Why aren't there more of these leagues?  I recently played in my first one (a 2010 replay) and really enjoyed it.  Why isn't some commish specializing in historical single-season replays? 

I understand there are some drawbacks.  For one thing, any season before the 1960s expansion would have to be a 12 team league (which some owners won't play in).  Another thing is, in some seasons the owner who lucked out with the first overall pick would have too big an advantage over the owners who picked near the bottom (e.g., in a 1994 24-team serpentine draft, probable 1st overall Greg Maddux would cost about as much as the 24th and 25th players combined -- I don't really see a good solution to a problem like that). 

Anyway, I'd love to try some historical seasons in live draft leagues.  A season like 1934 (the Gashouse Gang vs. the Gehringer/Greenberg/Cochrane Tigers in the World Series, big years from Gehrig, Waner, Hubbell, etc.). would be great.  Does anyone ever run these sorts of leagues?

Drafts take to long.

I would love to see it too......I don't care if the draft is long

also, you're competing with the progressives....it's basically a progressive w/o progressing.

If you want to start one pre 1940 I might be interested.

I'd like to start one, but I've never commished a live draft before and I'm worried about things going wrong.  In the 2010 league I was in, it wasn't clear what would have happened if an owner had dropped out during the draft (none did, fortunately).  Anyway, I looked at the 1934 season I mentioned above, and from the point of view of salaries, that would be a good one (no one player is head and shoulders above the rest).  

If someone with experience in live drafts wants to start up a league like this, great.  If no one steps up, then in a few days I'll give 1934 a shot in the forums.

it is an interesting league to play in... but a lot of seasons have ugly salary disparities like you talked about (though 94 has some other high-$ players like Bags and Belle). plus it is hard to get 24 people to agree on a pace for ANY draft league, some like to pick once a day and others like every hour.

it takes a good commish to pick a fun season, wrangle 24 owners and set a good pace. it would be interesting to see if people liked to read about season highlights, player bios and things like that during the draft (or during the season)

i would love to try 1908 and sprinkle in blurbs from the book Crazy '08 but i don't have time to run it or see if it's a good year to run.

solution to the #1 pick problem: everyone bids before the draft order is determined which round's picks they'd give up for the top pick. the highest package wins. forfeited picks are made up at the very end of the draft. this bidding process can be public (think live auction) or private (blind or secret bidding).

some examples to clarify my point:
-a 2nd round bid beats a 3rd round bid
-a 2nd + 3rd beats a 2nd
-a 2nd + 4th beats a 2nd + 5th
-a 2nd beats a 3rd + 4th + 5th + ...
-a 3rd + 19th beats a 4th + 6th

you can actually repeat this process for however many picks you like (i.e. after the 1st pick is given away, repeat for 2nd pick, 3rd pick, etc.). probably not necessary after 5 or so picks at most.

jfranco77, 1908 was a year I thought about it, but it would have to be a 12 team league and the 12-13 picks together would be roughly the total of probable #1 Ed Walsh's 18.3M.  Same with 1927 -- Gehrig/Ruth at the top of the draft would nearly match the 12-13 picks.  Maybe I'm off in my logic, but I figure the owner who drafts last has to get two players who combined have a significantly higher salary than the #1 pick. 

Aside from being an eventful season, I think 1934 would work because you have a few players at just over 10M, while the 12-13 picks combined would come in at about 16M.  I'll probably go to the forums this weekend with that season, and see how it goes.

By the way, I asked Admin what would happen if an owner just disappeared during a live draft (my biggest fear in running a league like this).  Here's the response:

If an owner misses their spot in the draft, they can draft them anytime later but the draft continues on. Also, once the draft starts owners cannot leave.  If a user just didn't ever draft, you would have to find a replacement owner who would then draft the team.

So an owner "can't leave" once the draft is under way -- but at the same time, I can't do anything to force him to draft. Ideally WIS would use something like what Yahoo! has for fantasy drafts, where they autopick for you based on your team's needs.  WIS could autopick a team at the end of a draft if the owner's still not around, say, 24 hours after the final scheduled pick.

footballmm11, interesting idea.  Would you be able to do that for a live draft, though?  In any event, I'll hold off for now on a complicated procedure like that, and just go for a season where the #1 pick isn't that crucial...

i'm not sure how the live draft feature works as i've never used it

For anyone interested, I just started a thread in the classifieds for this league:

www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx

Sorry to use this forum to promote the league, but we're up to 8 now, and need 4 more.  If anyone is on the fence and wavering because they've never participated in a live draft before, please send me a sitemail with any questions you might have.  I've only been in one live draft, and that was just a couple of months ago, and it was very straightforward.  It's a lot easier, and a lot more fun, than you might think.