Alt-1926 Status and To-Do List

 

It's January 23, 1926 in the game. Here's where we stand: The minor leagues have been expanded, in anticipation of an MLB expansion in 1928, and there are now 4 levels (AAA, AA, A, and Short Season A) each with 24 teams. The A and Short A teams are unaffiliated, AAA and AA each have four unaffiliated teams and 20 affiliated teams. Together with the 20 MLB teams that makes 116 teams in Organized Baseball, and the (admittedly drastic) expansion from 62 minor-league teams now means Organized Baseball has teams in all 48 states (plus the District of Columbia and the Territory of "Porto Rico") along with Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and six Canadian provinces. There is also a Cuban Winter League, which I'm treating as a tournament so that Cubans can have meaningful (i.e. not farm-team) baseball with top-tier players (i.e. not washouts looking for a job somewhere).  At least right now, I'm trying to have the Cuban tournament involve the players who really played in Cuba back then. 

In addition to these leagues in Organized Baseball, there are independent leagues in Japan, the Philippines, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Venezuela, France, the Netherlands, and Australia. All of these leagues are based on, and have team names from, real-life leagues that were active in the mid-1920s, though the players are all fictional. That's another 56 teams.  There are a few other possible international independent leagues that I could start including in the 1927-1930 time frame (like Costa Rica, Colombia, a Korean/East Asian League...) but that's another post for another time. The impetus (or maybe excuse) for these independent leagues is to generate players for the "World's Fair of Baseball", about which more below.

As noted in an earlier blog post, 1926 is the sesquicentennial year, and I've got some in-game goals for the year. The expansion of the minors to include every state is part of that, and so is the World's Fair. I'm also planning for a barnstorming tour (perhaps including some of those washouts I mentioned above) to visit the US possessions other than Porto Rico and the USVI (which will be Spring Training visits). If this were a Watsonian post, I'd more or less be saying how preparations are in great shape for everything, even if some locations still need to get a ballpark figured out. 

But since it's not a Watsonian post, here's more or less what I think I need to do in more or less priority order:

1. Ballparks for US Possessions

I do a lot of things for the game because I enjoy watching the game and interacting. So, while I could just sim out games, the point of doing a barnstorming tour (especially involving non-major leaguers) is to watch the games in the ballpark I made representing the place where the game is being held. Given the goals of having this sesquicentennial tour is to have games in all parts of the US, building the parks in Guam and American Samoa top the to-do list. Having said that, the games in those parks don't actually take place for a little while yet, so while they top the must-do items, they don't necessarily have to come first...

2. Ballparks for all Organized Baseball teams

This one is less of a pressing need, but I do enjoy watching the playoffs for all the leagues, and so in theory all of the teams in Organized Baseball should have ballparks. Right now, I'm five parks short--Ogden and Spokane in the Pioneer League and three Canadian parks in the Prairie League (Winnipeg, Calgary, and Regina). I've been slowly addressing this (there were eight missing parks a month ago), but my motivation waxes and wanes. Spokane should be straightforward as these things go, the others have somewhat less information but no worse than a lot of other parks I do. On the other hand, since I do have parks for all the states, and I'm not likely to watch any random games, it can happen during the season with no real loss if need be.

3. Ballparks for all Barnstorming games

The sesquicentennial barnstorming tour will start on the East Coast, go through the Panama Canal (and play a couple of games in Balboa), head up to Alaska via a few West Coast ports, then down to Hawaii. From there, it'll be a loop through American Samoa, Australia, the Philippines, and Guam before going back to Hawaii and then the West Coast. There are 3 stops beyond those in #1 that don't have parks at this point--I want the tour to do a Midnight Sun game in Fairbanks, which needs a park, and then Sydney and Brisbane also are missing parks. So the question is basically how much to track down what the parks would be like vs. using stand-ins.  The Australian ones in particular are a bit tricky, since I'm having baseball be more popular there than IRL, which would point to fictional parks, but they did use the main cricket fields when barnstormers came through...

4. Ballparks (and Uniforms?) for Independent League teams

This is definitely getting to be very aspirational. It was already the case in Alt-1925 that only a few of these teams had ballparks, and they mostly were stand-ins made to look plausible. The championship series for the Dutch league was in a model of the Amsterdam Olympic stadium that I shoved a diamond into. The French will have the same according to my current plan. The Japanese Big Six teams all play in Meiji Jingu stadium. I may not end up getting to a stadium for the Venezuelans (or Australians?) at all. We'll see how it goes.  Uniforms, though, don't seem like such a tall order, and I've made those up from whole cloth (so to speak) already. So, maybe?

Your Alt-1925 Champions...

 ...are the New York Yankees.

After a several week delay caused by various things, I played out the Alt-1925 World Series over the last week or two. The Yankees won in 6, and the series definitely had drama, though it was distributed oddly. The Yankees had to come from behind in Game 1, relying on three scoreless innings of relief by Bullet Rogan to let the Bombers scratch back against Jesse Barnes, eventually winning 5-4  in the 10th on a walk-off walk (by Rogan). Buffalo came back to wipe out New York 11-2 in Game 2, scoring 7 against Pennock and another 4 against an ineffective Red Faber while Guy Bush pitched masterfully. Game 3 was Buffalo's turn for a walkoff. Art Nehf pitched masterfully but the Yankees drove up his pitch count and eventually took the lead against J. Fike. Rogan couldn't hold the lead, however, and handed a 9th-inning jam to Jose Mendez. Mendez struck out Lee with Combs on third, but Critz pulled off a squeeze play to give the Blues the win and a 2 games to 1 edge in the Series.

The Yankees offense took control in the next two games, resulting a 14-1 Game 4 win (Luque and Brown held down the Blues so most of those 14 runs were unnecessary) and an 11-5 Game 5 win (the Yankes were up 10-3 late, and Grove gave up the runs in the 9th). Traynor had 9 hits in the two games, scoring 8 runs. 

 This set up Game 6 back at Yankee Stadium. The Yanks jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the 1st, extended that that to a 7-2 lead by the end of the 4th, and despite Art Nehf throwing 3 2/3 perfect innings in relief the die was cast. Fitzsimmons pitched 7 decent innings and Jose Mendez bent but didn't break in the 9th--he allowed three hits and a walk, but Mackey cut down Tierney trying to steal (a busted hit-and-run, I think) and in the end Mendez struck out Cox as the tying run at the plate to end it without Buffalo scoring.

Pie Traynor was the series MVP, going 14 for 26 (.538) including a home run. Peckinpaugh drove in 9 and hit .400, a great series and especially so given he often seems to struggle in the postseason. Ruth and Charleston added home runs from the New York side, while Joseph, Williams, Gehrig, and Lee hit home runs for the Blues and Joseph had a .400 average to lead their regulars. In the end it felt like it was the Yankees' depth that carried the day--it wasn't like a single person put the team on their back, but rather the batters kept the line moving and tacking on and the pitchers either would be able to keep the Blues at (more than) arms length or wouldn't. Traynor arguably padded his stats in two blowouts. The two best individual performances for the Yankees were on the same day, and each one kind of made the other one unnecessary: Traynor's 5 for 6, 4 runs scored day happened while Luque pitched 1-run ball (with Brown pitching in a couple of scoreless relief innings). So, while there were absolutely dramatic moments and for a while it looked like the Yankees might be in real trouble, in retrospect it almost looks inevitable. 

So what now?  We head into an offseason where nobody has retired, and in theory the 1926 Yankees roster will be the same as the 1925 one. However, 7 players on the 25-man roster are 35 or older: Mendez, Cobb, Collins, Cy Williams, Faber, Luque, and Santop. Mendez will turn 41 before Opening Day and Cobb will turn 39 before the calendar year ends. In real life, all of these players except Mendez had perfectly good seasons in 1926, if injury-shortened ones in some cases. Mendez had a terrible real-life 1925 and didn't play in 1926. Vance should be back off the IL before Spring Training, so somebody will need to be sent down who is currently up.  But otherwise, it seems like Plan A is to run it back (to use the current term) and then adjust as needed while trying for a threepeat (and a 7th straight pennant)...

For now, after the tickertape parade our attention will turn to the Dominican and Cuban Winter Leagues, the latter of which will use Organized Baseball players, and trying to finish off ballparks to use for the sesquicentennial. Those seem like topics for another post, however...

Alt-1925 World Series Preview

The Buffalo Blues pulled off the most dramatic comeback in history (and/or the St. Louis Cardinals completed the most comprehensive collapse in history) with a resounding 17-1 win at Sportsman's Park. The post-mortem will have to wait, however, because our attention now turns to a Blues-Yankees World Series. 

On paper this is absolutely no contest. The Blues went went 20-9 (.690) in September to catch the Cards, an excellent month and probably the best month in their history. The Yankees were better than .690 in every month save April (.565) and August (.679).  In September they went 26-1 (.963).  The Yankees are 1st in every important batting category and in the top 3 in every pitching and defense category. Buffalo is 2nd in batting bases on balls and in base running, 3rd in runs scored and home runs,  and 4th in OPS, and no better than 4th in other batting categories, and while they are 2nd in ERA, runs allowed, and pitching WAR and 1st in bullpen ERA, they are 9th in hits allowed and opponents AVG and dead last in defensive efficiency and zone rating. The Blues won 98 games but outplayed their Pythagorean record by 5 games. The Yankees also outplayed their Pythagorean record by 5 games, leaving them "only" a 119-win team by runs scored/allowed. New York had no real L/R or Home/Road split, while Buffalo is better at home than the road and much better vs. lefty pitchers than righties. 

Turning to the players, again the Yankees dominate on paper. I was expecting to be writing a Yankees-Cardinals preview and hitting a lot of the same points as usual, that Hornsby was still probably the best player in the Series, but now I think there's no question it's Babe Ruth.  Ruth had 9.0 WAR, easily the best of anybody. Charleston came in a hair ahead of Gehrig for 2nd place for position players with Cobb and Sewell tied for 4th and then three more Yankees in 6th-8th place. Even this underplays things a little since Cobb got his tie for 4th in only 79 games and Peckinpaugh and Heilmann in 7th and 8th also missed significant time. The Blues also have two regulars with negative WAR (Tierney and Yuna), while the worst Yankee regular was Bill Terry with 0.8. 

The story on the pitching side is a bit better for the Blues, at least as far as WAR, but not a lot better. Luque leads the pack with 7.0, then Pennock, Bush, and Nehf strung out 2-4. Yankee and Blue players alternate further down the list. Looking at other metrics seems to put the Yankees on top: For ERA+, the Yankees take 5 of the top 6 spots (Luque on top, Fitzsimmons and Pennock, the other two Series starters for the Yankees at 5 & 6, with reliever David Watson at 2 for Buffalo), and the Yankees also hold 6 of 8 of the top spots in FIP. 

If this were a Watsonian narrative, this is where I'd put in some quote from Art Nehf about the 1921 World Series, and something from Peckinpaugh about how the Yankees take everybody seriously and really respect what the Blues did this year, and Gehrig saying the Blues have answered the bell every time and weren't afraid of New York... However, this is a Doylist narrative, and so instead I'll say that anything can happen in a 7-game series, and the game can be very frustrating, and sometimes teams just seem to get hot or cold or unlucky or something.  But I don't see the kinds of things that lead to the upsets in other years. The Yankees are hot, and they're healthy. 

OK, time for the prediction I guess.  I feel like it's the same thing I say most years--the Yankees seem like they should sweep or maybe win in 5. If Buffalo wins I think it'll take 7. I'll go Yankees in 5. 

Watsonian Excerpts from Alt-1925 (Almost) at the Regular Season's End

 

New York Examiner:

The new week begins with the American League idle. At rest. For nine of the AL's teams, that rest will take them through until early 1926, but for our pinstriped heroes, it will only last a few days. The World Series will begin in in a few days at the Bronx in the House that Slug Built, with the only question who the Yankees will be hosting. Regardless of who shows up, they will be heavy underdogs after the way our boys tore through September and October, winning an astonishing 26 consecutive games and leaving a good Kansas City team 24 games behind. And if this year's team did not (quite) reach the 125-game heights that last year's team did, the acquisition of Babe Ruth did not disappoint.  

St. Louis Globe:

We will begin by stipulating that 1915 was worse than 1925, no matter what tomorrow brings. Even as the Browns sat in 9th place both years, having the Cardinals win about 25% more of their games makes this a better year. And, indeed, the Rajah et al. may yet bring five more wins this year and lead all to forget about the last month. The Browns escaped the cellar thanks to halfway-competent play in August and September while the Senators collapsed, but the Senators drew 100,000 more fans than the Browns and maintained some fan interest while Mound City fans checked out as Dapper Dan took the reins.

But this Browns talk is just stalling because we don't want to face the Cardinals' possible fate.  At the All-Star Break, the Cards looked like they could go toe-to-toe against the Yankees, and their 10.5 game lead over Baltimore was much bigger than the Packers' deficit behind New York. But they could not keep up that pace and they stopped hitting in September (except for Hornsby) and now here we are. 

We have to thank the stars that we won in 1918. Even a win tomorrow only will bring the prospect of facing the Yankees yet again, having that Murderer's Row parade around the bases from Collins to Santop to that brute Cy Williams. And, just our luck, Oscar Charleston has learned to hit again. And now there's Babe Ruth.

Still, losing to the Yankees would mean we had won the pennant. Sitting home and listening to the Blues lose to the Yankees on the wireless would mean we had a collapse of epic proportions.

Buffalo Journal-News:

This is the National League's 50th season. In the 49 completed seasons, pennant winners have come from New York and from Chicago; from Philadelphia and from Baltimore; from cities that don't have a team in the league any longer like Detroit and from cities that don't have a big-league team at all like Providence. Nine of the ten cities in the National League have had a pennant winner in a major league, whether the NL, or the American League, or the old American Association. The odd city out is our own Queen City. 

While the Bisons won a few Eastern League crowns, and we are not ungrateful for them, today we stand as close as Buffalo has ever been to a big-league pennant. None of the previous entries, whether NL or even the Players' League, came close to the top. With a win today, the Blues will win the pennant and face the mighty Yankees. They would be deep underdogs to the New Yorkers, but that is a problem for another day. 

Even having this chance is a mighty surprise. The Blues began September in second place but 10 games back. This was already on track to be the best showing in Buffalo baseball history, but a torrid 20-9 record in September combined with a shocking 10-16 showing by the Cardinals brought our boys most of the way back. The Blues kicked it up a notch, with both pitchers and hitters responding. 

Whatever Hal Chase has been doing, he needs to keep doing it for one more game.

Newark (NJ) Dispatch:

The Peppers entered the league at the same time as the Packers, Blues, and Orioles, and it seemed like a miracle--in the span of a few short weeks Newark went from a minor league city to the Federal League to the American League. But while the Packers have been a first-division team since 1920, the Orioles have drafted and traded well and look to be a late-20s powerhouse, and the Blues may end the day as National League pennant winners, the Peppers have yet to reach .500 or sniff the first division.  We have some good players, but no Frankie Frisch, Guy Bush, or Mickey Cochrane has worn our uniform, let alone a Sam Streeter, Lou Gehrig or Al Simmons.

While the other former-Feds had some very difficult years, they all now find themselves vying for the pennant (if the Yankees ever loosen their grip) while the Peppers cycle between 6th and 10th place. Furthermore, the solution to the team's problems does not appear to be close at hand, and it may be the 1930s before they can compete. By then, they may be back in Indianapolis or in Louisville or some other would-be big-league city, but one that can't hear about Heilmann or Torriente's latest escapades on the local wireless.  We hope he Peppers (or whatever name they may have in the future) will stay in the Garden State, but that future remains cloudier than we might hope.

Alt-1925 Home Stretch!

 

We're 150 games in (for most MLB teams), and it's past time for an update.

Pennant Races: Loooooong over for the American League. The Yankees at this writing have won 21 games in a row (!), which I believe the all-time record in this universe--the real-life 26-game winning streak the New York Giants enjoyed in 1916 didn't happen in Alt-1916, so the longest in-universe winning streaks should be (I think) the 21-game winning streak the 1880 White Stockings had (which neglects some ties), and/or the 20-game winning streak the 1884 Grays had. The old AL record was the 1906 White Sox' 19-gamer, though that also had ties, or the 17-game streak the 1912 Senators had if you want a win-only streak. In any case, the Yankees had been coming across as having a very good year but not on par with 1923-1924 until the winning streak. Now they have a chance (but still only an outside chance) to set the single-season record for wins. Needless to say, the Yankees are absolutely running away with the AL and had clinched even before this winning streak started. 

The Cardinals had also been running away with the NL but have been scuffling in September. Not awful (8-9), but not really putting the pennant away. At the same time, the Buffalo Blues have gone 15-4 in September and have closed to 3 games back. The most likely outcome is still a Yankees-Cardinals World Series, but it's not quite a done deal yet.

More about the Yankees: In theory, this would be the time for the Bombers to take the foot off the gas--the call-ups have happened, injuries have bitten the Yankees both this year and in past years, and the team really doesn't seem like it would have anything left to prove.  However, there are a few things that are still leading me to play the A lineup and run the usual rotation out there at least for now--I reckon the winning streak shouldn't end because I run the Maple Leafs out there, plus there still is the off chance we can set the record for wins. Babe Ruth, who's having one of the all-time great seasons, is about to set the single-season RBI record and the AL single-season HR record isn't out of the question for him. Getting 25 wins is very much in play for both Pennock and Luque, and 20 is possible for Fitzsimmons. Heilmann, Lazzeri, Charleston, and Santop all have 85 RBI or more, and it seems likely that at least one of them will reach 100 RBI given the number of runs that the Yankees are scoring. Collins is fighting for the batting title and is tied for the stolen base lead. He's at 199 hits also, and only 4 off the league lead in that. I assume that eventually the winning streak will end, and three losses would put the win record out of reach, at which point the regulars will all get rest. Even at this point, though, I'm trying to make sure there's plenty of rest. 

The minors: The Cotton States League is coming up to its last day or two before the playoffs, which will pit Hampton Roads vs. Meridian. The Eastern Classic pitted the Akron Pros vs. the Springfield Ponies, both of them winning their league's pennant for the first time. Sprinfield came back from a 2-0 deficit to shock Akron by winning in 5 games.  The Governor's Cup is returning to Milwaukee for Game 6 as Charlotte keeps hanging on after the Brewers put them in a 3-0 hole. The Maple Leafs won back-to-back Little World Series (and 3 of the last 4) in a rematch of 1923 against Sacramento. Toronto dominated the series, which somehow still went 6 games. 

International Baseball: As noted elsewhere, 1926 actually began with the Manila Bay League, where the Meralco Conductors won the regular season but were upended by the Post of Manila Bearcats in the finals. The Dutch league similarly found the regular-season winner Amsterdam Quick beaten in the finals by Haarlem SC. The Nicaraguan Liga Interlocal was won by Xolotlán of Managua, who bucked these other trends and also won in the playoff. The Mexican LMB championship is still ongoing, with Equipo de Mexico currently leading that best-of-7 series 2 to 1 over Agraria. The Dominican and Cuban Winter Leagues have yet to get underway.

OK, back to it!

Alt-1925: All-Star Break

 It's 13 July, (Alt-)1925. The All-Star Game will be tomorrow, hosted by the reigning champions at Yankee Stadium. If there were Yankees doubters among any sportwriters or (anachronistic) hosts of wireless stations, they would presumably be silenced by now--after a 13-10 April the Yanks have gone 53-14, which is a 128-win pace. They are 1st or 2nd in basically every important batting or pitching category save extra base hits (4th), baserunning (8th), and home runs allowed (4th).  They lead the Kansas City Packers, themselves on a 107-win pace, by 6.5 games. 

There aren't as many Yankees on the batting leaderboards as you'd expect from that last paragraph. Eddie Collins is flirting with .400 and leads the AL in batting. Harry Heilmann is in 3rd, more about him in a bit. New acquisition Babe Ruth is only hitting about .300 but has a commanding lead in HR, SLG and RBI, along with a less commanding lead in runs scored and OPS.  The pinstripes are all over the pitching leaderboards, though--four Yankees are in the top 7 in ERA, three are in the top 7 in WHIP, and Luque and Pennock are leading or near the top of many other categories. 

The reason that there aren't more Yankees on the leaderboards has been the spate of injuries that has hit the team. Dazzy Vance had a pedestrian 5-4 record but was leading the league in strikeouts and K/9 before tearing an elbow tendon at the start of June. He'll be out for the year. Heilmann went down with a sore shoulder on June 24th, he's got another 3 weeks before he can return. Cobb missed 6 weeks and has of late been playing through a minor strain. Traynor missed most of May with a hip strain. Peckinpaugh missed 3 weeks. Others have had short or mild injuries.  So, this is where the Yankees' depth really comes to the fore--Cy Williams and Oscar Charleston filled in for Cobb and now for Heilmann, with Williams mashing the ball and Charleston much closer to his old form than he was in 1924.  Newt Allen and Tony Lazzeri ably filled in for Peckinpaugh and Traynor when they were both hurt, and since Traynor has been near replacement level this year they easily cleared a low bar. Vance's spot in the rotation has been itself in rotation--I went to a 5-man rotation this year after reading how it started to become dominant in 1925, but beyond Luque/Pennock/Fitzsimmons I've tried a few different folks. At the moment it's Rogan and Ruether, but they as well as Faber and Rixey have ERAs north of 5. Mendez, our ostensible closer, is also blowing a lot of saves, but he's been vulturing the wins.  Since the Yankees have been scoring 7 runs per game, even ERAs of 5 will be OK much of the time.

Over in the NL, the Cardinals are on a 113-win pace and have an even bigger lead over their closest competitors (10.5 over the Orioles). They might be dominating the NL even more than the Yankees are dominating the AL, sitting in 1st place in practically every pitching/defense category while still sitting 1st or 2nd in most of the batting ones. The Cards, who look to be en route to their 4th pennant in 8 years (and second in a row), probably deserve a more in-depth post at some point looking at how they were constructed--other than Hornsby, Hoyt, and Combs, the rest of their major players were acquired by trade. Their minor-league system is ranked 14th of 20 (the Yankees are 1st), and the only name I recognize in their system is Lyn Lary (though Hoyt and Combs are both pretty young, and even Hornsby is only 29).

As far as the individual stats in the NL, Torriente's season is mirroring Ruth's: average around .300 but running away with the HR and RBI races. Al Simmons is above .400, and I don't think anyone has ever hit .400 in consecutive seasons. But it's Rogers Hornsby who leads the league in WAR and who's as good an MVP candidate as anyone in that league right now.

OK, time to post this thing!

Alt-1925 At The Quarter Pole

 

I'm about 40 games in, and after a 1-4 start the Yankees have gone 26-9 and find themselves tied for first place with the Kansas City Packers. This is the case even though the Yanks have been hit with the injury bug--Ty Cobb only played 7 games before getting knocked out for a month, Santop spent two weeks on the IL, and nagging injuries have hit several other team members. Cobb's absence in particular exposed an awkward situation where the only people who could play CF competently (Arlett, Rogan, Charleston) weren't hitting particularly well and the only person who was hitting and could play CF at all (Cy Williams) was terrible out there. I've settled into a scheme where Williams starts the games and gets replaced in the 6th inning or so by Charleston, unless I need Charleston at 1B to spell Bill Terry (who also isn't hitting).  Traynor also got hurt, he'll have accrued about a month on the IL by the time he's back.

The early losses were also exacerbated by the bullpen, who was having one of their terrible stretches. Some of that is on me--I didn't realize right away that the new version of OOTP reset the defaults to require relievers to warm up, so I had a few games where I brought in relievers who were cold without realizing it. Happily, (most of) the starters have pitched very well, in particular Pennock and Luque. Terry, Lazzeri and Allen (called back up when Traynor got hurt) have been adequate but not great. Collins and Peckinpaugh have been lights out. Santop has been on fire. Ruth leads the league in home runs and RBI, but still feels a bit disappointing. Heilmann has also been performing up to what you'd reasonably expect, but he'd been living up to unreasonable expectations before. 

In the NL, the Giants got off to a crazy hot start, but cooled off considerably and the Cardinals are now holding down first place. The Maple Leafs are scuffling around .500, but the Pelicans are in first place and hoping to get their first-ever pennant. Lots yet to play, of course. 

One more thing to note--the draft pool was announced, and a whole lot of Negro League players who are already in the league were duplicated there. I think it's because of the change so that these players are now recognized as MLB players, but before then they only had Minor League IDs. I removed all the duplicates for players who hadn't retired, but before deleting them I copied their ratings over to the existing player profiles with the rationale that these shouldn't have the discounted ratings that they'd had before. So, OTL Negro League players basically all got boosted at some level. For the Yankees, that especially helped Charleston and Rogan in particular. 

I'll close here. I'm getting the vibe of those seasons where the Yankees take a little time to hit the right gear and then run away in the second half of the season.  There have already been a lot of injuries, though, and the bench is absolutely thinner than it might appear. So we'll see how it goes!