Now Available: Diamond Legacies 1975

Volume 3 of the Diamond Legacies series is published! Rosters are provided for all of the major league teams in 1975.

Diamond Legacies 1975 is available as a paperback and as a Kindle e-book.

Diamond Legacies 1975: Second Game

For my next game with the 1975 teams, I went with Baltimore vs. California. The Orioles finished 2nd in the AL East that year and the Angels finished last in the AL West. The starting pitchers were Cy Young-winner Jim Palmer and fireballer Nolan Ryan. With these two Hall of Famers on the mound, a pitchers' duel seemed likely. And that's exactly what happened as both hurlers tossed complete games.

Palmer mowed down the Angels, racking up 13 Ks while surrendering only 7 hits. Unfortunately for Baltimore, Jerry Remy and Dave Chalk each belted unlikely solo home runs for the Halos. The Ryan Express, meanwhile, rolled through the Oriole lineup with 11 strikeouts. In typical Ryan fashion, he issued 4 walks but gave up only 4 hits in completing the shutout. Baltimore loaded the bases with two outs in the first, but that was the high point for their offense in this game.

California 2, Baltimore 0

Diamond Legacies Volume 3

February is here. That means Spring Training is right around the corner. Seems like a good time to reveal the year for the third volume of Diamond Legacies.

Start waving that fly ball fair, because the year is 1975. The new book will include rosters for all 24 major league teams that played in that historic season. As with the first two volumes, the possibilities are many. Replay either league championship series, the All-Star Game, or the epic World Series between Cincinnati and Boston. Or find out how the Big Red Machine stacks up against the Gas House Gang or Murderers' Row.

Diamond Legacies 1975 will be available before the current MLB teams finish playing their Grapefruit League and Cactus League games.

Diamond Legacies Update

Work has moved into the final stages for the second volume of Diamond Legacies. Stats have been added for all 31 big league teams in 1927. Spoiler alert: the Yankees were pretty good that year! 

Soon more than 600 players will be added to the Diamond Legacies roster lists. That could set up some spirited "what if" battles between teams from the different years. Perhaps the Gas House Gang vs. Murderers' Row.

Diamond Legacies 1927 will be available by the end of this month!

 

Video Review of Diamond Legacies 1934

The Hexed & Countered channel reviewed Diamond Legacies on YouTube. Many thanks to Joe for reviewing and demonstrating how the game is played.

Diamond Legacies 1927

The second volume of Diamond Legacies is on the way! This upcoming book will include rosters for all major league teams in 1927. That's four leagues (AL, NL, NNL, ECL), for a total of 31 new teams!

Diamond Legacies 1927 will be available in November.

Diamond Legacies 1934: A Baseball Simulation Game

My new book is published! And this one is a game ... a game nearly four decades in the making. My senior year of high school, I received The Baseball Encyclopedia for Christmas. In the months that followed, I developed a baseball simulation game based on the actual player statistics that had become available to me in the Encyclopedia (Internet didn't exist back then). Percentile dice determined the outcome of plays and at-bats. A spiral notebook served as my scorecards. It was a lot of fun replaying the World Series from different years and having star players from different eras square off against each other.

I played the game off and on through college and graduate school. It never had a name, just "My Baseball Game." The original rules were scribbled in pencil on a sheet of notebook paper (BTW, I still have that sheet from 1987!). After finishing grad school, my job and writing pursuits took precedence. Years passed and the diamond legends of yesteryear took the field less frequently. 

Then about a year ago, I thought about a baseball history scenario that I could play out in my game. It was a "what if" season in which the 1936 St. Louis Browns signed Negro League stars Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, and Bill Holland. Also in my fictional season, the Browns owner convinced Connie Mack to sell him Jimmie Foxx, rather than sending him to the Boston Red Sox as happened in actual history. In the simulated 1936 season I played, the "improved" Browns won the AL pennant and the World Series.

The experience was a lot of fun. So much so, it got me thinking that maybe others might enjoy this game. So I revised, expanded, and clarified the rules I had been using. This effort eventually became Diamond Legacies 1934. This first volume includes the rules of the game and ratings for players on all the major league teams in 1934 (AL, NL, NNL). Future volumes will contain ratings for players in other years in baseball history. 

Diamond Legacies 1934 is available at Amazon as a paperback and a Kindle E-Book. I hope you have a lot of fun recreating your own baseball games!