A return to Deadball

Things have been crazy for the last several months: various family members dealing with medical issues, changes at work, skunks spraying my dogs and causing chaos in the household, and on and on. One constant I've had through all of it, though, has been enjoying watching baseball.

As I noted in my previous article, Deadball 1904, I'm still a fairly new convert to watching MLB, but I've surprisingly taken to it in a big way. Before life got in the way again, I'd just finished generating a collection of eight ball clubs to run a small league: a 28-game season, sort of a round robin where the top four teams get a shot at the inaugural pennant. At the time, I was still using the freely available starter rules along with Season 2 and 1909; there wasn't even an initial pitch.

A year and a half later, I now own a copy of the 2nd edition, and I'm glad I picked it up. The layout is great, the rules are clear, and knocking out a game is, for the most part, a breeze. After shaking the cobwebs off my spreadsheets and making some minor tweaks to allow for a bit more visual flow, I've finally completed the first game of the season, the New York Skyliners vs. the San Francisco Waves.

Game 1: Skyliners vs. Waves

I won't go into a full play-by-play, but here are the highlights:

Innings 1–5: Both sides picked up a few hits early, but neither could capitalize, until the 2nd, when rising power hitter Luca "The Pain Maker" Hurtado (RF) hit a 3-run homer, bringing home first baseman Kimberly Abasto and DH Todd Anderson. The Waves answered with a pair of doubles, Derek Paul driving in Aidan Fisher, but a double play and a groundout kept the damage limited. Score after 2: 3–1, Skyliners. Innings 3–5 were quieter: a few singles and doubles, but nobody able to push the score forward.

Inning 6: all hell broke loose. A pair of groundouts for the Skyliners were followed by a trio of doubles that stretched the lead to 5–1, before a flyout to left ended the inning for Jake Fox. Isidoro Reyes (CF, Waves) singled and immediately stole second, which seemed to rattle Skyliners ace Édgar Ferrant, who hit Oliver Bishop with a pitch. A double brought the score to 5–2, though a follow-up double play defused the threat. Jorge Cazalla singled, and things nearly boiled over when Aidan Fisher got beaned by a pitch. Third baseman James Fielding delivered some payback with a 3-run homer, tying the game at 5–5.

Innings 7–9 were relatively uneventful, aside from Hudson Mann striking out three batters in the 8th.

Extra innings: Ghost runners were placed on 2nd to start, but nothing broke through until the 11th, when two doubles and a home run from Todd Anderson pushed the Skyliners ahead 9–5. The Waves clawed back with a string of singles, doubles, and heads-up base running to tie it again. The 12th saw a run apiece.

Inning 13: The Skyliners finally broke the game open with a string of singles and doubles to close it out 14–10. Relief pitcher Cade Padilla came in, allowed just one single, and mopped up the rest with three strikeouts to end the game.

Wrapping up

Game one was a blast to play out, though I'm still on the fence about whether I want to play all 28 games. The rules include some fair-calculation shortcuts for getting a final score without playing out every game, and I may explore that route, but we'll see. My next purchase is probably going to be the Masters of the Game expansion, which adds proper weather rules, travel, scouting, and league finances.

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