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 Clint Mustain, creator of the 7 Man and Milestones leagues.

Tell us something about yourself: age, occupation, marital status, where you live, and interests (apart from DMO, of course).
My name is Clint Mustain and I am 50 years old.  I am currently the Lead Minister of Coquille Christian Community Church in Southwest Oregon.  I enjoy hunting and fishing, an occasional round of golf, and binge watching tv shows on streaming platforms.

When did you start playing DMO and how did it first come to your attention?
I think it was around 2002 and I was coaching baseball at a small NAIA school in the Midwest, when the athletic director asked me to come in and look at something he was working on.  It was an imagine sports draft.  He explained the game to me and I have been hooked ever since.

You’ve created numerous Custom Leagues, in particular, the Milestones and 7 Man League series.  Tell us something about these leagues, and what it is about them that you find appealing?

The Milestones draft started with an idea to pick 4 seasons from my lifetime that were important for my favorite team, the Philadelphia Phillies.  We picked Mike Schmidt’s coming to the majors in 1972 (also year I was born), the 1980 championship season, the 1993 season losing to Joe Carter and the Jays, and 2008 when they brought the title back home.  There is a 4 round snake draft to select a franchise from each of these seasons.  It was fun and it seemed popular.
As we advanced, I started to make the season selections more personal and picked the year of my first MLB game, the year in college I got to play in Busch Stadium, the year I took my son to his first game, etc.  Then we asked other owners to pick their personal milestone seasons.  It has given us a small glimpse into the different owners’ lives as they select years and explain why they are important.

The 7 Man draft developed because I had seen 5- and 6-man versions, but I liked the idea of a more strictly balanced draft.  Since there were 28 roster spots, you would select 4 versions of each of 7 players to fill out your roster.  That first season was won by me because I was lucky enough to get 4 seasons of Greg Maddux.  Now that league has continued for 19 versions, but we change the rules every time around.  It takes on different looks.  There are some great owners in the league and it is usually dominated by Bob Jecmen, Jon Karraker and Brian O’Donnell.

Can you offer a few tips for success for those who might want to participate in leagues with similar formats?
The first and most important thing to remember when joining these single season leagues is to understand normalization.  So many times someone has jumped in with Sandy Koufax and thought they were a leg up on the competition.  Not fully understanding how the Sim treats pitchers from the Pitchers Era, Koufax and Bob Gibson tend to blow up in new owners’ faces.
Overestimating players in the offensive dominant eras can be dangerous too.  Many players from the 1930s won’t put up numbers like they did then.  The same can be said of many of the years in the 1950s and even the home run numbers of our modern players.  Understanding normalization can easily be the difference between first and last place.

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?
I would suggest that you put something together that is interesting to you.  Make it fun or even personal.  It will resonate more with you.  The odds are, if it sounds like an interesting idea to you, it will probably sound interesting to someone else.  Be creative.