If you want to play in a tried-and-true format and create your team right now, standard leagues (Classic and SSG) are open to the public 24/7. But if you want to try something different, Custom Leagues – created by customers – are there in abundance.

There are franchise leagues, progression leagues, captains leagues, high and low salary cap leagues, “rags to riches” leagues, alphabet leagues, place of birth leagues … the possibilities are limited only by your imagination.

Diamond Mind Online would not be the same if the Community did not include some of the most clever and prolific creators of Custom Leagues. We’ll be featuring one of these in this space each month.

This month we’re visiting with Jim Baird, whose latest creation is the I’ll Show You Bums league, which is still looking for a few more owners.

Tell us something about yourself: age, occupation, marital status, where you live, and interests (apart from DMO, of course).

I’m single, 73, retired news photographer, living in San Diego. I was born on Long Island and we moved to Milwaukee not long after the Dodgers left Brooklyn, so I had two early teams that I was a fan of until they deserted my town. I worked in the St. Louis area in the late 1970s before relocating to San Diego, so the Cardinals and Padres account for most of around a thousand ball games I photographed at work.

I’m still getting a print newspaper, so the morning crossword and Sudoku can tell me if my brain’s still working. I also handicap horse racing, which taps into similar thinking as sabermetrics. My main exercise is golf, trying to get in at least one walking round per week.

When did you start playing DMO and how did it first come to your attention?

Not sure of the year, but it was sometime after I had played Bill James Classic Baseball and there must have been some link that led me here.

You currently are looking to fill the I’ll Show You Bums league. Tell us about the league and what you find appealing about the concept.

This league idea centers on the idea of an exasperated manager who played the game well, and played with talented players, and now he’s managing a lousy team. He’d love to replace some of them with himself in his prime and bring along some old teammates. It’s open to a wider pool than that; there are hundreds of managers who played in the majors, and they all have a losingest team they managed. But starting with a fairly low cap should limit the advantage of managers like Dave Roberts and Aaron Boone, whose worst team is still quite good. The theme also locks in a pool of players that you can count on having available to add later.

Can you offer a few tips for success for those who might want to participate in leagues with similar formats?

If the goal is to win in a league which consists of a limited pool (like two teams), the key would be finding groups whose best talent complements each other, and it also helps to find players who had very good partial seasons who can be picked up later in the season without wasting any of their innings or plate appearances. But this is more about the journey than the destination. There might be a team from your past (or present) that you can bring in with just enough changes that make it interesting and maybe even a winner.

Is there any advice you would give to people who haven’t created a Custom League before, but would like to give it a try?

  • Think first in terms of how much work your roster limitation idea requires. For example, I’ve thought of trying a league built on players’ draft lottery numbers (military draft, not baseball). People my age know how much those numbers meant; like Bill James, I got drafted and assigned to the military police. But looking up all the birthdays is way too tedious. Ideally, you can find your players with a simple sorting on this site.
  • Initial salary cap means a lot. High caps mean teams of stars, but they may underperform their expected numbers. Low caps mean going with more obscure players.
  • But the biggest issue is how many people are looking to start a team when you post the custom idea. Owners here have preferences in games per day, salary caps, injuries, SSG vs. Classic, etc. If you’re lucky, you’re posting an idea at about the time that players who might like the idea are finishing a league and looking for a replacement