Saturday, April 11, 2009

Out of the Park Baseball 10 League Forming

The New City Baseball league is reforming after a 3 year hiatus!

Back in the day -- which if memory serves was from 2003 - 2005 I ran an OOTP league with 28 teams which ran for 24 league seasons. It was, quite possibly, the most fun I have had playing an online sports game. Our league developed a life of its own and I still remember many of the players and the rivalries that were born out of playing so many seasons.

It died when OOTP went the Sports Interactive route and people didn't want to make the switch (myself included) and it just sort of fizzled out. But still -- 24 seasons is one hell of a run.

But OOTP 10 looks pretty damn impressive and I think it's the perfect time to get the band back together. The game drops in a couple of weeks and I'd like to start to fill out the owner list as soon as I can. We'll build a league website, etc. It'll be a hell of a good time.

Just so you know before signing up:
  • The league is 100% fictional (hence the name) so no Yankees, Mets or Marlins. The teams and the players are fictional.

  • There is no DH because the DH is the demon seed of Charlie Finley

  • We will likely simulate 2 weeks worth of games every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night (this is not set in stone but this was the old routine)

  • Only sign up if you are willing to participate: this is especially true when replying to trade inquiries. Nothing can make an online OOTP suck more than players who ignore league emails. The league isn't a huge time sink for the owners -- you can get into it as much as you like, but just make sure to reply to emails and even a simple "Sorry, no thanks" will do when an owner offers a trade. Just don't be a phantom owner and you'll do fine.
So if you want to match baseball wits with the likes of me, Todd, Billy Baroo, freelance writer and baseball geek Troy Goodfellow, former EiC at Computer Games Mag Steve Bauman and my sports game obsessed father -- now's your chance.

Email me if you'd like to join or if you have any questions-- you can leave a comment but it might get lost in the shuffle so it's best to drop an email.

Finally, there is absolutely no prior OOTP experience needed to join. We can walk you through it and unless the online play has dramatically changed, it's not terribly complicated. You just need to be a baseball fan.