Backyard Baseball League Season 1

## **The Beginnings**

The BBL (Backyard Baseball League) was founded on August 31, 2017 when /u/Yurya posted to the Backyard Baseball subreddit asking for participants who would like to join him in an experiment: virtually "playing" Backyard Baseball against each other. After GSchlim shared findings on how to hack a Backyard Baseball coach file, the idea fully formed: each participant would draft a roster, and they would play against the CPU version of the other coaches' drafted teams. With the file editing to match teams and rosters we could get an immersive experience making both teams match. Whichever team had a better run differential against the CPU counterpart would win the game. And thus, the BBL was born. Yurya was established as Commissioner.

## **Setting Up the Season**

The five participants of the inaugural BBL season were:

* Yurya; coach of the Green Monsters and the Arizona Diamondbacks.
* crazyei8hts: coach of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the Montreal Expos
* GSchlim: coach of the Atlanta Braves and the Little Fishes
* GreenDayEagles: coach of the Humongous Melonheads
* areyoutyler (reddit username "tribeoftheliver"): coach of the Red Bombers

Each player was to fill out their roster with 9 players. Having just learned how to edit coach files, Yurya did miss some aspects of what was possible and didn't utilize all that was discovered. Particularly, it was unclear that you can have generic players on a user's roster. This meant that the only players available to the first 5 coaches were the 30 Backyard Kids, the 31 Pro Players, and 1 custom player per coach, for a total of 69 players. However, for 8 teams with 9 players each, 72 players were needed. To circumvent this problem, Yurya decided that all teams would have Carlos Beltran as one of their players. Beltran was chosen both for his jack-of-all trades build and "in honor of him being the only active [MLB] player"[1] still around from Backyard Baseball 2001 (Beltran has since retired). Since each CPU counterpart team would also need a "Beltran," 8 generic kids most similar to Beltran would take his place on the 8 teams.

## **The Draft**

The first BBL Draft was held on September 9, 2017 on the BBL Discord server. The "first round" consisted of selecting a home field for each team. The first pick was Parks Department Field #2, made by GSchlim for the Atlanta Braves. Rounds 2-3 were normal player selecting rounds. The first player selected was Pablo Sanchez, enthusiastically selected by crazyei8hts for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Following these two rounds, the 8 customs that were created by each coach were available in round 4. Customs in this round include "Barry DeJay," modeled after the Backyard Basketball color commentator, "Goldie Glove," for whom the "Goldie Glove Award" is named, and "Ace Wilson," for whom the "Ace Wilson Award" is named. Rounds 5-9 consisted of the rest of the draftable players.

With the addition of 8 Carlos Beltrans, this made a roster of 76 players, with only 72 needing to be selected. The four players who were not drafted were Billy Jean Blackwood, Reese Worthington, Ricky Johnson, and Gretchen Hasselhoff.

## **The Schedule**

The 8 teams were divided into the American League (Monsters, Fishes, Bombers, Devil Rays) and the National League (Diamondbacks, Melonheads, Braves, Expos). The schedule consisted of 14 games, 4 games against each opponent in the same league, and 2 interleague games (if a coach had teams in the American and National League, they would not be scheduled to play themselves).

## **League Results**

At the end of the regular season, the standings were as follows:

BBL Season 1 Final Standings
 Devil Rays
 Bombers
 Fishes

The stats were well-kept throughout the season. The league leader in each category was the de facto record holder, since only one season had been completed. The league leaders are listed below: (Many of these records have since been broken)

## **The Playoffs**

The All eight teams were invited to the inaugural BBL playoffs. The playoffs were structured like the in-game Backyard Baseball playoffs. The top seed in each league would play the 4th seed, while the 2nd and 3rd seeds would face off, with winners advancing. The Divisional Series and Championship Series were both best-of-3, while the World Series was a best-of-5.

### **ALDS**

(1) Monsters beat (4) Fishes, 2-1.

(2) Devil Rays beat (3) Bombers, 2-0.

### **NLDS**

(1) Braves beat (4) Melonheads, 2-1

(3) Expos beat (2) Diamondbacks, 2-0.

### **ALCS**

The (2) Devil Rays swept the (1) Monsters 2-0 by run differential scores of 12-5 and 14-8, advancing to the World Series.

### **NLCS**

The (1) Braves took Game 1 32-4, but the (3) Expos responded with a 20-10 win. In the deciding Game 3, coaches crazyei8hts and GSchlim simultaneously played their games and gave updates to the rest of the BBL. The Braves won the game 6-2 and advanced to the playoffs. This victory avoided the yet unsolved problem of what the league would do if a coach faced himself in the World Series.

### **World Series - (2) Devil Rays vs. (1) Braves**

Games 1 and 2 were an even split as the Devil Rays took Game 1 by a score of 17-13, and the Braves won Game 2 by a score of 26-14. Game 3 was another high-scoring affair as the Braves ended up on top by a score of 19-14, despite Pablo Sanchez of the Devil Rays batting 5-5 with 4 home runs. On February 2, 2018, game 4 was once again "broadcast" live, and the Braves won it with authority, 46-18. GSchlim was the first ever BBL Champion!

## **League Awards**

After the season, the 5 coaches voted on three awards for the league: "The Jocinda" (modeled after the MLB MVP), the "Ace Wilson Award" (modeled after the Cy Young Award), and the "Goldie Glove" (modeled after the Gold Glove).

* **The Jocinda** was won by Pablo Sanchez of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, coached by crazyei8hts. Sanchez batted 0.745 with 12 home runs and 35 RBI. He also scored 32 runs on his way to leading the Devil Rays to a 10-4 regular season record and a World Series appearance.
* **The Ace Wilson Award** was originally named just for the Best Pitcher, but its has since been named after its first winner: Ace Wilson of the Montreal Expos, coached by crazyei8hts. Wilson pitched all 84 innings, had a 1.07 ERA, a 0.57 WHIP, and tallied 123 strikeouts, which to this day is still the BBL record for strikeouts pitched in a season.
* **The Goldie Glove** was a three-way tie between Goldie Glove and Kiesha Phillips of the Little Fishes, coached by GSchlim, as well as Derek Jeter of the Green Monster, coached by Yurya. All three defenders were noted for their impressive gloves, their speed and range in the field, and their strong arms.

## **Legacy**

BBL S1 was a work-in-progress, an experiment, and a foundation all at the same time. 4 of the 5 original coaches are still participating in the current iterations of the league: S5. Since the inaugural season, the rosters have expanded and many different strategies have been founded, but one thing remains the same: the love of the game. The five coaches in this league broke ground on a new way to enjoy a game that many of us have played for nearly 20 years.