Origins

I started this league years ago-- 1994, when I was a senior in college. I read Robert Coover's novel The Universal Baseball Association, and I was fascinated by the concept: creating an imaginary baseball league with outcomes based entirely on rolls of dice and tables of probability. I immediately put my Dungeons and Dragons knowledge to work and invented my version of the game.

It was a simple thing at first: four teams, some simple tables, and a set of ten-sided dice. I did it all on paper with a pencil. Playing a game took several minutes. Compiling stats took a lot longer.

I tinkered with the game and its structure for many years. In the late 1990s, I converted to a Visual Basic program I made from scratch. I made the variables more complicated, grew the league to eight teams, and expanded the schedule from 16 games for each team in each season to 80 games per team per season. The program does all the calculations and compiles all the stats.

I serve as manager for both teams in every game. The schedule is set at the beginning of the season. Before each game, I set the lineups and fielding arrangements based on the pitchers and the skills of each team. The program runs the game batter-by-batter. Pitchers get tired and I bring in relievers. If there is a fast runner on base, I can steal if the situation warrants it. I have had many exciting games and situations-- no hitters, down-to-the-wire pennant races, .400 hitters, home-run races, etc.

I have not played the game in years. I have been too busy, and I no longer have the energy to sit up all night pounding out code, adding new twists, and playing the games. Today I uncorked the program, fired it up , and it worked. I am at the beginning of my 16th season. Throughout the rest of the year, I will provide some background on methodology and how the game differs from "real baseball."