to have been the case all along, the new ballparks and gaming out parts are reinforcing one another. 

The thing that's on my mind right now is the All-Star Game. Historically, the first All-Star game was in 1933. But there's no particular reason they couldn't have been held earlier, and there are articles showing that the idea was being advocated back in 1915 or so (maybe I'll link them later). Scheduling an All-Star game might have been a logistical challenge, but since I'm not doing more than requiring things to be plausible, I think that's OK. So, I'm planning on an All-Star game starting in 1917.  Where should it be held?

The contemporary advocates for an All-Star Game back then said it should be in one of the biggest cities. Washington DC seems like another obvious possibility.  The newest, most impressive ballparks of the time were Shibe Park in Philadelphia, Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, and Comiskey Park in Chicago. Maybe Ebbets Field? In any case, the central location of Philadelphia relative to so many of the other MLB cities I have points to that as the location.

However, the idea of a neutral site has also occurred to me, especially with the rationale of getting major-league baseball out to places that don't typically get it and getting people excited about it.  So, I looked for stadia that were appropriately-sized and in a reasonable location that didn't already have an MLB team. Turns out there really aren't any. At one point I thought the Yale Bowl would work, and New Haven is a neat spot midway between Boston and New York. Yale Bowl was a big deal when it was built. The problem was that it was built pretty specifically as a football stadium, and there's no way to reasonably put a baseball field in there, especially for an event that's seeing itself as this important.  Another idea that occurred to me was holding it in LA after the end of the season (since a mid-season trip to LA did not strike me as plausible in 1917), but it struck me that that approach would be very unpopular in reality, both with most of the baseball-loving public and with the players. And also the owners. 

At that point, the new ballpark thing struck--I've been thinking about Negro League ballparks that I could model as a community service and had started doing Inlet Park in Atlantic City. At that point it struck me that Atlantic City would be a great spot for the All-Star Game--close to the major East Coast cities, geared toward tourism, willing to spend some cash, and looking for new stuff. The Miss America Pageant started in 1921. A sports complex was established at Bader Field in the early 20s, though baseball wasn't an early driver there as far as I can see.  One could imagine, though, the Atlantic City leadership approaching MLB after the ASG gets established and cutting a deal--we'll build a proper stadium (at Bader Field?) if you agree to hold the ASG there for 3 years or 5 years or whatever. I think some of the western cities might grumble, so maybe it'd be in Atlantic City 2 years out of every 3 or something. There's no obvious western counterpart to Atlantic City, so maybe it'd go to St. Louis or Chicago. Alternately, maybe it'd go to Brookside Stadium? It could be fun to hold the ASG there, even if the facilities are non-existent, just to have a 100k crowd....

Caribbean League Update

 

The Caribbean League is about 2/3 of the way through its 32-game 1916 season. At least, I think it's 32 games? That doesn't really make sense in terms of a 6-team league, but what do I know? The Yankees are associated with the Pensacola Pilots, in a division with Tampa and Jacksonville. The Southern Division has Santo Domingo and two Havana teams (Habana and Almendares, naturally). Each team has maybe 1-2 MLB stars on them--I limited MLB service to 3 years, but there are plenty of candidates. A few players were invited and passed (notably Babe Ruth), but it's been fun.

Pensacola has a heavy Yankees presence in its starting lineup--I decided to be hands-off (save in one case to be mentioned below) and let the AI do whatever. The 2-3-4 hitters all played for the Yankees last year: Watt-Heilmann-Charleston. Demoe is also usually a starter for the Pilots. Vance is on the team, as is Terry and Dick Redding. The meddling I did was to make them start Terry at 2B every other day (it is a development league after all), but it became clear that Terry will never be a 2B (at least not without some other things changing first) and I backed off on that. If I were trying to be in character as Yankees GM, I'd be concerned about Dazzy Vance, who has been awful. I'd be pretty happy with Dick Redding. The Pilots are in last place, largely due to their pitching. Oscar Charleston is hitting well over .400, Heilmann is doing fine. 

I was musing the other day about the version of Ken Burns' Baseball documentary that would come out in this universe, and imagining an oral history of "The Caribbean League Opening Season" where Oscar Charleston and Harry Heilmann are reminiscing. Or Allie Watt's interview in their Glory of Their Times, where he recounts being 16 years old and roommates with Vance and going to Cuba for the first time. Maybe I'll even write it myself. :) 

Alt-1916: What's left until 1917?

 

As seems typical, here's a post that I'm thinking will be short and only of personal interest and will probably end up somewhat long (and only of personal interest). Though the World Series is over (and congratulations to the Rustlers!), I've inserted a bit more baseball action before 1917's Spring Training starts because I apparently can't leave well enough alone (and as a way to learn how to use some other parts of OOTP).

First, I scheduled some exhibition games as post-season "City Series" or "State Series" sorts of things. I gave home field to whichever team had the better 1916 record unless I had some other reason, which included "I think it'd be cooler for the Yankees to play at Ebbets Field than the Polo Grounds".  Looking to the future I'm considering a NYC-area round robin and/or a Great Lakes Series, that sort of thing. 

And then I started thinking about the parks I'm making and the 1917 Spring Training I'm imagining: For 1916, teams started in Havana and then moved through Tampa, New Orleans, Hot Springs, Louisville, and Indianapolis playing games until the season started. This year I'm planning a tour starting in San Francisco and making the way back east. But that leaves a few parks I've made still unused--Durkee Park in Jacksonville and Gimnasio Escolar in Santo Domingo. And then I started thinking about Winter Leagues and ran across how an Arizona Fall League-type setup was a template that was included. 

So, I set up a six-team league with a Florida division and a Cuba/DR division. Two of the teams are in Havana. I need to make sure it'll work right, but this strikes me as a way to get some development time for young players and also have a bit more fun in-world. In principle this could also be a fun way to have teams in some other random spots. In the future, I could see putting in a couple more teams--maybe Orlando, maybe Mobile, not sure about another non-US team but I can look at what the historic teams are (maybe the Estrellas Orientales? or the Santa Clara Leopards?).

Alt-1916 Final Stats, etc.

 

We're three games into the 1916 World Series, and the Rustlers are up 2 games to 1. They would have been up 3 to 0, but the White Sox had a big comeback in the 9th inning of Game 1 to tie it up and then won it in 11. Game 4 will be a rematch of the Game 1 starters, so we'll see how that goes. 

The stat leaderboards were dominated by the usual suspects. I'm going to ignore WAR because Roger Peckinpaugh was the AL WAR leader and I saw him every day and that's ridiculous. The AL leaders in the Triple Crown stats were Cobb (.354), Pipp (11 HR), and Veach (106 RBI). The only person to appear in the top 7 of each of those stats was Bobby Veach, though I don't know that his season was that impressive, exactly? The White Sox really didn't put anyone among the league batting leaders in anything, other than Eddie Collins finishing 2nd in WAR (which, again, is influenced by fielding such that being pretty good at an important position will make up for being a terrible hitter, not that Eddie Collins is a terrible hitter).  The real eye-popping performance was Edd Roush finishing 5th in batting, and 1st in slugging thanks to a near-record 34 triples. He'll get some MVP votes, though I suspect it'll be Cobb or Joe Jackson who wins it.

The pitching leaders also didn't have terribly many White Sox players, instead being dominated by the Red Sox. Dutch Leonard led the league in ERA and pitching WAR, and was tied for 3rd with 24 wins (Cicotte and Walter Johnson tied for 1st with 25). Babe Ruth led the league in innings pitched with 354.1. Rube Evans of Newark finished 2nd in the league in quality starts, one of a few players who had a short and/or poorly-documented minor league career but a really good Alt-1916. 

The National League batting leader, Zach Wheat, was way off of the pace the AL leaders set. On the other hand, Cy Williams nearly doubled the HR total of Pipp and Gavvy Cravath was only one behind at 19. Casey Stengel, of all people, finished 3rd in HR with 11. Maranville led the league in WAR much the way Peckinpaugh led the AL (but moreso). 

The NL pitching leaders were dominated by Reds and Blues, with Cincinnati placing 2 players in the top 7 in ERA (including Bunny Hearn on top) and Buffalo putting 3 in the top 7. But it was Hippo Vaughn who led in pitching WAR and strikeouts. 

While the pennant winners didn't place many individuals on the leader boards, they did rather well as teams: Chicago led the AL in OPS and SLG and finished 2nd in runs (behind Detroit) and finished 2nd in ERA and runs against (behind Boston in both), while the Rustlers finished 2nd in runs scored (behind the Cubs) while staying middle of the pack (4th) in most pitching categories and finishing 1st or 2nd in most fielding categories.

For comparison and completeness, the Yankees were middle of the pack in hitting and pitching, and were maybe a little bit better than average in fielding. 

The biggest North American cities without MLB: 1920/1930

 

I'm mostly putting this here as a resource for myself. 

Compiling the 1920 US Census, 1921 Canadian Census, Mexican data from 1921, the 1919 Cuban Census, and the 1920 Santo Domingo Census, the largest cities without MLB and their populations circa 1920 were:

1. Baltimore (733k)
2. Montreal (619k)
3. Mexico City (615k)
4. Los Angeles (577k)
5. Toronto (522k)
6. Buffalo (507k)
7. San Francisco (507k)
8. Milwaukee (457k)
9. Newark (415k)
10. New Orleans (387k)
11. Minneapolis (381k)
12. Havana (364k)
13. Kansas City (324k)
14. Seattle (315k)
15. Indianapolis (314k)

In Alt-1915 (Alt-1916 by now), four of these cities do have MLB: #1 Baltimore, #6 Buffalo, #9 Newark, and #13 Kansas City.  Some of the remaining cities are non-starters for teams before the 1940s for various reasons (I'm considering a post about the pros and cons of expansion to various cities).

I don't imagine expansion before the mid 20's, though. Here are the same numbers for c. 1930, with the Alt-1915 teams removed:

1. Los Angeles (1.2M)
2. Mexico City (1.0M)
3. Montreal (819k)
4. Havana (728k)
5. San Francisco (634k)
6. Toronto (631k)
7. Milwaukee (578k)
8. Minneapolis (464k)
9. New Orleans (458k)
10. Seattle (365k)
11. Indianapolis (364k)
12. Rochester NY (328k)
13. Louisville (307k)
14. Portland OR (302k)

So, again, some of these teams are non-starters but I'm including them for completeness. Houston isn't too far below Portland but doesn't necessarily offer much advantage. 

Let's see if I can figure out transit times for some of these cities for the next relevant post. I think Minneapolis-St. Paul (St. Paul adds another 235k to the 1920 Minneapolis number and 272k to the 1930 number) may be somewhat further from other cities than I'd thought, though I still think it's much closer than New Orleans would be.