Author: Jason Winston

Jason Winston is a lifelong baseball fan and player of various simulation games. He has worked as (among other things) a professional educator, journalist, marketing writer, and compliance analyst. He has managed tens of thousands more games than Connie Mack did, and with a better winning percentage, too!

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 161-162: The Regular Season Finishes

A quick reset before we try to alleviate the suspense. Despite losing five of six games, Jack Bauer Squared went into the final two games of the season tied for the division lead in the NL West. The 24×24 League is down to the wire, and even with a weak 77-83 record we were still playing for something and a playoff spot still very much in our grasp.

The four-game series at Olympic Stadium continued with our best starter, Mike Cuellar, taking the hill. $24 and Some Change got off to a good start in the top of the 1st inning with a two-run homer by Willie McGee. A homer by Dave Kingman in the 6th added another for the visitors.

Meanwhile aside from Bobby Bonilla’s second-inning double, JBS couldn’t get hits off Dave Righetti. Through 6 innings, that was all we’d produced. As I’ve noted, a sim doesn’t know the difference between Game 1 and Game 161, or the standings, or the desperation. So the game just unfolds with no special urgency in the air.

We got a rally started in the 7th inning, with back-to-back singles to start the inning followed by a couple outs. Then Rafael Ramirez singled to load the bases and bring up pinch hitter Bob Bailey with a chance to get us back into it. Bailey was not up to the task, however, striking out looking to end the threat.

$24 put it out of reach in the 9th when McGee hit his second homer of the game, and we went down meekly, 6-0. Predictably, our co-division leaders Steroids Make You Fast won their game to take a 1-game advantage into the season finale.

Game 161

That put our backs to the wall in a big way. We’d lost four in a row and six out of seven. It’s a depressing way to finish when you led by 3 games with eight left and suddenly to be down a game and the season finale looming. 

The only good scenario left would be for us to win and Steroids to lose in Game 162. Better take care of business, or it won’t matter what they do.

Burt Hooton got the start and immediately walked the leadoff batter and hit the next one. Up stepped catcher Ron Hassey, who drove in both runners with a double.

Believe it or not, Hooton wouldn’t allow another hit the rest of the game. He retired the next 20 in a row before yielding a walk in the 7th. The only question was whether we could get the runs to make the effort worth it.

In the bottom of the 1st we certainly looked like we could. Kal Daniels led off with a double off Dennis Martinez and scored on Bobby Murcer’s ground out. That made it 2-1.

In the 2nd inning, we got two runners on, but Ryne Sandberg flied out to end the threat. In the 3rd, we went down 1-2-3. 

In the 4th, we got a walk but nothing else. In the 5th, Kingman made an error, but we left the runner on 2nd.

In the 6th, we went down 1-2-3. In the 7th, Ramirez led off with a single, and we got a runner to second with one out. But Martinez struck out Daniels and Sandberg.

In the 8th, we went down 1-2-3. Our bullpen kept $24 to just the one hit with a perfect 8th and 9th, so it went to the bottom of the 9th stuck at the same 2-1 score from way back in the 1st inning.

$24 called on Tom Niedenfuer, a longtime Dodgers reliever perhaps best known for giving up two disastrous home runs to the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1985 League Championship Series. Dodgers fans certainly don’t remember his mostly effective run across his tenure with the team.

Sure, I digress, but the point is Niedenfuer was remarkably capable of blowing this game and giving us a chance to make the playoffs. He gave up a walkoff homer to light-hitting Ozzie Smith in Game 5 of that NLCS, after all.

So up stepped Garry Maddox to start us off, and he took strike three looking. Not helpful.

Bailey came in to hit for Gene Tenace, and he struck out on a bad pitch. Really not helpful.

Joel Youngblood came in to hit for Ramirez and try to keep hopes alive. He grounded to second. Final, 2-1.

Feeble finish to the game. Feeble finish to the season. 

Game 162

It was, of course, a one-run loss. We would wind up 17-27 in such games. Going .500 in them at 22-22 would have put us 4 games ahead in the division. Such is the difference bad luck can make.

Five straight losses, including the final four at home against a team with nothing to play for. Lost eight of the final 10. 

We finished 77-85 despite allowing only 3 more runs than we scored. With normal luck, we would have been 81-81, which would have been good enough.

And of course, predictably, Steroids Make You Fast lost its finale and won the division by a single game. Yup, get even one of these painful 1-run losses back and we’re tied. Win two of them, and we’re in the playoffs.

Instead, the season comes to a screeching halt. We choked away our lead and couldn’t manage even a single win when it counted. 

Here’s the (almost) final NL standings. There is still a tie for the wild card to be resolved before the playoffs can begin.

What felt like maybe a magical storyline instead turned into a humbling one. We played our way out of last place to sit with a solid lead only to fritter it away. It’s been an exciting season, if not a successful one ultimately. I’ll have a post mortem post to write on what went right and what went wrong.

Life, as with sim baseball, will go on. I’ve got 18 other teams going right now, and 11 of them are in first place. Three are deep into the seasons and doing very well. I could have made a better choice to build a running story around, but you can’t predict that. Hopefully it’s been worthwhile anyway.

I’m not done here even if the season is. Plenty more to say, and infinite space to say it in. See you in the next post …

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 159-160: Are We Having Fun Yet?

Hey, sports fans, remember when Jack Bauer Squared had a 3-game division lead with 8 games left? Yeah, we didn’t exactly put it away.

Coming home to Olympic Stadium to finish the regular season with a four-game series against the only team eliminated in the division certainly sounded promising. All $24 and Some Change had left to play for was pride, and heck we were pretty lucky not to be there with them.

But there we sat with a 1-game lead and a magic number of 4 and destiny still in our hands. Win out, and we’d be .500 and in the playoffs. Get some luck and we wouldn’t even need to win them all.

So of course we came out to open this decisive series … and laid an egg. The visitors roughed up Bert Blyleven for 5 runs before we even got a chance to bat, and sure-handed second baseman Ryne Sandberg’s error proved pretty costly mixed with the three doubles $24 racked up.

They added another run in the 2nd to make it 6-0, but we had some fight in us at least. In the 3rd, Sandberg and Bobby Bonilla belted two-run homers to close the gap to 2. 

But $24 blew it open in the 5th with 4 more runs off Blyleven, whose ERA ballooned to 5.10, the highest it has been the entire season. The 10 runs he allowed were a season high, and he likely won’t get another start now unless we manage to make the playoffs and win a round.

JBS put a couple runs on to make it a bit more respectable before falling 10-6. Of course our closest competitor Steroids Make You Fast won their game to forge a tie with 3 games to go. Forget the magic number anymore. Now it’s a straight-out sprint.

Game 159

On to the second game of the series, and we sent Teddy Higuera to the mound to follow up his excellent previous start in which he took a no-hitter into the 7th. Instead, he did his best Blyleven impression.

$24 and Some Change once again scored 5 in the top of the 1st and another in the 2nd, an exact duplicate of the game before and a matching 6-0 lead. We managed to make it respectable with a 3-run 6th and added another in the 8th before Carlos Delgado struck out with the bases loaded to end the threat.

That proved our last hurrah as we dropped a 6-4 decision. The only solace was the Steroids also lost to remain even with us at 77-83 and two games to play. 

Game 160

We’ve lost three in a row and five out of six right when we had our destiny in our hands. It’s fairly depressing, because I keep getting my hopes up that this team has turned a corner only to get smacked back again. 

A Rod is only 2 games back of us and could still wind up in a tie for the division lead if they can knock Steroids off twice and we falter twice more. That could certainly happen. Nothing to suggest we look like a team prepared to win a game, that’s for sure.

We will know in less than a day whether the season goes on for Jack Bauer Squared. We could win the division, we could wind up in a one-game playoff, we could wind up in a three-way tie, or we could lose the race by a game or even two. Lots of possibilities in these final two.

Mike Cuellar, our mostly pretty good ace, goes in the final series’ third game. He’ll be followed by Burt Hooton in the regular-season finale. If we wind up in a one-game playoff, Higuera would get a shot at redemption.

Keep those fingers crossed!

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 157-158: Trying to Hold On

This division race, aka the Battle of the Bads, is down to the final 6 games. A 1-game lead is tenuous at best for Jack Bauer Squared, and all that’s saved us is no one else in the division is playing well either. 

We’re all playing each other at this point, so the team that finishes strongest could emerge on top. Hoping it’s us is about all there is left, since the results are largely beyond my control.

After losing two low-scoring one-run games at Yankee Stadium to A Rod, some Wood and a Big Unit, we needed something good to happen in a hurry. It took until the 5th inning, but Bobby Bonilla hit a 3-run homer (his 14th) to put us ahead 3-0. Garry Maddox doubled in a run in the 7th to make it 4-0.

Meanwhile Teddy Higuera wasn’t allowing anything. As in, no hits through 6 innings.

Alas, Rod Carew tripled to lead off the 7th, and A Rod pushed a pair of runs across. We got them back in the top of the 9th as Bobby Murcer tripled in a run and scored on a pinch single to push the lead back to 4.

In the bottom of the 9th A Rod got a run in, and Bob Woodward came out of the pen to get the final out. He ended the rally for his 36th save to wrap up a 6-3 victory.

Game 157

Meanwhile, Steroids lost and that dropped our magic number to 4 while increasing our division lead to 2 with 5 to play. Our destiny was still in our hands.

The series finale had a lot riding on it, and we opened with a run in the first on a single by Bonilla. Mike Cuellar did his best Higuera impression and held A Rod hitless through the first 3 innings, but it didn’t last. 

The hosts chalked up 2 runs in the 4th, and it stayed 2-1 until they broke through again in the 7th, this time for 4 more runs. We threatened to make a game of it in the 9th but dropped an 8-4 decision.

Game 158

With Steroids winning its series finale, our magic number didn’t budge and our lead dropped once again to 1 game. That sends us to the final four-game series of the season, at home against $24 and Some Change. Nervous time all the way now.

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 155-156: Magic Number Unmoved

Maybe I should have complained. At least about the one-run losses or something. I should have known anything promising would not last in this crazy season.

The series opener against A Rod, some Wood and a Big Unit at Yankee Stadium turned out to be a pitchers’ duel. Mike Cuellar had his fifth good outing in his past six, battling the hosts’ Wilbur Wood effectively.

Bobby Murcer got Jack Bauer Squared on the board first with his 28th homer in the 2nd, and Cuellar kept it 1-0 until allowing a two-run homer to Rod Carew in the 5th. And then … crickets from the offenses.

JBS got runners the last four innings but couldn’t manage to break through against Wood and the bullpen. The 2-1 loss, the familiar one-run kind, cut the division lead to 2 and moved the host A Rod squad within 4 games as they try to pull off a late comeback, too.

Game 155

So with the magic number unmoved and still at 6, we headed back out for Game 2. After A Rod took a 1st-inning 1-0 lead, Garry Maddox singled home Murcer to tie it in the 2nd. But A Rod came right back to take a 2-1 lead in the home half. 

In the 5th, A Rod struck for another run off Burt Hooton while JBS couldn’t manage anything else off Randy Johnson. It stayed a 3-1 game until the top of the 9th as we tried to rally. With one out, Murcer singled to bring up Maddox, who promptly belted his 9th homer of the season to tie it at 3.

Gary Lucas came out of the pen to pitch the bottom of the 9th and try to extend it to extra innings. Third baseman Bobby Bonilla booted a grounder to start the inning, however, and Carew singled the runner to third. A single by Dan Gladden ended it just like that, 4-3.

Game 156

The familiar refrain of the one-run loss and missed opportunity results here. That’s now 5 more one-run losses in the past 12 games, putting us 17-26 in such games. At 76-80 we now have just a 1 game lead over Steroids and 3 over A Rod. 

The magic number remains frozen at 6, and suddenly we are a loss away from blowing a 3-game lead in just 3 games. We badly need to show up the last two games of this series.

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 153-154: Two Dramatic Finishes

The showdown series continues between Jack Bauer Squared and Steroids Make You Fast with first place in the NL West and a playoff spot on the line. After JBS took the first two games and opened a 3-game lead, Steroids desperately needed to win at least one of the final two games at Dodger Stadium to keep us from running away with it. 

The third game evoked a playoff atmosphere for sure, and if it had been aired on national television it might be fondly remembered as a classic. 

Ryne Sandberg tripled in the 1st inning, his 15th (second in the league), but Carlos Delgado and Bobby Murcer failed to bring him home. In the bottom of the 1st, Steroids jumped out to the lead instead on Willie McCovey’s two-run homer. JBS got one back in the 2nd when Garry Maddox doubled and scored on Gene Tenace’s single, but Steroids came right back with one of their own to make it 3-1.

Things stayed quiet until the top of the 5th, when Kal Daniels belted his 20th homer, a two-run shot to tie it, and Murcer singled in Sandberg to give JBS a 4-3 lead. Steroids, however, came right back to even it in the bottom of the 5th on three straight singles.

Undeterred, Maddox singled to lead off the 6th and came home on a single by Rafael Ramirez to put us back up, 5-4. Then in the 7th, Delgado singled and Murcer doubled him home for a 6-4 lead. Steroids got one back in the 8th, and then Tenace singled in a run in the top of the 9th to put us back up by 2 before we left the bases loaded.

That set up Bob Woodward and his microscopic ERA for a shot at his 36th save in 37 chances. With one out, he hit Jose Canseco with a pitch and allowed a single to Cal Ripken Jr. to bring the dreaded McCovey to the plate. 

McCovey belted one to right-center as the graceful Maddox and speedy Murcer raced to the wall to try to make a game-saving catch. But our outfielders ran out of room as McCovey’s blast just cleared the wall for a walk-off three-run homer.

The 8-7 victory kept Steroids’ hopes alive and cut our division lead back to 2. Woodward’s ERA ballooned to 1.35 as he allowed as many runs in that inning as he had all season. Our magic number remained at 8.

Game 153

That set up the final game of the series, which would either end with JBS up by 1 game or 3 with 8 to play. That’s a big difference.

No one pushed a run across until the 4th inning, when JBS put together a big two-out rally. Ramirez, pitcher Burt Hooton, and Daniels singled successively, and then Sandberg doubled in a pair for a 5-0 lead. Maddox hit his 8th homer in the 5th to put us up 6-0 and well on our way.

Steroids wasn’t going to go quietly, however. They got to Hooton in the 6th, first on a homer by (who else?) McCovey and then on a walk and two singles to make it 6-2. In the 7th McCovey singled home Ripken and scored on a single as Steroids chipped away again to close the gap to 6-4.

The JBS bullpen was a bit fatigued and turned to little-used lefty Gary Lucas to start the 9th against the feared McCovey, whom he promptly walked. After a strikeout from Lucas (side note: he’s a native of my longtime town, Riverside, CA), the JBS manager summoned usual starter Bert Blyleven from the pen to try to get the final two outs.

Blyleven, who was being skipped in the rotation during the critical series, rose to the occasion and recorded a strikeout and a groundout to preserve the 6-4 victory. The win lowered our magic number to 6 and sent us into the final 8 games with division opponents 3, 5, and 5 games behind us. 

Game 154

At 76-78, we may not be a juggernaut but we’ve got a shot at a .500 record and a playoff spot. After the way things were headed midseason, I can’t complain.

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 151-152: We Have a Magic Number

As this exciting season rushes to a conclusion, I figured it was worth breaking the series-by-series update pattern to spotlight the games even more closely in the final stretch of the pennant chase.

Jack Bauer Squared entered a four-game road series against second-place Steroids Make You Fast; Just Ask Jose with a one-game lead with 12 games left in the season. The goal in a series like that is to do no worse than a split, so we would at least emerge with a one-game division lead with 8 to play.

In the 2nd inning, Steroids got back-to-back homers from Willie McCovey and Andy Van Slyke to open the scoring, but Kal Daniels responded with a 2-run homer in the 3rd to even it. Steroids responded with two more runs in the 3rd, but we tied it again in the 4th on run-scoring singles by Garry Maddox and Rafael Ramirez. Definitely a playoff feel to this one!

In the top of the 6th we broke the tie on a sacrifice fly from Ramirez and turned a 1-run lead over to the bullpen to protect for 4 innings. In the 7th, Ryne Sandberg walked, stole second, and scored on Carlos Delgado’s single to put us up 6-4. Everyone seems to be chipping in on this one.

Cal Ripken Jr. led off the bottom of the 8th with a homer to cut the lead to 1, but that was the extent of the damage. Bob Woodward took the mound in the 9th to try for his 35th save and struck out Jose Canseco with the tying run on second to preserve a 6-5 win. Woodward’s ERA dropped to 0.55, and he still has only allowed earned runs in one game all season and any runs at all twice in 38 appearances.

Game 151

That was huge, as it put us 2 games up with 11 to play and at the very least assured we wouldn’t get swept. We brought back Mike Cuellar on short rest to start the next game and hoped for one of his Dr. Jekyll outings that have at least recently been more common.

The second game began auspiciously as Daniels led off with his 19th homer, and we took advantage of an outfield error by Canseco (famously not the best of outfielders) with a run-scoring single by Bobby Bonilla for his 100th RBI (joining Delgado and Bobby Murcer in the club). Cuellar helped his own cause with a run-scoring single in the 4th, and Sandberg drove him in to put us up 4-0.

Murcer hit his 27th homer in the top of the 7th to make it 5-0, and Cuellar kept it going until the 8th. An error by Ramirez helped Steroids pick up two runs, but Cuellar got McCovey to hit into a 3-6-3 double play to end the frame.

With Woodward resting, Rod Beck took the mound for the 9th and worked a 1-2-3 inning for his 3rd save. Cuellar upped his record to 17-12 and lowered his ERA to 4.34, the best it’s been the entire season. Considering it was at 6.72 after his first 10 starts, he’s been pretty solid in the 33 since (3.67 ERA across that span).

Game 152

The win put us 3 games ahead of Steroids with 10 to play and actually made me look for the first time at our magic number, which is 8. That means any combination of our wins or their losses reaching 8 puts us in the playoffs, and with two more head-to-head games here we could knock 2 or 4 more off that total.

Still, it’s a long 10 games starting with these two to finish the series and then facing the rest of the division. A Rod, some Wood and a Big Unit is only 4 games back, and we play them next. I’ve blown and overcome bigger leads, so it’s nice to be sitting at the top but it’s not a comfortable spot by any means.

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 148-150: Another Missed Opportunity

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Jack Bauer Squared is playing one of the league’s worst teams and has a chance to do something helpful toward trying to get into the playoffs. And after going 4-2 against two division leaders, surely we could at least do the same against the league’s weakest teams.

Uh, no.

Things started out well enough. Burt Hooton carried a no-hitter and a 1-0 lead through 5 innings, but it all fell apart in the 6th. Todd Helton??? put up 4 runs and chased Hooton, and then they roughed up the bullpen to cruise to an 8-1 win.

Fortunately we stayed tied for the division lead with Steroids Make You Faster, but it was definitely a missed opportunity to move in front while they lost to the wild-card leader 24 Hours at Wrigley.

Game 148

JBS came out strong in the second game, racking up 3 in the 1st and 7 more in the 3rd to coast to a 13-5 victory. Steroids lost again, so we moved a game in front in the division race but still 3 games under .500.

The recently-maligned-in-this-space Ryne Sandberg drove in 3 runs, and Bobby Murcer’s 3 RBI pushed him to 102, the first to get to 100 on the team this season. The 102 puts him 25th in the league. We have two hitters leading the league in anything: Sandberg is tops in at-bats at 670 (also second in triples at 14), and Carlos Delgado leads in doubles at 46. Kal Daniels and Delgado are in the top six in on-base percentage.

One of my league mates corrected me on something I said about Sandberg in a previous post, too. Though I said he was putting up numbers that would be the worst in the sim history, the records I cited only applied to a particular group of leagues all played at the same salary cap. And because this league is a higher cap than that, it’s reasonable to expect better pitching and therefore lower performance.

Game 149

On to the rubber game of our series, and once again we led early. This time Teddy Higuera had a shutout going through 5 and we led 2-0. Again the 6th inning turned the tide, as Todd Helton??? smacked a pair of homers to take the lead and went on to win, 5-2.

Game 150

The two losses in the series were definitely a missed opportunity, as Steroids Make You Faster got swept. So we emerged a game ahead with 12 to go, but we could have opened up a little space that would have been nice.

And coming up next: four games head-to-head with Steroids at Dodger Stadium as we begin the final three series of the year, all in the division. With teams only 3 and 5 games out behind us, it’s still possible for any of these four teams to win it. It’s also quite likely someone will win with a sub-.500 record too, since we’d have to go 8-4 just to get to 81-81.

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 145-147: A Missed Opportunity

Let’s reset the scenario here for Jack Bauer Squared entering the season’s final 18 games. We came into our third straight road series at 71-73 and tied for first place in the National League West. Coming off series with the two division leaders where we went a combined 4-2, we headed to play the league’s two worst teams next before finishing with 12 division games.

If ever there were an opportunity to take advantage of, the series at Tigers of the Ontario Peninsula qualified. Every win feels precious right now, and you have to beat the teams below you. If only I could have explained that better to my code bits.

So we opened the series in Tiger Stadium by squandering run-scoring opportunities early. We left seven runners on in the first 4 innings and led just 1-0 despite outhitting the Tigers 5-0. The Tigers put up two runs in the 4th and another in the 5th off Teddy Higuera and then it stayed 3-1 until Bobby Murcer led off the 8th inning with his team-high 25th home run.

We put runners on the corners after that but couldn’t get the tying run home. We ended up with a 3-2 loss, dropping to 16-22 in one-run games. Meanwhile Steroids Make You Fast moved a game ahead of us by winning their game.

Game 145

No time to mess around now against a team we needed to beat, and we came out stronger in the second game. Ryne Sandberg hit his 10th homer and Garry Maddox doubled in two in the 1st inning to give Mike Cuellar an early lead. 

We got another start from good Cuellar, fortunately. He gave up only 1 run and 2 hits in 8 innings, and Bob Woodward nailed down the final out for his 34th save of a 5-2 win.

Game 146

Steroids lost their game to push us back into a tie, both of us now two games under .500 again. You start to get the feeling there won’t be much separating us at the end of this season.

A bit of a brief sidebar here feels needed to discuss Sandberg’s performance for me. The 1984 Ryno was an MVP for the Cubs, hitting .314 with 200 hits, slugging over .500, stealing 32 bases, and a Gold Glove fielder. 

He was my 3rd-round pick in this draft, where great hitting second basemen weren’t that easy to come by. I’ve had him batting 2nd all season, where I still believe he belongs. It’s just … he’s been really disappointing. He’s played fine defense at least, with only 7 errors, but I needed quite a bit more offense than that out of him and there’s just no sign he’s going to provide it. 

He’s played all 147 games and has put up a meager .245/.278/.370 slash line (compared with .314/.367/.520 in real life). For what it’s worth, in 53 seasons for other owners in his performance history, Sandberg’s worst season was .255/.293/.417. So he might be on his way to surpassing that for me. Gee thanks, random luck.

Now back to the action … We again got going early in the series’ final game, with Murcer’s 26th homer capping a 2-run 1st, but the Tigers quickly pounced on Bert Blyleven and opened a 5-2 lead in the 3rd. And then crickets until the 8th inning.

We rallied nicely in the 8th, loading the bases with no outs and Maddox clearing them with a double to tie the game. We couldn’t get Maddox home from 3rd with one out, alas. Then Gorman Thomas led off the bottom of the 8th with a homer off Joe Sambito, and we went meekly in the 9th to lose 6-5, another missed opportunity.

Game 147

That made us 16-23 in one-run games and 72-75 overall. Fortunately Steroids also lost their rubber game and remained tied with us. The rest of the division, as noted previously, isn’t exactly far behind either: 3 and 5 games back. With all division teams playing each other over the final three series (each four games), anyone really could wind up winning this.

Next up we come home to Olympic Stadium to face Todd Helton???, who at 60-87 brings up the rear in the NL but yet has won 8 of its past 10. Since we just learned that beating teams below us isn’t easy at all, there’s no chance of overconfidence going into this one either. But you know it would be a darn good time for a sweep, I’m just sayin’.

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Baseball MLB Sim Baseball

One Game Short

Despite winning our final 7 games of the season, my 1997 New York Mets fell one game short of the playoffs in the Cooperstown Historical Replay season. The Marlins held us off 92-70 to 91-71 to wrap up the wild card, and now they’ll try to duplicate the magic that led to a World Series win that year.

It was a good run and I don’t feel like I could have gotten much more out of this team. I drafted 9th last season, and 7 of the 8 playoff teams were ones drafted ahead of me. The only one that wasn’t: the Marlins, of course, who went one pick after mine. 

We are waiting now for the lottery to determine our draft order for picking 1998 teams. By finishing 3 games above the Mets’ real-life win total, I’ll probably be somewhere around the 9th-10th pick again unless I’m fortunate enough to jump into the top 3. 

The 1998 season has a lot of great storyline options and teams that would be fun to manage. Start with the Cardinals and Cubs for the Mark McGwire–Sammy Sosa record home run race and the 114-win Yankees, but there are certainly a few more that would be worthy to take. I have no idea who I’d take if I got a top-three pick, but I hope to have that problem.

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Baseball MLB Sim Baseball

Another Exciting Finish

I have other Sim League Baseball teams going, of course. Thirteen active seasons going right now, in fact.

One of them is my favorite ongoing league, Cooperstown Historical Replay. This league had a couple seasons going before I joined, but it works very simply and appeals to my old board-game mentality immensely. 

The league replays major-league seasons one after another, with each owner drafting a real team and using only the players from that team. It’s as pure a replay as you can get in this sim, but it also somewhat exposes where it can be a little flawed. The hitters tend to feast on the weaker pitching, and the bad teams tend to do really poorly.

But to keep owners motivated even when stuck with a lousy real team, we have a lottery where your chances are based on how close you came to managing your team to a record as good as real life. If you outshine the team’s actual performance, you’re likely to draft in the top few teams for the following season, regardless of how good or bad you were.

We are in 1997 right now, and for the second straight season I’m managing the New York Mets. Just the way it worked out. We are one game from the end of the season, and I’ve managed the Mets to a 90-71 mark and just one game behind the wild card-leading Florida Marlins.

The actual 1997 Mets went 88-74, so I’m on the good side of the ledger. That should get me a top-10 pick for 1998, but right now I’m fighting for that final playoff spot. We’ve won 6 straight to get a chance at forcing a tiebreaker game 163. We’ll have to beat Houston while the Marlins lose to Pittsburgh in the finale for that to happen, but it’s fun to have a chance.

My history in this league is decent enough. I had a great run in somehow managing the Pirates to a World Series title in 1987 and then taking the 1988 Dodgers to the World Series the following season but losing in seven games. As a Dodgers fan, it was special to try to get that team the trophy, since it remains the last time the team won. 

I’ve gotten one team to a World Series since, but these Mets aren’t really a championship contender. We’d still have to win a one-game tiebreaker just to get to the division series, and the team is already pretty fatigued trying to get there at all. Had to go for it, though. We’ll soon find out if our season continues for one more game.