The Yankees win pennants by the dozen, while the longsuffering fans of the lesser teams would sell their soul for just one! Well the devil is making deals, and new hope arrives in the form of a rookie with supernatural ability. Now the chumps are playing like champs... but can they raise their game enough to take down the mighty Yanks?

The idea behind the theme: This them is based on the novel "The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant" by Douglas Wallop. (Or if you prefer, the broadway musical "Damn Yankees" which was based on it.) In the story, a long suffering middle aged fan of the woeful Senators sells his soul to the devil to become a young baseball phenom named Joe Hardy who will join the Senators and lead them to the AL pennant. It is one of the best baseball stories ever.

The League: In this league, each division will have one Yankee team and 3 challengers.
Each division is based on different era in Yankees history, based on the playing careers of four Yankee greats as follows:

The National League:
i. Ruth Division (1920-1934)
II. DiMaggio Division (1936-1950)

The American League:
III. Mantle Division (1951-1965)
IV. Jeter Division (1996-2010)

The Yankee Teams: One owner in each division will select his team from the rosters of Yankee teams in the corresponding period (no twisting to other teams/seasons).

The Challengers:The remaining owners will choose another franchise from the list below. Eligible franchises must satisfy 2 criteria: they must have a cumulative winning percentage during the period below .500; and they cannot have won a pennant during the period. The eligible franchises are listed below. All players must choose a year within the period in which their player actually played for the designated franchise (no twisting to other teams/seasons).

Choosing and Naming your phenom: . The challengers get to draft one way above average AAA player from anywhere in the Sim AAA database.** In the spirit of the original story, you can name this player after yourself, you can call them Joe Hardy. Roy Hobbs and Walter Mitty would also be excellent choices. You can name them whatever you want, as long as it isn't a real ballplayer. No other use of AAA is allowed. This will boost your payroll by about 9 million, but will it be enough to catch the damn Yankees?

**The sim draft utility limits way above average players using the following salary scale: Correction: the following numbers do not account for the salary adjustments, the top end is higher now, probably about $12)
For position players: 3,875,000 to 9,651,076
For SP 3,450,000 to 9,174,893
For RP 2,775,000 to 5,246,064

Payroll Cap: There is a payroll cap of $100 million, that has been chosen carefully to permit the most competition. Before choosing the cap, I experimented in drafting various teams from among the challengers and found that a $100 million cap is high enough to select some great players but low enough to insure that "Joe Hardy" can make a significant impact.

Other league settings: No trades, waiver wire, injuries, DH, clones or AAA other than "Joe Hardy".. Yes to Interleague play. Home stadium must be the one your franchise used during the period.

Post your preferred era and franchise here to claim exclusive rights to it.

Eligible Teams in each division:
Ruth era (full):
Ruth Era Yankees: 1920-1934 (cumulative winning % of .608; 7 pennants) 3dayrotation
Eligible Challengers (cumulative winning %)
Cincinnati Reds (.469) jfranco77
St. Louis Browns (.465) tab316us
Chicago White Sox (.440) dhomard
Boston Braves (.422)
Boston Red Sox (.386)
Philadelphia Phillies (.380)

DiMaggio Era (full)
Yankees: 1936-1950 (cumulative winning % of .622; 10 pennants) zephyr1949
Pittsburgh Pirates (.492) razorclams
Chicago White Sox (.469)
St. Louis Browns (.414)*dcmatcheck
Philadelphia Athletics (.352)
Washington Senators (.450) barryball

*The Browns did win a pennant in 1944, but because it occurred when DiMaggio and many other Yankee stars were on active military duty, we will consider them eligible for the purposes of this league.

Mantle Era (full)
Yankees: 1951-1965 (cumulative winning % of .610; 12 pennants) dlchow
Detroit Tigers (.489) rattlers
Chicago Cubs (.433) contrarian23
Boston Red Sox (.486) dcmatcheck
Philadelphia Phillies (.478)
St. Louis Browns/Baltimore Orioles (.472)
Philadelphia/KC Athletics (.404)


Jeter Era (1 challenger needed))
Yankees: 1996-2010 (cumulative winning % of .600; 7 pennants) soxyanks12
Toronto Blue Jays (.498) mkjrunner
Baltimore Orioles (.455) fatguyrd
Milwaukee Brewers (.461)
Chicago Cubs (.486) Gees51
Cincinnati Reds (.481)
Montreal Expos/ Washington Nationals (.450) to
Pittsburgh Pirates (.426)
Kansas City Royals (.418)

Multiple teams: You may have more than 1 team provided you choose from different leagues.

Are the challengers allowed to make their team by choosing players from the whole period? Say in Jeter era could you take any Pirates you wanted from 96 to 2010?

I’ll give the Ruth era Reds a try.

I'll take the Jeter era Blue Jays...

I'll run with the Damn Yankees of the Mantle era.

I will try and not screw up the DiMaggion ERA Yankees 1936 -50

Posted by fatguyrd on 2/17/2020 9:37:00 PM (view original):
Are the challengers allowed to make their team by choosing players from the whole period? Say in Jeter era could you take any Pirates you wanted from 96 to 2010?

That's right.

I will try the Jeter era Expos/Nats.

Love this idea. I'll grab the Mantle-era Chicago Cubs please

i'll take the ruth yankees

I will take the 51-65 Tigers

Jeter era Orioles

Jeter era Cubs please

Pirates
DiMaggio era
thanks

Posted by soxyanks12 on 2/20/2020 9:32:00 PM (view original):
Jeter era Cubs please

Sorry soxyanks, the challengers in the Jeter era have all been taken . I'll put you on a waitlist though, unless you want to take another team. The Jeter era Yanks perhaps?