THE CLASSIC IS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOLY SHIT!
Ryan, Cap and I had an AMAZING Classic Eve last night…
I love you Boggs-Keg!
Yes, we made binders and t-shirts for all of the participants!
Capn’ gettin’ his stash on!
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The Demolition of the Original Brisson Field
Now that you know who the teams are, where they are playing and how the game works, I think it is time for you to pick a team (Falcons) and root them on to victory!
Here is the Saturday Schedule and Sunday Tournament schedule!
A few notable match-ups on Saturday:
– Boilers vs Mudhens is a rematch of last years Championship, the Mudhens will be out for revenge!
– Devil Dogs vs Beanbags is also a rematch (of the 3rd place game last year). The Dogs’ will be out to prove that their 3rd place finish a year ago was not a fluke.
– Falcons vs Wildcats is the first time the Falcons (me) will be playing the Wildcats (Sam) in a few years. This will be a heavyweight contest with a playoff atmosphere to end Saturdays games!
– Sketchers vs Bears will be a showdown of two teams that are veritable wild cards in this event.
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Tonight:
– Pick up keg
– Finish decorations
– Demolish the old Brisson Field (video to come)
– Start drinking
– Reflect
No All-Star Baseball experience would be complete without a tour of the stadiums being used in this years Classic… I am (in a really nerdy way) proud that two of the stadiums being used this year were designed and built by me. Honestly, ASB is kind of a graphic designers dream come true.
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First Up is Lightfoot Field, home of the Boggstown Boilers. As the Champions of last years tourney, the Boilers are hosting a majority of this years games. All games in pool 1 are played on this field, and many of Sunday’s tournament games will be played here.
This stadium is a state of the art nerd-baseball complex complete with interchangeable jumbo-tron screens (some may or may not be politically in-correct), inning, outs and score dials.
New -style plastic spinners
Boilers logo (a take off of Russian propaganda posters… Looks tough right?)
Jumbo-tron with interchangeable screens
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Next up is the new home of the Merrimack Owls, Brisson Field. This newly completed stadium will host all of pool 2’s games and several games in Sunday’s tournament.
Customized spinners for the Owls
Mimic of the 1950’s style game (see below)
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The final field is Macintosh Stadium. “The Mac” is home to The Fogelberg Falcons and is the first field that Ryan and I started playing on. I have added a bit of “flair” through the years to nerd it up a bit, but the basic structure of the stadium is the Cadaco design from the 1950’s… My father played the game against his brother on this field when they were kids, I played against my brother on this field when we were kids and I guess in my mind this field is kind a family heirloom… It is considered the birthplace of the modern nerd-fest that is ASB!!!
All of the Championship round of games in the tournament will be played here.
Old-school spinners
“Rita” (a basic rip-off the the High-Life girl)
Championship banners won by the Falcons
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Someone tell Cadaco that I want to buy the right to this game.
Our ASB week continues with a bit of history, and how the game is played!
(Edited from Wikipedia) All Star Baseball is one of the most popular baseball board games of the last sixty years, and has been honored as one of the fifty most influential American board games of all time. It was manufactured by Cadaco-Ellis and designed by baseball player Ethan Allen (1904-1993)… The game first appeared in 1941. It was the best-selling baseball board game of all time.
The game board for ASB has two spinners on top of a diagram of a baseball field (see picture above)… Each circular player card is the equivalent of a pie chart that breaks up the actual percentage chance each player had of hitting a single, double, triple, homerun, walk, groundout, flyout or strikeout. The card is placed on a spinner, which is then spun. Once the spinner came to rest between two lines, the number for that section defined what happened to that batter.
The game also incorporates stolen bases, defense and many other attributes of baseball, but the spinning of the players is basically the game.
Here is an example of a player disc from the original version… Of course, Ryan, Sam and I have made multiple hundred new players for us to use outside of the discs that came with the game (DON’T JUDGE!!!).
This is what the numbers on the disc mean:
* 1 Home Run
* 2 Ground out
* 3 Fly out
* 4 Fly out
* 5 Triple
* 6 Ground out
* 7 Single
* 8 Fly out
* 9 Walk
* 10 Strikeout
* 11 Double
* 12 Ground out
* 13 Single
* 14 Fly out
Fogelberg Falcons
Owner: Joe (me!)
Manager: Don Zimmer
Colors: Blue, orange
Place last year: Did not place
Franchise Player: Paul Molitor
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McCall Mudhens
Owner: Ryan
Manager: Don Blasingame
Colors: Red, Yellow
Place last year: 2nd
Franchise Player: Lou Brock
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Jenks Wildcats
Owner: Sam
Manager: Joe (Ducky) Medwick
Colors: Purple, black
Place last year: Did not place
Franchise Player: Mike Schmidt
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Boggstown Boilers
Owner: Matt
Manager: Jack McKeon
Colors: Blue, baby blue
Place last year: Champions
Franchise Player: George Brett
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Bamford Bears
Owner: Jeff
Franchise Player: Pete Rose
Colors: Red, gray
Place last year: Did not place
Manager: Pete Rose
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Jeetzton Beanbags
Owner: Gavin
Manager: Connie Mack
Colors: Black, silver
Place last year: Did not place
Franchise Player: Dave Winfield
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Aginville Sketchers
Owner: Scott
Manager: Dick Howser
Colors: Baby blue, orange
Place last year: Did not place
Franchise Player: Dale Murphy
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Lincoln Square Devil Dogs
Owner: Lance
Manager: Lee Elia
Colors: Maroon, gold
Place last year: 3rd
Franchise Player: Aramis Ramirez
Boggstown – The Boggstown Boilers dismantled the Merrimack Owls in 5 games to win their second major Championship and their first Holiday Baseball Classic Championship. Orel Hershiser was the catalyst, pitching the Boilers to two victories and completely shutting the door on the Owls offense.
Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth and George Brett set the pace offensively for the Boilers and proved to be too much for the Owls. “We were playing from behind all night long,” Owls manager Ed Bailey said from the press room in Boggstown. “I really think that this team had the potential to hang with em’… We just didn’t get the job done.”
Catfish Hunter was the lone bright spot for the Owls pitching staff. The Cy Young award winner pitched 7 strong innings against the best offense in the league and earned the Owls only victory in the series (and the last game at the original Brisson Field). “The Boilers have been on a run the entire second half of the season,” Hunter said via cellular phone en route to Fogelberg where he will join the Falcons as part of The All-Star Baseball Classic in February. “Murph and the boys did everything they could to keep up with the scoring, but that kind of output is hard to keep up with.”
Wild parties engulfed Boggstown through the nighttime hours and into the early morning as championship fever struck the town. ‘Boilers’, the official drink of the team (a shot of Captain Morgan Tattoo dropped into a glass of Miller Lite) were a hot item at the local bars, and women were seen running topless down Wyoming Street to celebrate the victory.
Next up on the All-Star Baseball calendar is the All-Star Baseball Classic held in February.
**CHAMPIONS**
Boggstown Boilers
**MVP**
George Brett
**Cy Young**
Catfish Hunter
**Frisch**
Barry Larkin
** SILVER SLUGGER**
1B – G. Brett* BB
2B – R. Hornsby* JC
SS – B. Larkin JC
3B – J. McGraw MO
C – G. Hartnett JC
LF – T. Williams MO
CF – K. Griffey Jr.* JC
RF – D. Murphy* MO
DH – L. Gehrig JC
The Merrimack Owls are the CHAMPIONS of the Kansas City Baseball League #2
It took the Owls seven games and everything they had to overtake the Joplin Crawdads in the championship series… Tom Glavine was rewarded with the series MVP after winning two games… I will post the new uniform design when it is complete.
**CHAMPIONS**
Merrimack Owls
**MVP**
Robin Roberts* BB
**Cy Young**
Robin Roberts* BB
**Frisch**
Lou Boudreau MO
** SILVER SLUGGER**
1B – Gehrig MO
2B – Hornsby MO
SS – Trammell* JC
3B – Brett* BB
C – Bresnahan MO
LF – Kiner MO
CF – Hamilton BB
RF – Heilmann* BB
P – Roberts* BB
** FINAL MVP VOTING #’s **
TOTALS
1. Roberts* (7)
2. Trammell* (9)
3. Boudreau (11)
4. Brett* (13)
* Single Season
WELCOME to (one of) the nerdiest things in my life… That’s right, you are about to get an EXCLUSIVE look at ALL-STAR BASEBALL!!! (Misty says that it’s dungeons and Dragons for baseball nerds… She’s probably right.).
I designed and built Capn’ a new stadium over the last week. A couple of days ago we had an opening day celebration… Here are some pictures and a short video of the first pitch… It truly was history in the making!
