The 2009 Season, Week Twenty-Six: Playoff Field Filled; March Draft Order Almost Complete
As the week began, Kanab needed to gain three games on Mudville to force a tie-breaking playoff. The Hotties closed the gap to two on Thursday, but could come no closer. The clincher came Saturday afternoon when the Slugs beat Kansas City in a homefield 11-7 slugfest. The playoff field will be River City, Baltimore, Mudville, and Moline.
The Race in the North: All eight teams were playing out the string. Only Hagerstown showed any life with a 5-1 week, but remained securely in fourth place.
The Race in the South: Except for Mudville and Kanab, no one had anything to play for. It was Florida who seemed to have more pride than the others, compiling a 5-1 week that almost cost them a draft position.
The Race at the Rear: Newark and Savannah began the week tied for the first draft pick. As Newark had taken the season series between the two clubs, the Five Spot needed to finish behind the Carpetbaggers to secure the top draft pick. Early in the week, Newark slipped and moved a game ahead, but managed to restore the tie by the weekend. Sunday morning, Newark could still claim the top draft pick if they lost and Savannah won. Neither result occurred. The official end came when the Carpetbaggers overcame a sterling performance by their pitching staff to lose a 1-0 game to Florida. Newark followed-up by beating playoff bound Baltimore to finish a game ahead of Savannah.
Draft Order: Only a single SJL tie occurred in 2009. Both Florida and Aldwych finished with 86 wins. However, the Thanes took the season series 7-3, so the tiebreaker goes to Florida. Pending the playoff, the draft order will be:
1. Savannah Carpetbaggers
2. Newark Five Spot
3. Dutchess County Robber Barons
4. Chicago Cockroaches
5. Ft. Lauderdale Clementes
6. Kansas City Whirlwind
7. Harrisburg Heroes
8. Hagerstown Hobgoblins
9. St. Louis Sprockets
10. Florida Panthers
11. Aldwych Thanes
12. Kanab Hotties
13. Moline Greens*
14. Mudville Slugs*
15. Baltimore Hons*
16. River City Hardballers*
* - Subject to revision after playoff results
Game of the Week: The clinching game for Mudville was over early. The Slugs built up a 5-0 lead after three innings, Kansas City hung around for awhile, trailing only 7-4 after four-and-a-half, but the Slugs weren’t be denied, adding four more runs in their next four half-innings. Only a three-run rally by the Whirlwind in the top of the ninth made the score respectable at 11-7. The Slugs scored in every inning by the sixth. Player of the game was Kevin Youkilis who went 3-for-4 with a double, walk, and four RBIs.
Stats of the Week: Triple Crown watch. Zach Greinke fell just short. Felix Hernandez won a game during the final week to claim the SJL win title with 19. Tim Lincecum pulled away to win the strikeout title by 13. It was only the ERA crown that Greinke was able to secure. He finished with a 0.21 margin, 2.18 to 2.39, over Hernandez.
One of the more inscrutable lines in the SJL league stats is OP. A bit of research was required to determine that it stands for Outstanding Plays, the leaping grabs and backhand stabs that would be Web Gems if there was an SJL ESPN. As spectacular as a great defensive play can be, it would seem reasonable to guess that Outstanding Plays have a weak relationship to wins compared to other more established statistics. At least in 2009, that guess would be wrong. The top three clubs in OP are also playoff teams. Only Moline, who is tied for 11th in OP breaks the trend. One season doesn’t prove anything, but it is a trend worth watching.
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2009 Season, Week Twenty-Six Standings Northern_Standings,_Pitching___W___L___pct.__GB___ERA__CG_ShO__RS__Sv___IP_____R___ER___H___BA___BB___K__WP 1 Baltimore Hons 102 60 .630 - 3.53 11 16 5.0 58 1466.1 625 575 1349 .241 615 1045 44 9 Moline Greens 92 70 .568 10 3.78 15 16 5.0 42 1464.1 674 615 1346 .241 556 1357 78 15 Aldwych Thanes 86 76 .531 16 4.03 4 12 4.6 49 1467.2 736 657 1440 .253 702 1164 68 13 Hagerstown Hobgoblins 82 80 .506 20 4.02 11 14 4.7 39 1439.1 713 643 1421 .256 630 1132 43 7 Harrisburg Heroes 76 86 .469 26 4.21 5 9 5.0 32 1458.1 744 682 1453 .257 622 1237 44 5 Chicago Cockroaches 67 95 .414 35 5.02 9 10 4.0 39 1458.2 873 814 1542 .269 721 1216 53 3 Dutchess County Robber Ba 66 96 .407 36 4.84 6 7 4.6 22 1450 838 780 1580 .276 663 1154 64 11 Newark Five Spot 57 105 .352 45 5.27 3 5 4.2 35 1445.2 906 846 1616 .281 695 1214 77 Southern_Standings,_Pitching___W___L___pct.__GB___ERA__CG_ShO__RS__Sv___IP_____R___ER___H___BA___BB___K__WP 8 River City Hardballers 103 59 .636 - 3.82 11 13 5.4 53 1468.2 656 623 1378 .245 588 1354 23 16 Mudville Slugs 96 66 .593 7 4.04 2 8 5.4 46 1477.2 727 664 1415 .249 680 1370 61 2 Kanab Hotties 93 69 .574 10 3.68 5 10 4.6 47 1476.1 653 603 1372 .243 575 1306 61 4 Florida Panthers 86 76 .531 17 4.07 14 16 4.3 50 1460 724 661 1494 .262 591 1241 44 12 sprockets 85 77 .525 18 4.86 2 6 5.1 45 1442 834 778 1560 .275 663 1189 48 6 Kansas City Whirlwind 75 87 .463 28 5.25 9 10 5.2 36 1445.1 887 843 1562 .275 632 1218 51 14 Ft. Lauderdale Clementes 74 88 .457 29 4.31 3 11 4.4 37 1448.2 765 694 1482 .262 590 1091 56 10 Savannah Carpetbaggers 56 106 .346 47 4.81 1 8 3.9 33 1450.2 847 775 1558 .273 737 1135 75 ____AB____R____H___D___T__HR__RBI__BB___K___BA__OBA__SlgA__SH__F_SF_GDP__SB__CS__LOB__OP__DP__E__OSB_OCS_PB 1 5641 810 1491 282 44 179 795 750 1078 .264 .348 .425 67 26 49 120 68 29 1354 201 114 93 90 17 8 9 5753 806 1542 295 35 199 799 702 1319 .268 .346 .435 79 27 37 99 31 6 1402 147 85 104 64 22 6 15 5704 745 1436 296 25 202 736 639 1387 .252 .325 .419 42 16 35 88 44 17 1285 148 115 119 80 23 6 13 5578 769 1477 285 28 200 758 643 1062 .265 .339 .433 103 37 36 125 47 23 1284 168 114 103 75 24 12 7 5676 804 1508 290 38 180 792 640 1305 .266 .337 .425 90 30 50 95 161 46 1267 147 113 121 80 24 11 5 5579 640 1356 245 33 165 632 506 1249 .243 .304 .388 109 37 37 97 89 21 1170 164 104 107 114 23 10 3 5719 741 1497 275 19 208 730 579 1158 .262 .328 .426 76 33 33 116 73 24 1266 137 112 84 58 28 15 11 5620 675 1357 276 36 153 661 613 1215 .241 .314 .385 49 19 44 112 52 18 1249 142 94 111 89 53 11 8 5742 873 1649 314 32 228 860 656 1037 .287 .357 .472 106 32 60 118 98 34 1357 195 92 75 47 17 11 16 5780 870 1546 330 26 249 849 654 1302 .267 .340 .463 95 35 32 96 48 16 1294 177 94 101 69 22 9 2 5704 747 1459 314 23 187 735 704 1373 .256 .336 .417 78 27 33 94 95 26 1372 137 106 96 74 21 19 4 5575 698 1392 283 33 156 685 635 1221 .250 .324 .396 93 33 40 96 86 34 1278 164 103 96 68 24 8 12 5615 830 1545 297 30 183 818 738 1056 .275 .356 .437 115 45 53 117 94 28 1382 132 126 102 68 38 6 6 5699 849 1547 279 27 185 832 667 1054 .271 .345 .427 86 31 50 113 119 34 1303 174 107 81 72 21 9 14 5634 714 1446 277 25 200 703 539 1159 .257 .320 .421 64 23 34 116 70 34 1189 171 124 94 79 17 8 10 5628 631 1320 274 28 123 614 595 1448 .235 .306 .359 47 15 38 101 55 19 1254 156 100 109 103 35 11 ____________________After_7_-_Ahead__Tied_Behind__1-Run_Ex.In.__v.RHP_v.LHP 1 Baltimore Hons 78-10 15- 7 9-43 29-22 8- 8 72-43 30-17 9 Moline Greens 75-12 8- 8 9-50 24-23 13-12 60-46 32-24 15 Aldwych Thanes 66- 2 13- 9 7-65 26-19 14- 5 58-52 28-24 13 Hagerstown Hobgoblins 69- 4 4-10 9-66 24-25 5-11 64-64 18-16 7 Harrisburg Heroes 61- 7 11-13 4-66 18-31 8-10 55-68 21-18 5 Chicago Cockroaches 49- 6 10-12 8-77 31-29 9-14 43-60 24-35 3 Dutchess County Robber Ba 52- 6 10-13 4-77 20-26 9-10 46-70 20-26 11 Newark Five Spot 47-10 6-13 4-82 17-23 5-14 38-68 19-37 8 River City Hardballers 80- 5 16- 9 7-45 32-24 9- 7 69-40 34-19 16 Mudville Slugs 73- 8 12- 7 11-51 26-23 13- 6 61-49 35-17 2 Kanab Hotties 72- 9 10- 7 11-53 31-26 14-10 65-46 28-23 4 Florida Panthers 70- 6 11-10 5-60 29-16 9- 4 60-50 26-26 12 sprockets 67- 9 9- 8 9-60 24-27 9- 7 51-53 34-24 6 Kansas City Whirlwind 62- 3 4-11 9-73 20-20 7- 7 54-60 21-27 14 Ft. Lauderdale Clementes 57-13 5- 7 12-68 17-24 5-10 57-62 17-26 10 Savannah Carpetbaggers 43-11 10-10 3-85 19-29 8-10 41-75 15-31 ______________________________vs.1__vs.9__vs.15_vs.13_vs.7__vs.5__vs.3__vs.11___vs.8__vs.16_vs.2__vs.4__vs.12_vs.6__vs.14_vs.10 1 Baltimore Hons - 9-3 10-2 7-5 10-2 7-5 8-4 9-3 5-5 4-5 4-5 7-3 4-6 8-2 3-7 7-3 9 Moline Greens 3-9 - 6-6 10-2 7-5 9-3 9-3 7-5 0-9 5-5 6-4 5-5 6-4 6-4 7-3 6-3 15 Aldwych Thanes 2-10 6-6 - 7-5 6-6 6-6 9-3 5-7 7-3 5-4 3-7 7-3 5-5 5-5 6-3 7-3 13 Hagerstown Hobgoblins 5-7 2-10 5-7 - 8-4 4-8 11-1 7-5 6-4 3-7 6-4 4-6 4-5 5-5 5-4 7-3 7 Harrisburg Heroes 2-10 5-7 6-6 4-8 - 6-6 4-8 9-3 3-6 4-6 5-5 5-5 4-6 4-5 6-4 9-1 5 Chicago Cockroaches 5-7 3-9 6-6 8-4 6-6 - 5-7 3-9 0-10 1-9 5-5 3-6 6-4 5-4 7-3 4-6 3 Dutchess County Robber Ba 4-8 3-9 3-9 1-11 8-4 7-5 - 9-3 3-7 6-4 2-7 1-8 3-7 6-4 5-5 5-5 11 Newark Five Spot 3-9 5-7 7-5 5-7 3-9 9-3 3-9 - 1-9 2-8 4-6 1-9 4-5 4-6 1-9 5-4 8 River City Hardballers 5-5 9-0 3-7 4-6 6-3 10-0 7-3 9-1 - 5-7 5-7 8-4 6-6 10-2 7-5 9-3 16 Mudville Slugs 5-4 5-5 4-5 7-3 6-4 9-1 4-6 8-2 7-5 - 6-6 8-4 7-5 8-4 7-5 5-7 2 Kanab Hotties 5-4 4-6 7-3 4-6 5-5 5-5 7-2 6-4 7-5 6-6 - 9-3 6-6 7-5 7-5 8-4 4 Florida Panthers 3-7 5-5 3-7 6-4 5-5 6-3 8-1 9-1 4-8 4-8 3-9 - 8-4 5-7 7-5 10-2 12 sprockets 6-4 4-6 5-5 5-4 6-4 4-6 7-3 5-4 6-6 5-7 6-6 4-8 - 6-6 7-5 9-3 6 Kansas City Whirlwind 2-8 4-6 5-5 5-5 5-4 4-5 4-6 6-4 2-10 4-8 5-7 7-5 6-6 - 7-5 9-3 14 Ft. Lauderdale Clementes 7-3 3-7 3-6 4-5 4-6 3-7 5-5 9-1 5-7 5-7 5-7 5-7 5-7 5-7 - 6-6 10 Savannah Carpetbaggers 3-7 3-6 3-7 3-7 1-9 6-4 5-5 4-5 3-9 7-5 4-8 2-10 3-9 3-9 6-6 -
League History
Formed in the fall of 1991, under the command of Ron Cox, the Shoeless Joe League began play in the spring of the following year, after an initial player draft of players and prospects from eight major-league organizations. In its original incarnation, the league consisted of eight teams in two divisions (listed here by their 1992 order of finish):
NORTH SOUTH Wisconsin Cheeseheads Kansas City Cacti Chicago P-Niners Florida Panthers Harrisburg Containment St. Louis Sprockets Seattle Timbers Miami FlamingosThe following year the league increased to ten teams with the addition of the New York Mastiffs and the Memphis Stags in the North and South, respectively. By 1995, the Timbers had moved to Moline and the league had expanded to fourteen teams, adding the Bird-In-Hand Hexers, the Yoknapatawpha Croppers, the Milwaukee Atoms, and the Ft. Lauderdale Crocodiles.
Such expansion could not long endure, and the league had been trimmed to a 12-team configuration by the start of the 1996 season. Two years later, the number of teams remained the same, but their distribution had shifted. Through the 2000 season, the league retained four and returned one of its original eight GMs, though relocations and realignments had shifted and rechristened some franchises since the league began play in 2002:
NORTH SOUTH
Baltimore Hons ^ Florida Panthers
Bird-In-Hand Hexers Ft. Lauderdale Crocodiles
Chicago Cockroaches * Kansas City Whirlwind @
Harrisburg Heroes ~ Leones de Miami +
Moline Greens $ St. Louis Sprockets
Pennsylvania Plutonium % Savannah Carpetbaggers#
* formerly the Miami Flamingos
+ formerly the Milwaukee Atoms
# formerly the Wisconsin Cheeseheads
^ formerly the New York Mastiffs
$ formerly the Seattle Timbers
% formerly the Memphis Stags and Virginia Planters
@ formerly the Cacti
~ formerly the Containment
At the close of the 1998 season, the Ft. Lauderdale franchise was sold to political interests in Statesboro, Georgia. In February, 1999, the team was relocated to Caracas and rechristened the Polar Bears. The Polar Bears are the first league franchise outside the U.S. borders, which marks the continuing effort of the Shoeless Joe League to move past the provincial connotations of its name and reach an international profile.Longtime Northern Division powerhouse New York changed ownership at the close of the 1999 season, relocating to Baltimore and adopting the nickname Hons. New G.M. Al Melchior explains, "Baltimore (properly pronounced Bawl-mer) is known mainly for four things: Ripkens, crabcakes, big hair, and Bawlmerese. OK, make that six: John Waters and Barry Levinson, too. Anyway, one of the most commonly used words in Bawlmerese is 'Hon', as in 'How ya doin', hon?' It's a part of the Bawlmer caricature, kind of like the attribution of 'eh' to Canadians. It's a real institution." Despite the distinctive Southern flavor of Hons, no divisional reassignment was likely for the new Bawlmer franchise.
The most recent divisional alignments are a product of further expansion, ushering in four additional franchises cobbled from the pickings of existing SJL clubs in the 2000 expansion draft. The commissioner's office has welcomed further internationalization of the league, with Bill Young's London Rippers joining brother Ron's Caracas Polar Bears to give the league an international flavor of colonizer and colonized, a kind of imperial introspection that mirrors old-time global political alignments. Other upstart clubs include the Ft. Lauderdale Clementes, the first co-GM club run by the dynamic duo of Manny Rosario and George Pearson, the small-town Hagerstown Hobgoblins led by formidable GM Doug Krippendorf, and the New Orleans Hurlers captained by experienced GM Rod Rebuck. As the league has expanded by four clubs, the top two teams in each division now make the playoffs. In the winter of 2002 the Pennsylvania club was sold to organized crime interests in Newark, New Jersey and is now know as the Five Spot. Long-time franchise the Leones de Miami changed hands over the winter of 2003-04 and is now based in Raleigh as the Renegades. The league's current divisional alignments are as follows:
NORTH SOUTH Baltimore Hons Kanab Hotties D.C. Robber Barons Florida Panthers Chicago Cockroaches Kansas City Whirlwind Harrisburg Heroes River City Hardballers Moline Greens St. Louis Sprockets Newark Five Spot Savannah Carpetbaggers Hagerstown Hobgoblins Ft. Lauderdale Clementes Aldwych Thanes Mudville SlugsThe shift to a 162 game schedule, inaugurated in 2000 with the move to Scoresheet, has added suspense and excitement to the divisional battles. The dynasties of Kansas City and Moline remain models for establishing winning traditions in the early history of the league: long-term development starting with young, high-ceiling minor league talent spliced with veterans when the time is right. The fact that the league's newest expansion teams, Hagerstown and Durham, have been steadily building outstanding farm systems that have been recently coupled with the acquisition of prime star talent, has meant a changing of the guard in the latest 2006 standings.
The recent history of the league is a testament to the strong rebuilding efforts of the Durham Knights, who won the 2006 SJL Championship, and the Hagerstown Hobgoblins, who posted the best record in the league in 2006 after years of painstaking rebuilding. Both these teams look to have very promising futures. Meanwhile, more veteran clubs such as the Baltimore Hons, the Newark Five Spot and the Florida Panthers, have made the past season a competitive one. The Mudville Slugs are another of the most recent expansion franchises that have posted solid seasons in back-to-back campaigns. At the same time, no team has been more consistently successful in recent years than the Harrisburg Heroes, who captured their second Shoeless Joe title in 2005, after having won in 2003, separated from consecutive titles by the Savannah Carpetbaggers 2004 championship season. After Caracas won the title in 2002, the team went bankrupt due to a massive money-laundering scheme, and were eventually sold to business magnate Richard Simons, who then moved the club to Las Vegas. The Gamblers and the Aldwych Thanes represent the newest of the SJL franchises, with Aldwych owner Dave Alden taking over the franchise from the mysteriously AWOL London ownership of Bill Young. Previously, Peter Hess had left the ownership of the Bird-In-Hand Hexers in 2004 and was replaced by Michael Gusmano, who moved the club to Dutchess County and renamed them the Robber Barons. At roughly the same time, the KC franchise was left rudderless after Nils Samuels departed at the beginning of the 2005 March supplemental draft. His KC team was quickly taken over by Aaron Goldman. The league has continued to thrive with all of the recent changes, as the new GMs have adopted quickly. Ft. Lauderdale is the first club to have a two-person GM approach, with Paul Tisevich joining Manny Rosario in leading the club for the 2006 season.
The history of the SJL is chronicled in shortened form here and elsewhere on this site. The obsessions of the league's GMs have been well documented. See, for example, Bennett Wing's Boys and Their Toys, Fort Da Da Da by Dr. John Ray, Jr., and Irving Krankeit's "Don't They Have More Important Stuff to Do?" in The Journal of Sports and Abnormal Psychology 14(3): 183-190. Virginia Bereft's The Busy Signal includes a chapter on the Net addiction of a cadre of insular males. Bereft discusses the SJL at some length and includes an appendix of interviews with wives and partners of several GM's. Although decried by Bereft and others, the Internet has enabled the local psychoses of these men to reach a global audience of psychiatry professionals, an advance in scholarship for which we can all be grateful.
More recently, the Discovery Channel featured a hour-long program on obsessive compulsive disorder and American fandom. Through interviews with several league general managers and their friends, colleagues, and lovers, "The Vicarious Lives of the Justly Obscure" presented a mixed portrait of the baseball passions of this masculine sect. The recent addition of Mary Beth Melchior as GM of the Kanab Hotties has qualified these patriarchal claims only slightly.
League Links
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The Shoeless Joe League thanks you for stopping by.
Site originated February 3, 1999. Last updated March 15, 2009.
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1999-2009, the Commissioner(s) of the SJL
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