Highlights From Diamond Mind May 2024

COMMUNITY CATS 🐱
THE FIX IS IN
THE COMEBACK
CUSTOM LEAGUES KINGS
THE TIPPING POINT

COMMUNITY CATS 🐱

There was Harry (“the Cat”) Brecheen, Andres (“the Big Cat”) Galarraga, and now there’s Floofie the cat and her five kittens.

Kevin (cravath) Feeney found Floofie and her kittens huddled in a neighbor’s woodpile and took them in. He started a GoFundMe campaign to raise $1500 for their care, which he posted to the DMO message board. Imagine Sports offered $10 credit for every $20 contributed by a member of our community, and within just three days the target was met.

Thanks to all who contributed! Perhaps a Floofie League is in order, with each team having a “cat” captain :). Here’s a list of “cat” captains that would be suitable for a “Classic” league:

Harry (the Cat) Brecheen
Andres (the Big Cat) Galarraga
Frank Catalanotto
Johnny (the Big Cat) Mize
Felix (the Cat) Millan
Catfish Hunter
Catfish Metkovich
Jim (Kitty) Kaat
Kitty Bransfield
Harvey (Kitten) Haddix
Tony (the Tiger) Clark
Lance (the Big Puma)
Berkman

THE FIX IS IN

Our team is working away behind the scenes, putting the finishing touches on the infamous, game-changing 1919 season. When completed, the 1919 season will be added to the SSG player pool, along with re-rated versions of the 1920 and 1955 seasons.

As the 1919 White Sox and Reds already are included in the SSG player pool as part of the “Dead Ball Season” collection of 16 teams, we may add two new Dead Ball Era teams to replace them. Likely additions would be the 1909 Tigers and 1914 “Miracle” Braves. (The White Sox and Reds will be re-rated as well when the complete 1919 season is introduced.)

Many consider the RA600 leagues to be the most entertaining and challenging format. Why not give it a try and register here.

THE COMEBACK

The all-time major league record for the biggest 9th inning comeback was set on April 25, 1901, in the very first game ever played by the Detroit Tigers in the fledgling American League.

An overflow crowd of 10,000-plus at Detroit’s Bennett Park had thinned out by the time the home team came to bat in the 9th inning trailing 13-4. The Brewers surrendered five runs, including Pop Dillon’s two-run run double, before recording an out. A brief delay was needed for the Detroit players to go to the outfield and coax a suddenly energized crowd back behind the ropes. The Brewers led 13-10 when the Tigers made a second out, but third baseman Jimmy Burke fumbled a ground ball to allow a run and Ducky Holmes beat out a slow roller to Burke to bring in another run. Dillon then delivered his second double of the inning and fourth of the game to plate two runs, to cap the 10-run rally and lift the Tigers to an improbable walk-off 14-13 victory.

Ron (8GoBucs21) Carr’s 79 Wins or Bust XVIII matched this feat in the GOT XVIII rd 1 Mike Ivie League. Trailing the Sandlot Strikers 9-0 heading to the bottom of the 9th, the 79’ers scored 10 runs – six with two out – to walk it off, 10-9. Cliff Heathcote was the 79’ers Pop Dillon, rapping two doubles in the inning, including the game-winning hit.

CUSTOM LEAGUES KINGS

This week we’re back with Doug (dorodgers) Rodgers.

Click here to read more.

THE TIPPING POINT

Each month we’ll offer a few tips in this space that may come in handy for the beginner as well as the experienced team owner.

This month we’ll scan the message boards for tips, starting with a fascinating study by HooverH of the impact of OF Throw ratings. The gist of his findings is that the CF’s arm has the biggest impact, followed by RF, then LF.

BillyT posed a question that essentially asked people to rank positions in order of fielding range rating value. There was quite a variance in the replies he received. Some ranked CF and SS – the two positions traditionally viewed as most important defensively – highly; others devalued those positions, even ranking corner OF as more impactful defensively than CF; with the importance of 3B probably the position about which there was the greatest agreement.

Finally, I noted a question about how to create a custom player pool for an autodraft league of all players who played from Year X to Year Y. This is a question that comes up frequently, so I thought it would be worthwhile to give both a general explanation of the process of creating a custom player pool, and specific instructions for this particular type of pool.

I think confusion arises from the assumption that, when you create a custom player pool, you are adding to the pool the players you want, but this assumption is incorrect. When you create a custom player pool, you start with all players in the player pool, as for any league, and you remove the players you don’t want to be included.

So now let’s create a custom player pool for an autodraft classic league of all players who played, say, from 1943-45. (N.B. For a manual draft league, you can simply select a range of seasons when you choose the manual draft option.) On the Create a Custom League page:

Choose “Yes” for Create a Custom Player Pool and click on the “click here” link.
Click the “Search Players” button to return all players in the player pool.
Click “Select all players that match this search” to “tick” all players in the player pool. The custom player pool function “remembers” all the players that are “ticked”.
In the Search box, enter the Years 1943 to 1945 and click the Search Players button.
Click on “Unselect all players that match this search” to “untick” players who played from 1943-45.
Click on the “Remove and Close” button. All the players still ticked (even though not now appearing in the search results) will be removed from the player pool, leaving just players who played from 1943-45.

Hope that’s clear. The process actually is very quick and easy.