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 Bob Jecmen, creator of the annual Masters tournament.

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

I will be turning 75 in August. Hard to believe. I still feel and think young. My education is in materials science and physics from U of Illinois for undergrad and UC Berkeley for graduate work. I retired early at age 51 from Intel Corp where I was a VP in technology development and manufacturing running a clean room 24/7 where we developed new chip manufacturing processes and ramped them into early production before transferring them to larger plants around the world. My last 3 years at Intel I became a VP and general manager for their mobile computing business  which doubled in size to a $4B business in my 3 years.

I wasn’t a big fan of the extensive travel required for my GM job at Intel and took early retirement when I found a beautiful resort-like home in N. Cal with koi ponds and waterfalls and mountain view, which was too far to continue to commute to Intel. I eased into my retirement by serving on a half dozen boards of startup tech companies for 10+ years to avoid the shock of a cold turkey retirement.

I’ve been married to a Japanese-American artist for 47 years and it’s till death do us part. She is a 3rd generation Japanese-American activist who uses her art to educate others about the injustice of the Japanese incarceration during WWII. I help her with some of her art like her most famous work, which are glass kimonos made up of over 2000 pieces of glass decorated with over 200 fused images of family members and those who were forced into the WWII camps.

I am politically progressive and active in circulating fact-based articles and information to try to counter the massive amount of misinformation out there and to motivate others to defend democracy and rally their friends to do so as well.

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

My father was a big MLB fan. We lived in the Chicago area and he took me to my first Cubs game at Wrigley in 1955 for a double header vs the Reds. We sat in the bleachers and I remember a Wally Post HR which landed only about 10 feet from us. Banks also homered that day to get a split for the miserable Cubbies. I was in love with baseball. My dad would tell me stories. He was a mailman and would get off work at 2:30 and head to Wrigley to catch an afternoon game. He told me about seeing Babe Ruth play against the Cubs in the World Series and of Gabby Hartnett’s homer in the gloaming.  For my 10th birthday he bought me The History of Baseball book by Alister Danzig and Joe Richler. It was a 3 inch thick book filled with statistics, great photos, and stories of all the great players and teams up to 1959 when it was published. I was enthralled to learn about Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb, and the Babe.

 

Baseball continued to be a passion throughout my life. I played as a pitcher and SS from Little League through college and enjoyed MLB board games like All Star Baseball with the player discs and the spinner. Loved the #1 segment at the top of the discs for HRs. I also played Strat-O-Matic where I became interested in the combination of MLB, math, and statistics. I actually made some accurate Strat-O-Matic cards for historical player seasons like the 1930 Chuck Klein.

Many years later I stumbled upon Diamond Mind baseball on the internet while searching about some old time players. It was run by STATS at the time and I quickly got hooked exploring the old time greats and interacting with the knowledgeable fellow participants.  I continued playing DMO on ESPN and met and became friends with Dayne at that time. I even went to Dayne’s wedding and as a wedding gift gave him a copy of … The History of Baseball. We interacted as Dayne went through the process of acquiring the rights to Diamond Mind and I became an investor and tester of DMO as it was launched.

As creator and director of the Masters tournament, you’ve come up with many different custom league themes.  What do you think makes a good custom league?

There are several elements to a “good” custom league, which I try to employ in all Masters tournaments. First of all, I try to define a theme that maintains a level playing field and takes participants out of their comfort zone, by using non-standard features like restricted player pools and financial rules, to avoid cookie cutter replicated team approaches and encourage creative strategies for being successful.

I also often like to define themes that result in researching and learning more about MLB history, like franchises, decade progressions, playing eras (Dead Ball anyone?), and integration.

Finally, I use a limited $ cap, but with reasonably high upgrades, to make budgeting and values a critical part of managing your team.  The high upgrade budgets also keep interest high, since impactful upgrade decisions occur throughout the season, which can allow participants to recover from a poor start.

The Masters tournaments are not for everyone. They take more effort than standard leagues, but for those who want to be challenged to come up with creative strategies and compete with some of the most successful owners in DMO, it is a lot of fun.

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 of a theme which would be fun and fair for all participants. Avoid themes where there is a decided advantage from the draft order or player groupings. Don’t give yourself the first draft choice. You know, like, let’s do an unlimited franchise league and I get the NYY. The fun of custom is in the creative alternatives for success. To get one going, it helps to have a list of friends from your previous leagues to whom you can send invitations to join your custom league.