How did PEBA come to be?

[Cole]

So I bought up Yuma, lock-stock-and-bulldozers, and moved the whole kit-and-kaboodle into my condo in Oceanside, just north of San Diego. We were a bit crowded there for the first year, what with my partner and the cat, so I expanded. I have an apartment in Ventura County, a couple hours north of Oceanside, where I stay when I'm pretending to teach my classes. I moved most of Yuma up here with me. Works out well. On weekends I travel by train down to the condo in Oceanside and visit the Yuman beings who stayed there, and during the week my apartment is always noisy from the Yumans who moved north with me.

LOL, This is hilarious! Especially the Yuman beings

[Arroyos]

LOL, This is hilarious! Especially the Yuman beings

I appreciate your chuckling at my feeble witticisms, but remember, Bob of Kazoo, I will be trying to trade you some of those Yuman beings for some of your Kalamazoons.

[Matt]

LOL, This is hilarious! Especially the Yuman beings

I appreciate your chuckling at my feeble witticisms, but remember, Bob of Kazoo, I will be trying to trade you some of those Yuman beings for some of your Kalamazoons.

Thanks Bob. I am now cleaning the spewed pepsi off my laptop screen.

[Jim]

I think this is an excellent thread. I had been wondering about the league history during the recent winter meetings.

I was the original human owner of the LRS Lupin Cliff Hangers. If I remember correctly, I was the second of only two potential LRS'ers around when I signed onto the waiting list. I remember being excited waiting for the league to get running under human management. But it seemed to take forever. It has definitely been well worth the wait.

[Maulers]

Well, I certainly can't let this thread rest without raising my voice. I was, as Matt noted many pages ago, an original owner. I'm proud to say that every last win and loss, every great and terrible trade, has been my responsibility alone. I've told this story several times, so it's well known that John talked me out of quitting the PEBA prior to the 2009 season. What's not as well known is that I nearly quit even before the league officially began. I was having some very difficult professional and, especially, family issues and I very nearly called it quits even before it began. And then I blew out my knee. John was always very cool throughout the whole ordeal and I never quit (which is actually kind of a personality trait, for better and for worse). Now I'm thrilled to be a part of this league and thrilled to see what has become of it.

I can only offer to all involved a great big

[Arroyos]

Thanks Bob. I am now cleaning the spewed pepsi off my laptop screen.

You're not supposed to mix PEBA and Pepsi, man. Read the label!

[Duane]

Thanks Bob. I am now cleaning the spewed pepsi off my laptop screen.

You're not supposed to mix PEBA and Pepsi, man. Read the label!

PEBA has a label??? O man does it come with health and useage warnings? This could explain some oddities

[Apollos]

You guys are too much

[Cole]

One more question from me on this historical retrospective. Is there an interesting story on how the league name of Planetary Extreme Baseball Alliance was chosen?

[John]

One more question from me on this historical retrospective. Is there an interesting story on how the league name of Planetary Extreme Baseball Alliance was chosen?

When the league was formed, I solicited suggestions for the league's name. We ended up with four candidates:

1. Lower 48 Baseball League (suggested by Brad Dobney of Canton)
2. National Baseball Group (suggested by Andrew Spayde of Charleston)
3. Planetary Extreme Baseball Alliance (suggested by Eddie Paxil of New Jersey)
4. Triple Crown Federation (suggested by John Rodriguez of Aurora)

We came within a hair's breadth of our league being called the National Baseball Group (NBG). That suggestion received four 1st-place votes. Owners were allowed to rank their top two favorite options. Planetary Extreme Baseball Alliance also received four 1st-place votes. One 2nd-place vote gave PEBA the win over National Baseball Group. Lower 48 Baseball League (L48BL), with three 1st-place and one 2nd-place votes, needed just one additional 1st-place vote to force a run-off with PEBA. And then there was the unloved suggestion of Triple Crown Federation (TCF), proposed by yours truly. The option received no 1st-place votes and only two 2nd-place votes (I was prohibited from voting). Well, hrmph.

I actually didn't much care for the "Planetary Extreme Baseball Alliance" moniker at first. Over time, though, I've realized it's one of the best naming outcomes that could have occurred. There are tons of leagues out there with generic-sounding names that blend into one another and are quickly forgotten. "Planetary Extreme Baseball Alliance" is (literally) far out there. It's the kind of name that people remember. Why they remember it isn't important, only that they do. It has created a "brand" for us in the OOTP community, something I think would have been much more difficult to achieve with a more reasonable but less memorable name like National Baseball Group.

[Arroyos]

There are tons of leagues out there with generic-sounding names that blend into one another and are quickly forgotten. "Planetary Extreme Baseball Alliance" is (literally) far out there. It's the kind of name that people remember. Why they remember it isn't important, only that they do. It has created a "brand" for us in the OOTP community, something I think would have been much more difficult to achieve with a more reasonable but less memorable name like National Baseball Group.

I think I've mentioned this before, but to confirm John's sense that our league name has been a highly visible brand I can report that when I started my search for an online league to join I was overwhelmed by the number of choices. So the first thing I did was limit my search to leagues with interesting names or unique characteristics. PEBA had both.

[Tyler]

I think I've mentioned this before, but to confirm John's sense that our league name has been a highly visible brand I can report that when I started my search for an online league to join I was overwhelmed by the number of choices. So the first thing I did was limit my search to leagues with interesting names or unique characteristics. PEBA had both.

This shows my lack of long-term strategic thinking - had I been in the league at the time, I would have enthusiastically supported the Triple Crown Federation.

[Cole]

It's the kind of name that people remember. Why they remember it isn't important, only that they do. It has created a "brand" for us in the OOTP community, something I think would have been much more difficult to achieve with a more reasonable but less memorable name like National Baseball Group.

Thanks for the detailed historical overview. The name certainly caught my eye (along with the catchy marketing) when I was researching leagues to join and, in my mind at least, conjures far off celestial connotations; very compelling. There is certainly nothing ordinary about this league

[klewis]

If I remember, I think the reason why I joined PEBA was because it was presented very professionally. I've been in a few online leagues and no other league runs a tight ship as this one. The one thing I have noticed about this league is that communication is very good between commissioner and GMs/owners.

[Lions]

I always assumed that "Extreme" implied "at the far end of", as in as far away from the earth's core as possible. I'm still confused why we don't have any teams in Nepal.