The Planetary Extreme Baseball Alliance

Welcome Drew! Perhaps we will be calling your club Drew-luth as time goes on

Welcome Drew!

Hello everyone, I am the new GM of Hartford Harpoon. My name is Andy -- I am a Malaysian Chinese, so I do have a Chinese name, but let's keep it simple with Andy. This is my first OOTP online league and I am pretty new to the game or just the sport of baseball in general.

Malaysia is a football(soccer) country with some side choices like basketball and badminton so baseball is not something many people give a darn here. I am pretty sure FIFA is the most played sport game in my country and probaly beat NBA 2K by a wide margin. Though being an all-around gamer and a typical Asian otaku youth myself, I have been exposed to baseball in my youth through other medias. My childhood hero is Doraemon - I use "is" cuz I still like it today - and there's an obscure spin-off baseball manga series, Dorabase. I also played the Japanese baseball game franchise Power Pros, or Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu, since I was 10. Since then, I always found baseball to be a fun sport, even though there's not much chance to play it in my country. BTW it's a great baseball game if any of you want to give it a try(even if you don't know Japanese, it's fun; I didn't know Japanese either, but can sort of navigate them through the kanji), it has some of the Japanese wackiness one will not find in MLB The Show and some very unique modes. Like in 2011, the story mode takes the main character back to Sengoku Jidai and all the warlords are dueling it out in baseball matches. Nobunaga Oda was Aroldis Chapman with a 100mph fastball and one of the best passive traits, "Pressure"[directly decrease all the batter's stats].

I used to be hardcire into football and Football Manager but I got bored of it eventually. The mathlete in me just doesn't connect with football. It's dull and there's not enough stats. So I started to invest more time into NBA few years ago. Among the 4 big US sports, NBA is really the one Malaysians know and 2K was huge at that time before it turned into the piece of money-leeching crap it is today. Sadly, it got stangant for me since KD joined the Warriors so I decided to branch out. I started watching some Taiwanese baseball channels(dude did good breakdown, I was searching for English channels but none of them were MLB breakdown channel, the English YThemisphere for baseball are either more into technique and coaching, like pitching stance and etc, or just typical MLB news and reaction channels; I was looking for more of the stat breakdowns and such) and got more invested into MLB. Then I picked up OOTP by 2019(partly due to Perfect Team) and I am here. Oh, I also gotten a 1st place and a 2nd place among the five fantasy Yahoo league I played, fun time.

And I guess I will wrap it up here before this turns into a mini-biography of The Sports Throughout My Life. Either way, I look forward to playing here. I enjoy writing, it's how I learned English(seriously, learnt more from my online activity than school) and I hope to create the ongoing stories with all of you. Narrative and immersion is why I picked this league over others -- so even if I were to be the worst GM of all time, I can write about it and not just be depressed like I would in a typical result-focused league.

Welcome, Andy!

Really glad to have you here. Your post was fascinating! I love your enthusiasm. I knew baseball was popular in Asia, but I did not realize that areas outside of Korea, Taiwan and Japan had any real interest in it!

Harpoon wrote: ... so even if I were to be the worst GM of all time, I can write about it and not just be depressed like I would in a typical result-focused league.

Oh, Andy, you got a long ways to go to compete for the coveted Worst GM Trophy! Just take a look at the sterling record we have amassed down here in Yuma. That'll give you a goal to shoot for!

And welcome to the PEBAverse. Only planetary configuration where losing is rewarded!

Welcome Andy! Super interesting introduction, I'm glad you're here. Narrative and storyline are top-notch in PEBA. It's the only OOTP league I'm part of with a living, historical immersion. Follow the psychological decline of Colonel Ricky McCoy in the Unga Bunga Blog!

Again, thrilled to see a new skipper at the helm of Hartford and looking forward to seeing what direction you take the team in.

Welcome Andy! PEBA's a great place to be, enjoy!

Welcome Andy - Glad to have you on board!!! Best of luck with Hartford!!!

Welcome aboard Andy!!!

Welcome Andy!

Welcome Andy!

Welcome, Andy! One of my closest friends in college was Malaysian Chinese from KL.

Welcome Andy

Trendsetters wrote:Welcome, Andy!

Really glad to have you here. Your post was fascinating! I love your enthusiasm. I knew baseball was popular in Asia, but I did not realize that areas outside of Korea, Taiwan and Japan had any real interest in it!

Nah, there are not a lot of interest in baseball in Malaysia(or the whole South East Asia). We do have a baseball and softball association but no one gives a crap about it. I think Japan has the best development and structure for baseball. The high school championship, Koshien, is just super fun and give enough incentive for all the schools to develop their athletes. Taiwan is huge on baseball but their league have some underlying problems that also involves politic -- so I will stop at that. I know baseball is growing in mainland China so I would put it as the fourth nation that genuinely cares about baseball in Asia. I know some countries here prefer cricket over baseball.

I am just lucky enough to be exposed to the different stuffs when I was young. For instance, D&D and tabletop RPG aren't a thing in my place either(board game and card game have cult following though), but I was lucky enough to have participated in them through forum. I also like horse racing, which is also an ultra-niche sport in my country. There used to be a horse racing course in my state, but it got turned into an AirAsia sub-airport before I am grown up enough to appreciate horse racing. So, in a sense, I guess I am more worldly than my peers and have some unique interests and hobbies for a Malaysian.

Rant -- Honestly, I am jealous as to how youth sports are set up in America(and European countries, but I don't have enough knowledge on those to say factually). The system is just incredibly well done from youth to college and then to pro. I wished more countries around my location would have that kind of structure. Ours are just horrible, and it's no surprise that Malaysia aren't winning much in the various sports.

Bulldozers wrote:

Harpoon wrote: ... so even if I were to be the worst GM of all time, I can write about it and not just be depressed like I would in a typical result-focused league.

Oh, Andy, you got a long ways to go to compete for the coveted Worst GM Trophy! Just take a look at the sterling record we have amassed down here in Yuma. That'll give you a goal to shoot for!

And welcome to the PEBAverse. Only planetary configuration where losing is rewarded!

I actually quite like Yuma(now that I am getting more accustomed to the history of PEBAverse), it shared the same philosophy as me as a GM: Either go 0 or 100. If 100 fails, go 0 again.

Badgers wrote:Welcome, Andy! One of my closest friends in college was Malaysian Chinese from KL.

Interesting. Out of curiosity, where did you attend college?

Harpoon wrote:
I actually quite like Yuma(now that I am getting more accustomed to the history of PEBAverse), it shared the same philosophy as me as a GM: Either go 0 or 100. If 100 fails, go 0 again.

Yuma had its one shot at the top. I think our philosophy these days is more of the "go 5, go 10" variety, nothing faster. We make a steady profit selling water to the rest of the league, so we'll be holding up the PEBA derriere for a good long while yet.

Trying to win produces headaches. Accepting defeat as a way of life brings relaxation and the smile of satisfaction.