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 Dave (simdobbers2) LeLacheur, creator of the United Baseball League and Through the Ages leagues.

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

I’m 58 and have been married 25 years with 2 in college.  We live in the greater Boston area of eastern Massachusetts.  I’ve worked for over 20 years programming online personality assessments and running the businesses behind the tests.

My real calling the last 10+ years has been designing complicated war games.  My first game was published in 2015 via Compass Games: a replay of World War II that is a step up in realism and complexity from Axis & Allies.  Just this week I turned over my second game to Compass, who will produce and publish it late in 2023.  This will be called Lightning Strikes! The World Wars of the 20th Century.  It is a 40 year game from 1914 to 1954, and does two things no other war game has ever done (to my knowledge): make players live with the after effects of fighting a war; and contain the (very strong) possibility of multiple world wars occuring all in one game.

It’s an enormously detailed game that will have 2,992 pieces, a huge global map, and rules book that runs 136 pages.  Really looking forward to seeing it produced.  Hopefully it will be the ultimate write-your-own-alternate-history war game.

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

I was a dice baseball game player from age 8 or so (thanks to big brother Bob, who also plays here at IS), including Sports Illustrated (my favorite), Strat-O-Matic, APBA, and Sher-Co.  When I got my first personal computer in the mid 1990s, the first thing I tried to do was to create new Sports Illustrated style teams, extensively researching career statistics (normalized for era and park, of course) as the basis.

Playing rotisserie in the 1990s was also fun, but didn’t quite scratch the itch to see Babe Ruth on the mound and Wes Ferrell at the plate.  When I discovered Diamond Legends online around 2001, it was a natural fit.  I played that quite a lot, including at ESPN, and haunted the databases at DLFans too.  I was one of the originals here at Imagine Sports when Dayne and Charles were able to set it free for all of us to enjoy.

I was one (among many, no doubt) who urged IS to go forward with the SSG and to allow for 3 weeks seasons instead of 9.  It’s been great to see how Dayne and Charles and their colleagues have successfully shepherded this game for over 15 years now, constantly encouraging it to evolve  in new ways and at an interesting (but not overwhelming) pace.

This seems like a good spot to mention that there’s a great group of owners in the eastern Massachusetts and greater New England region that have been getting together at the Horseshoe Pub on a regular basis for many years now.  There’s nothing better than good company and good baseball talk, with a few games live on the tv in the background.

Many a crazy league has been inspired here, such as the dreaded Theme of Themes leagues.  This is why gaming is good for the soul: we create new communities of new friends that have shared interests and good times together.  We all need as much of that as we can get.

You’re currently running two series of leagues: Through the Ages and the United Baseball Leagues.  Tell us something about these leagues, and what it is about them that you find appealing?

Through the Ages started with the then-oldest SSG season available, 1926.  We’re up to 1989 right now (and I’m happy to say my team is in the ‘89 World Series, thankfully in home parks in Boston and LA so we can avoid the earthquake in the Bay Area).  It’s been a great group of owners, with more than half of them having been in the league from the very beginning.  Many of us also played in a prior Classic league named after Ray Kinsella that tried to mimick the SSG before the SSG came out.  At 9 games per day, plus a week to draft we complete about a dozen leagues per year.  With any luck we’ll catch up with real time around 2027 or so.

Through the Ages really tries to create franchise stability.  You can potentially retain up to 24 players from one year to the next.  The salary cap (now at $130M, after gradually increasing from initally $110M) makes sure no team can hoard too many stars, and sometimes to have to cut some players, which keeps the league highly competitive.  The drafting rules are a bit complicated (you expected no less from me, I hope), but after running through one draft the new owners have quickly adapted and also seem to enjoy it.  It’s a lot of fun to be able to track my favorite players through their whole career.

To pick one example, I was a big Rick Miller fan back in the 1970s and 1980s.  He’s not an all-time great, nor even an all-star, but I always liked him.  I was able to draft him as a rookie, and kept him on my team, named the Kalamazoo Celery Pickers in honor of a real-life minor team from the 1920s, for most of his career.  (He was a salary cap casualty at one point, but I was able to get him back.)

The United Baseball League started with SSG 1921, and is now in 1933.  This league emphasizes simplicity: you must retain exactly 12 players from year to year.  There’s still a salary cap.  So we run off the first 12 rounds for everyone’s keepers, then it is an uncomplicated normal draft after that.  I’ve always had a hankering for pre-1980s baseball, so starting another old-time SSG was a natural fit for me.  Although I’ve enjoyed Through the Ages, the expansion from 1961 onwards does affect the SSG format, and for that reason the United Baseball League will cease play in 1960 this time around.

I know many players like to mix up their SSG seasons, including lots of years all together.  I am different in that I love the SSG but only if it is based on a single season.  If we want to cross seasons, then I prefer to use the Classic game.

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

Firstly, the league’s success depends on commissioner being willing to put in some time.  There are always issues that need addressing, no matter how simple your rules are and how responsible your owners are.  But if the league’s rules are communicated clearly and applied without bias, I find that is best for everyone’s gaming enjoyment.  I try never to lose sight that having fun is why we’re all here.

If you want to be successful in a competitive SSG league, you have to do some digging.  You need to know which players were playing in hitter’s or pitcher’s parks.  You also need to know how their splits were for that year.  Assuming you are using standard “pumpkin” rules, then apply those two points to see if a player’s salary seems like a bargain or not.

One trick I will use from time to time is to find a cheap (< $1M) Ex fielder who did not play much that year.  Then I’ll bat him last and trot him out as a regular, reasoning that his lack of hitting after he turns into a pumpkin is more than offset by the value of his Ex glove

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?

Standard leagues are fun, and I will play one every so often.  For me, the best Classic format is the random limited pool approach.  This is a very enjoyable way to keep leagues fresh, since you never know which players will be available.  Every draft in an 800 player pool, for example, is a fascinating challenge.  The emphasis is less on finding the most valuable players (e.g., players who perform “better” than what their salary costs).  Instead, forming a team that fits well in its home park and that matches up well against your divison rivals is usually the key to success in this kind of league.

The SSG gives you the chance to dive in deeply and see all of those names that you may remember from leafing through the Baseball Encyclopedia when you were a kid.   You also get the highs and the lows.  It’s one thing to see Gates Brown have a good Classic season, and quite another to see him in 1968.  Find the format that interests you the most, whether multiple seasons at a time, or just one season; a one-off league, or a progression that allows you to retain players from year to year.  No matter which way you like, the IS catalogue and options will let you play baseball the way you always liked the best.  You really can’t lose because it’s all great fun!