As we head into our 10th BLB season, I thought it would be a good time to review how the league got started, as well as some other interesting facts from our history.
League Creation
The BLB was first conceived of in one of those old MSN Messenger chats we used to have all of the time in the EJMA (for those that don’t know, the EJMA is a longtime league (25+ years) that many current and past BLB members are a part of). This occurred in the fall of 2007, and I believe it was Christian Sumner’s idea to create a salary cap league/offshoot of the EJMA.
In reviewing my old emails (it pays to never delete anything!), the league ownership, structure, and rules were put together in early 2008 in advance of our first draft at the end of March 2008. The man who spearheaded efforts to get the league off the ground also ended up becoming our first Commissioner: Brian Feig. Despite how he ended up departing the league, and despite how many of us feel about his personality, there is no denying this one simple fact: The BLB would not exist today without Brian’s tireless efforts in the early going to recruit owners, set up the rules, and arrange for the auction.
The league began (and currently exists) as a 20 team league; however, it nearly started as a 15 team league. According to those early emails (and this is a fact that I had forgotten), we were all set to run with the 15 committed owners before Brian got last minute responses to his post on the DLB message board site from five additional owners. One other tidbit is that in our first season we excluded four MLB teams from the player pool, but we elected to draft from all 30 the following year for ease of drafting/auctioning.
The following table was sent out by Brian (I modified it slightly) and highlights our original ownership roster and team names:
Out of our 20 current owners, eight were with us in our inaugural season. Six (Craig, Ron E, Ron W, Mike J, Brad, Mike S) have been in the league every season while the other two (Jon Buneta and Chris Minton) departed and subsequently came back. Interestingly, only two franchises have never changed team names as the Edmonton Trappers and Sudbury Northern Ales have stood the test of time (and/or have owners that dislike change!).
The First Auction
The BLB’s first auction was held March 29, 2008. We utilized a now-defunct site called fantasyauctioneers.com. Perhaps one of the reasons it is now defunct is that the AI was HORRIBLE, which we discovered when we had 4 AWOL owners that were forced by the computer to bid outrageous prices for several superstar players until they ran out of money. Examples of this include David Wright for $83, JJ Putz for $47, and Hanley Ramirez for $71 to name a few.
Not every high price player went to a computer drafted team though, as Ron Erdmann made sure to get Miguel Cabrera for $69, a fact that I ribbed him on in the draft report card that year. My credibility was then undercut by the fact I traded for Miggy mere months later :).
One other interesting thing we did in the first year with the contracts was we allowed teams to select a certain number of players as 1 year, 2 year, or 3 year (plus possible extension) terms. The logic behind this rule was, as a league just starting out, this would spread out the amount of players with expiring contracts rather than having every player expire after our third season.
The First Season & Inaugural Champion
The first season (as well as several after) were played with the old computer (ie Windows, not web based) version of the card/dice game. For those who never played in a league pre-online, basically what you had to do was send “instructions” to each of your opponents for your road games for how to play your team. The instructions would include your 3 starting pitchers, your starting lineups (vs L/R), instructions for pinch hitting, bullpen use, defensive subs, etc. You’d also receive instructions from your opponents and then play the home half of the series. You’d then have to export the stats for the 3 game series and send them to your opponent (while receiving stats from them as well) and then copy them into excel to tabulate overall stats and W-L records. If that sounds tedious (especially given how seamlessly the online game plays), well, it was. Literally the only benefit I can think of for the old way of doing things was the flexibility to be able to bang out a half a dozen series when you had a free afternoon to play Dynasty, rather than needing to schedule games versus your opponent online.
Anyway, much like he did before the season to get our league going, Brian worked tirelessly throughout the first season to get everyone to play games, send instructions, and report records. He dealt with a few owners that dropped out mid season as well. Our season concluded in early/mid October with playoffs running through mid-November that year. In the end, it was Ale League Champion Sudbury who ended up defeating the 2nd wildcard team (with an 81-81 record no less) Clearwater (managed by Howard Cake) to win the first ever BLB title!
Subsequent Pre-Online Seasons
The league kept rolling for the next three years as a cards and dice/Windows game before Dynasty’s online platform launched with the 2012 season.
In 2009, two longtime owners joined the league as Dan Treuden and Norm Larrett took over vacant franchises. Sudbury managed to repeat as champion coming off a 101 win season.
2010 saw the BLB title remain in Canada and in the Stockhaus family, as Mike’s son Nick managed to win the title following a 107 win season. This was also the year that five (!) Lager League teams won over 100 games, resulting in Granite City (managed by Ron Wright) missing the playoffs despite winning 105 games. In a related note, only one (!) Ale League team managed to win more than 82 games (that would be Titletown, with 105; Jackson Park won 82 and that was it for above .500 teams).
2010 was also the year that I stepped in for Brian as Commish of the BLB, a role that I’ve held ever since.
In 2011, the BLB title finally left Canada, as Craig’s Titletown Corporate Raiders won the title in our final pre-online season.
The Move Online
Starting with the 2012 season, the BLB switched to Dynasty’s online web based platform. The beginning of the season was held up by the late release of the website, and we had no other options for playing our games that year as Dynasty elected to discontinue the Windows version of the game that year. We didn’t end up starting our season until the end of April that year, but with the online game not requiring you to wait for instructions/results to finalize records we were able to finish our season by the end of October which isn’t too bad. Our first online champion ended up being the Rolling Rocks of Old Latrobe (managed by Aaron Peck).
2013 was a good year for me as the Edmonton Trappers set a (still standing) BLB regular season record for wins, with 121. Alas, the Trappers ended up losing in the finals as Brian Feig’s St Louis Black Crowns ended up winning their first BLB title.
2014 was marred by the decision to remove a member (Brian Feig) from the BLB (for reasons of verbally abusive personal conduct and threats to play an entire season on autopilot) by the process of a 3/4 majority vote of league members. I won’t rehash the entire history of what happened here but suffice to say the situation was a dark period in the league’s history, one I wish had turned out differently, and one I hope never to have to repeat again.
As for on the field results, Ron Wright followed up a 102 win season with his first BLB title.
2015 saw another first time BLB title winner, as Brad Pike’s Shiner Bock Rams ended up winning the title that year.
In 2016, Mike Stockhaus guided his Sudbury Northern Ale’s to their unprecedented third BLB title (in only nine seasons!). Sudbury had an incredible regular season too as they challenged Edmonton’s record for wins, finishing three short with 118.
The Future
So what does the future hold for the BLB? Regrettably, we have had some owner turnover this offseason, but I am excited for the new blood we’ve been able to recruit from other leagues. Joe and Larry have acquited themselves well in the winter Retro league that many BLBers take part in, and I know Rich will make a fine owner in the BLB from years of competing against him in the EJMA.
In 2017 we’ll be migrating to a new auction site at Fantrax. The CBS site served us reasonably well from 2009 until last year, but several owners had been complaining about glitches for a few years now so it is time to try something new.
As for my future as the Commish, well, I’ll keep doing this for as long as you guys will have me! While it is a lot of work and at times can feel like babysitting (though less so since 2014, hmmm), I do enjoy running the league and trying to make the BLB one of the best Dynasty leagues out there!
BEER LEAGUE BASEBALL 