A Question for the Original Owners of PEBA

[klewis]

Hmm, I wonder how many are there left? Anyway since we were on the topic of trying to get to know the league better.... my question is how did you come about to owning your team?

Or more specifically, how did the team name come about? Were you allowed to pick your team name? Or was it already created for you? Why did you chose that particular team or location?

To answer my own question, I am not an original owner. I found PEBA through the OOTP forum on one of John's online league posting. At the team, there were two teams available (Florida and Charleston). I decided to go with Florida mainly for two reasons. Number one reason was it had a rich farm system and there were a few cornerstones at the ML level to build around (Chris Saunders and Mark Richardson). Second reason was I felt it was easier to write for the Featherheads due to its location. Florida has many elements and I was more familiar with it than Charleston.

I remember Jon shortly joining after me to take over Charleston. He was the golf mogul if I remember. Sometimes I used to wonder what would have happened if I took over Charleston instead and getting a chance to run Dean O'Monahan out there every 5th day. Oh well, guess it worked out for the both of us. Since then, I've enjoyed battling with Charleston and it has been great talking to Jon about PEBA baseball. I said it before but I encourage Jon to post more. He has a lot of insightful thoughts. I think of him as the quiet assassin :) Charleston may be quiet but before you know it, they'll acquire a Jon Wood or Victor Matos.

[James Bowman]

Haha, thanks Kevin. The silent assassin. I learned fast that you've gotta stay on top of your game in the ultra competitve Dixie.

I had taken a break from online leagues for nearly 2 years before I joined the PEBA. I had always played fictional leagues (except for my first online stint in ver.6.5 - which was a real MLB league and didn't last long at all). When deciding to start looking again I'd probably only check the ootp forums 1-2 times a month and nothing really ever caught my eye. When I saw the PEBA it was the first rush I had felt in a long time to join a new league. I immediately sent John an app, and here I am.

The only other fictional league that I was really fond of was also the first I joined - Corporate League Baseball. I managed the Bumblebee Tuna, and had a great rivalry going with an Aussie named Jason who managed the Halliburton Profiteers. I was in that league for nearly two years, until I moved to California and gave up online play. Jazzrack was a great commissioner and the league had some top notch owners. I was sad to learn it had folded when I came looking again.

I also played in the Laseron Baseball Association for about 6 months up until I moved. They were a great group of guys, and it looks like "Goody" of the OOTP forums is working on getting it started again with some of the orignal owners in tact.

Looking at it now, I'm trying to picture running the Featherheads had you chosen Charleston. I remember that Florida had a ton of young PEBA ready talent - with Richardson, Morimoto, Saunders etc. It's fitting though, because I remember John's post on the OOTP boards advertising Charleston. I remember reading about "Fate" and was immediately intrigued. If I had to start any team from the ground up, the first thing I would go after is a young starting pitcher with limitless potential. So even though I think Florida had much more to build around, I'd have probably chosen Charleston because of O'Monahan alone, regardless of what the rest of the team looked like. Thankfully, the original owner of Charleston left it in outstanding shape, so I definitely owe him a piece of the '10 Cup.

[John]

Lots of our original owners are current members of Cleveland Indians blog Let's Go Tribe!. Many of them are lurkers, but Charleston's original owner, NickFantana, is still an active poster there. You should stop by and thank him for laying the foundation for you 2010 Rodriguez Cup, Jon.

[Tyler]

I consider myself an original* owner, adding the * since I joined before the inaugural draft but was actually replacing an owner who left before the start of the league. He'd already chosen a team name and location, but since the league hadn't yet drafted John let me change the details. Much to the chagrin of the entire organization, the Miami Tropix canceled the lease they'd signed for a stadium in sunny Florida, packed up their front office, and made their way to the tiny hamlet of Wayne, West Virginia. There, they adopted the West Virginia Coal Sox name. Then, they promptly moved to the much larger town of Charleston, WV, when the league informed them that the Statesmen were in South Carolina and not West Virginia. I originally thought I was setting up an intense intra-state rivalry!

The West Virginia Coal Sox take their name from a real-life independent team that played in 1993. For more on the inspiration and history of both the real and "fake" Coal Sox, read this article I wrote awhile ago.

I am one of the many owners who found out about the PEBA through LGT. It was my first OOTP online league. I was briefly an owner in the World Baseball Hierarchy, joining just in time to experience some intense drama as they changed commissioners. I understand the league is much more stable now, and it's still one of the coolest league concepts I've ever heard of.

[Bill]

If you don't mind me asking, how did you hold the initial draft? Was it via pony express or were you early adopters of the telegraph?

[John]

If you don't mind me asking, how did you hold the initial draft? Was it via pony express or were you early adopters of the telegraph?

Oh dear, I almost don't want to recall. This was before StatsLab, before there was any easy OOTP-provided method for submitting draft lists. And there were 100 rounds. Sure, we only drafted live for 25 of them, but still... crazy.

Basically, owners just called out who they wanted in our chat room and I handled the selections on my end. There were lots of mistakes, lots of starts and stops. I don't even want to think about the poor few franchises whose owners didn't show up... that was not/i] a draft you wanted to miss, yet some did.

With the advent of 3rd-party tools, handling such a draft would be far easier now. I dream of a future where OOTP will allow you to import a .CSV file that will include all the results of a draft held through StatsLab or Getch's utilities. Maybe that's not too big a stretch for OOTP 12.

[klewis]

Thanks for sharing guys. Glad to see many different types of people joining PEBA from first timers to online vets.

PEBA is my 3rd online league ever. If I can remember the name, I started out in World Baseball League (WBL). It was a new league that started when OOTP9 was released. It used real players and teams. I joined the league because it felt first-timer friendly. Being that it use real players, I could easily get familiar with the players. I left the league after one season mostly there was a lack of immersion. It was just sim-sim-sim and look at results. The other reason was I felt there were a lot cliques within the league. Being that it was new league, a lot of people including the commish were just recruiting friends or familiar players from previous online leagues. There's nothing wrong with that of course but it did make new people like myself feel less part of the league.

While I was with the WBL, I joined a second league. This was Dog Days Baseball (DDB). Unlike the WBL, it used fictional players and a fictional country. This was more to my liking. I never liked using real players because it was not as fun. Real life players give you preconceived expectations of the player.

DDB moved pretty fast. I think it simmed 3-4 days a week. The Commish is a great guy. He was never late on a sim. After awhile though, DDB felt a little empty. Although a fictional league, the writing there was pretty sparse. DDB did have two unique features. Each team had a special skill or attribute. For example, one team had the innate ability to develop lefty pitching. Another team had amazing hitting coaches. The second unique feature was every season each owner had to choose an organization goal to focus on. It can be as broad as develop young players. Or as detailed as develop power for lefty hitting middle infielders in AAA.

Aside from the lack of writing, the other thing that detracted me away from the league was the amateur draft. The amateur draft was not fun at all for me. The reason for that was because it was pure blind luck. Using no feeders, the amateur draftees had no stats to rely on. Worst of all, the scouting accuracy must have been set to very low or something because every draft board was all over the place. One guy could be rated a 1st round pick on one draft board while another team may have pegged him as a 4th rounder. So that made the drafting a very robotic and mundane experience for me. I just chose the player with the highest rating and prayed that he would turn out good.

So after DDB, I found my way to PEBA and have stayed ever since. As others have mentioned in the other thread, there are several things that make PEBA stand out. The fictional immersion and world is top notch. I like the fact that it is a baseball universe rather than a league. You have winter ball leagues, two professional leagues, and feeder leagues. I like feeder stats. I've come to like not having ghost players. At first, I hated having to manage all my minor league but it really adds an additional depth to the game. Best of all, the people in the league are great.

[John]

Beorn of DDB is a nice guy. Way back when we were forming, I used pieces of their Constitution as inspiration for our own. I actually ran a floater several years ago to implement their "Each team has a special attribute" feature, but it got very little support and I haven't considered re-floating it to the league.

Pace is certainly one big factor to consider. My impression on pace is that many first-timers want to move as fast as possible, I suppose on the theory that "more is better" (i.e. more results, more big events arriving more rapidly, etc.). Over time, a subset of players seem to develop a desire for a slower pace, the reasoning being that it allows for a more nuanced experience and provides time to absorb information. For leagues like ours, it's particularly important to provide this time in order to facilitate the flow of meaningful articles.

[Bill]

I realize that in the scope of the life of the PEBA I have been here the equivalent of 6 hours, but one of the wonderful aspects of this league is its pace. If I want to sim a season a week, I can do that on my own. Even if I was independently wealthy with nothing to do I still would not have enough time to properly act as a G.M. for an organization in a league that simmed a season in a week, two weeks, or even a month.

You have a great thing going here. I already have a list of articles queued up (minus Ben Thomas going to Nepal), which excites me as much as the G.M. side of things.

All of that aside, I am overwhelmed by the support and acceptance that a newbie is given in this league. All I can say is thanks, and that is nowhere near enough.

[Jason]

Pace is certainly one big factor to consider. My impression on pace is that many first-timers want to move as fast as possible, I suppose on the theory that "more is better" (i.e. more results, more big events arriving more rapidly, etc.).

I am all about slower pace - and this is my first REAL experience with OOTP in general. I joined and quit two leagues in years past b/c it was a a virtual sim off lol...

Obviously, the pace can't be the same as real life - that would get TO) boring. But 2-2.5 seasons a calendar year makes a whole lot of sense to me.

The one thing I would love to see (it won't ever happen) is to do daily sims with maybe 2 games days a sim. This would give us something new to look at each day, and perhaps even allow us to immerse ourselves even more in the league. However, I realize how impractical daily sims would be for a commissioner and even all the downloads and exporting for the gms... one can dream though, right?

[DanD]

I've been kind of curious about the origins of the Bureaucrats. I see that they were initially named the "Arlington All-Blacks"

[Hitmen]

I've been kind of curious about the origins of the Bureaucrats. I see that they were initially named the "Arlington All-Blacks"

O, same about the Hitmen. They were once the Gothic Knights?

[John]

The original Arlington owner was one of those LGT lurkers I mentioned. His name was Greg Hurst and his handle at LGT is/was dctribefan (he hasn't posted there since last year and has only made a smattering of posts since 2006). As you note, the team was originally named the All-Blacks. Greg didn't stick with us very long, and the subsequent owner renamed the team to "Bureaucrats" before the club played it's first game.

New Jersey has one of the more interesting origin stories. The original owner was one of the few that didn't hail from LGT. He was one of only a small number of original owners to be drawn from the OOTP forums (another being his buddy, who ran the New York Liberty - now the Gloucester Fishermen). The name of the original New Jersey owner was Eddie Paxil (not his real name, actually; he apparently was a punk rock musician, and "Paxil" was his stage name). Eddie was basically the only one amongst us with previous OOTP experience (remember I had never played a single game of OOTP before taking over as Commissioner). As such, he opinions were given a great deal of weight. He was appointed our first IL President (back when we had league presidents). He was also the person who gave this league its name.

Trivia Time: Below are the four names that were considered for our league...

1. Lower 48 Baseball League
2. National Baseball Group
3. Planetary Extreme Baseball Alliance
4. Triple Crown Federation

I've already mentioned that Eddie was behind the Planetary Extreme Baseball Alliance suggestion. Which of these four options did I suggest?

Back to Eddie... I am very thankful for his involvement with the league. I learned a great deal in his short time with us. Some of what I learned was OOTP-related, and that was quite helpful. More important for my development as a Commissioner was learning to say, "No." Eddie was the kind of person who wanted to run a league but didn't really want to put in all the work that goes hand in hand with that. I'm sure he felt he had struck gold in finding me, a wetback Commissioner who was something of a blank slate. It was a chance to act as "Commissioner by proxy"; all the authority with none of the work.

Eddie was able to make a number of "suggestions" which I never dreamed of arguing; I lacked the experience to know any better. Everything was going swimmingly until one instance when a "suggestion" was made and I said, "Hmmm, maybe I'd prefer not to do that." Hoo boy, that didn't go over to well. I was stunned at the response and asked if it was going to be a problem going forward if I wanted to go in different directions than those wished by Eddie. I was told point-blank that it would indeed be a problem. Now I had a choice: capitulate and keep my prize owner, or put my foot down. I chose the latter option, and since then I've made it a point to listen to my owners but to stick to my guns once I've decided on a course of action.

Eddie still infrequently posts over at the OOTP forums (his last post came late last year). I've never talked with him since, but if I could, I'd thank him for being a formative element in my development as a Commissioner. And Michael, you can thank Eddie for the dual Union City Hillers teams we have - Eddie lived in New Jersey and was quite insistent about getting both those teams added in.

[Hitmen]

And Michael, you can thank Eddie for the dual Union City Hillers teams we have - Eddie lived in New Jersey and was quite insistent about getting both those teams added in.

AARRGGHHH! lol

[klewis]

For John's trivia question, I am going to guess National Baseball Group.

Good bits of history in this thread. I've only been in this league long enough to remember the days of "1-100" ratings. That's about the extent of my history. Oh yeah, how could I forget.... I was here before the LRS was human-controlled. That's probably the most significant historic event that I was able to witness in PEBA.