Strat-o-Musings
Michael J. Rivet, Jr.
June 1, 2001
Down
on the Gulf Coast . . .
After
a beautiful day on the beach – warm air, warm water, sky so blue it hurts, not
a cloud to be seen, the division between ocean and sky barely discernable – we
are driving down the coast looking for a seafood place. There on our left Tropicana Field rises
above the highway, a blue san serif sign lights up in the twilight. This is when I remember they actually have
Major League Baseball in Florida. Two
teams in fact. It was about 8pm at this
point and even though I’m sure there were plenty of tickets available, I have
two tired children in the car. We kept
driving and I don’t feel I missed anything.
Of
course, part of the new bargaining agreement could be the obliteration of big
time baseball in F-L-A. Neither team is
drawing, both stadiums are behind the times and neither team winning much.
Except for one bought World Series this experiment has been a bust.
Anyone
who has visited Florida – or lived there for a period of time – quickly begins
to wonder how these people make it to work.
Or why they would want to.
Besides the beautiful beaches no one has a sense of direction (a pet
peeve-sorry!) or knows how to drive.
With all the other attractions down there how do you drag yourself to
the park to watch a bad ball club?
A
Mid-summer’s dream . . .
I’ve
had plenty of losing clubs, especially the saga of the Seattle Phantoms
seven-year expansion, but I think it hurts more when you have a good team on
paper that through bad luck and facing even better teams just does poorly and
there is no stopping it. Even furious
trading at every chance hasn’t saved them from going 22-50.
And
nothing is sweeter than when a 5-18 team takes 4 of 5 from the first place team
purely because the first place team couldn’t buy a clutch hit (out-hit .311 to
.213). So, we’re only 9-19; but, there is hope.
Then
there is that annoying, frustrating feeling of playing in a tight
division. My third team is 30-26 tied
for first. The next two teams are
29-27. It’s gonna be a long
season. I’m winning because I have the
best road record (15-13) in the league – all road games are played on the
opponent’s computer. I also have a 3.95
team ERA and a .235 team BA. Sosa has
25% (15 of 65) of my team HR’s. So, I
know the dream can’t last but we’ll fight down to the wire and hopefully I can
pick up some offense or another ace before the season is over.
Volley,
serve, approach the Net-play . . .
The
idea of Net-play is totally awesome.
Being able to manage your team on the computer against an opponent
hundreds of miles away is just the best thing ever conceived. To be able to impress your opponent with
your Bobby Valentine-like field acumen is the most satisfying part of Net-play
(especially because he isn’t there to see what you are up to!) Just last night
I was playing an exhibition game. Omar Vizquel lead off an inning with a
single. After a failed lead attempt, Joe Girardi bunted him to second. With switch-hitting Jose Vidro up against
righty Kris Benson it was an easy decision to hit & run. Vidro promptly hit a single to drive in
Vizquel. Would Super Hal do any of this
in a tied game in the 3rd inning?
Doubt it. I would and it gave me a 2-1 lead, man on first and John
Olerud up with 1 out . . . and that’s when net congestion caught up to us.
Net-play
is notoriously slow and plodding. Turn
off the animation, sound and play-by-play.
Keep chatting to a minimum. Send
your opponent a manager with preset line-ups and rotation to speed pre-game.
Use quick-inning. Remember to hit the
“swing away” button to return control to your opponent. These tips will speed play up immensely. And
download patch 6.01! I can’t stress that enough.
Now,
the major problem I’ve encountered is that I can’t host games with opponents
that use a cable modem as I still use a dial-up connection with AOL. Proxy servers seemed to be a problem as well
as Earthlink. If I had a cable modem I
think I wouldn’t have a problem either. Oh, I have had no problems as the visiting team.
If
you have any ideas e-mail me at mikerivet@aol.com.
Old
players, new seasons . . .
In
the battle for resources that is SOM draft league play, any player I can even
get half a season from is valuable – even for one season. A lot of owners would rather sit through a
40-120 season as long as they could draft prospects that might help next year. However, you never know when your last
season will be. And the name of the
game is to win ballgames – this year.
I’d as soon go 77-85 and be competitive then write off a season.
That
being said I’d like everyone to know that 2000 Joe Girardi is hitting .310
facing exclusively right-handed pitchers.
The league uses very few and only the best left-handers. Someone like Joe (or Tim Salmon for that
matter) play almost full time. No, Joe
doesn’t hit for power and will bunt whenever he can but I love batting him
second.
No
“retread” is too old for me. Especially
if I can trade for him or use a late round pick after anything useful (or with
potential) are long gone. “But, Mike,
the Phantoms suck!” you say? I know but
we are getting better. Plus you have to
remember I spent my first three seasons learning the game and the nuances of
drafting. And I never did have access
to the biggest stars. My favorite
retread was Rafael Palmiero a few seasons back. In the first two seasons I had him he hit 47 and 53 homers.
And
Doug Henry has pitched every season for me for seven years. Please retire Doug!
Musing
on Strat . . .
SOM
says that the HoF disk will be out in early June. Please, I hope so. I have
looked forward to this since it was announced.
I’m already trying to figure out how to do a short season draft league
with the set. I only wish I could’ve
bought the cards.
What
will the future bring? Well, I can
guarantee that in another month you’ll see another Stratomusings! I thank Phil for giving me this opportunity
and I have had a lot of fun writing these articles.
If
I ever get out on my soapbox too much someone slap me!
Inquiries
about any of my articles, teams, or leagues can be sent to mikerivet@aol.com. Thought provoking letters may get you a
mention here!
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