Todd County is a spacious but lightly populated and not particularly prosperous county in central Minnesota. The only connection between any team or players in this league and Todd County is that Negro Leagues star John Donaldson played for the Bertha Fishermen for a couple of summers in the 1920s. That's all it took to spark my imagination, however.
This is a five-team league -- a "corner league" -- with two games a day most days, with six one-game days scattered through the schedule. Each team will play each other 10 times, five "home" and five "away", 40 games apiece. There will be a different park each day -- 53 parks in all for the regular season, with any tiebreakers at a 54th park.
Because of the roster limitations inherent in some of the team themes, no team will play more than one game a day, and there will be different injury and pitcher-use rules for different teams. It will use the DH.
Three teams are very likely to use pitchers listed as starter only in relief. They will default to relief ratings of 1/N.
One team, the Bertha Fishermen, will be composed of 20 Negro Leaguers who played most or all of their careers prior to 1920. (Yes, Donaldson will be on that team.) For the Fishermen, injuries will be for remainder of game only. One pitcher, Smokey Joe Williams, will be permitted to start on three days rest without penalty. The other two "asterisked" pitchers, Dick Redding and Dizzy Dismukes, will be penalized one inning on their fatigue factor if they start on three days rest. The other five pitchers may not start on less than four days rest.
Two teams, the Browerville Novelists and the Clarissa Crimsons, will have 14-man rosters -- nine position players and five pitchers from the millenium Hall of Fame set, all from the 19th century. Injuries will not apply to these two teams, and not only will all pitchers be eligible to start on three days rest without penalty, the seven 300-game winners will be permitted to start on two days rest without penalty. That would be consistent with pitcher use in that era.
The rosters of the remaining two teams were drawn up by a co-worker, Brian Arola, who has taken a vicarious interest in these Strat projects involving players from before he was born. The Hewitt Apollos come from the 1969 set; the Long Prairie Agnews from the 1973 set. One player from each team, no player taken twice, 24 player rosters. I gave him one piece of advice at the start (Rico Petrocelli as the shortstop for the 1969 team), then had him make some changes to the 1973 team to make the roster more usable. Brian will be providing batting orders for these teams frequently. I would not have drawn up identical rosters, but I think his are defensible and the teams should be competitive in this league.
Injuries will apply to these teams, with a cap of 3 games for players with 600 or more plate appearances and five games for those with fewer. Pitchers who had at least 40 starts or 300 innings in that particular season may start on three days rest without penalty; other astrisked pitchers will be docked an inning on their fatigue factor for less than four days rest. Wilbur Wood, selected to represent the White Sox on the Agnews, may start on two days rest without penalty, although that use is unlikely given the quality of the other starters.
The parks were selected mostly at random, although I put my finger on the scale in a variety of ways. They come from the Negro League set, 1924, 1961, 1969, 1973, 2009 and 2019. Brian selected two parks from his two seasons (Forbes Field and Crosley Field from 1969, Metropolitian Stadium and Tiger Stadium from 1973), which I scattered through the schedule. I forced the Metrodome (2009) and two other Metropolitian Stadium seasons (1961 and 1969) into the schedule, and after drawing a Negro Leagues park for the opening day of the schedule decided to have an NeL park for the final day of the schedule as well.
Rosters and schedule will be separate posts.
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