Diamond Mind Baseball's All Time Greatest Teams: Part Two
The Most Common Disk
Diamond Mind Baseball's All Time Greatest Teams: Part Two
If you’ve ever owned a copy of Diamond Mind Baseball, you already know about this greatest teams disk. It’s been included with the game for over 2 decades now.
Based on this old Internet Archive page, it seems that this disk was created before December 1996. I’m not sure exactly when it was created, other than that it was probably sometime between 1993 and 1996. I’d love to know more if anybody has any insight.
There are only 12 teams in this disk — 6 American League teams and 6 National League teams. I suppose that means that Diamond Mind learned from its mistakes with its first Greatest Teams disk.
Here are the 12 teams:
National League
1955 Brooklyn Dodgers (98-55)
1965 Los Angeles Dodgers (97-65)
1967 St. Louis Cardinals (101-60)
1969 New York Mets (100-62)
1971 Pittsburgh Pirates (97-65)
1980 Philadelphia Phillies (91-71)
American League
1919 Chicago White Sox (88-52)
1935 Detroit Tigers (93-58)
1970 Baltimore Orioles (108-54)
1975 Boston Red Sox (95-65)
1978 New York Yankees (100-63)
1980 Kansas City Royals (97-65)
Now, I honestly have a hard time seeing this as a true “greatest teams” disk. Just a glance at the teams convinces me that the 1970 Orioles will win the American League something like 90% of the time. The National League race should be a bit closer — but I’d be surprised if the other 4 teams could compete with the 1965 Dodgers or the 1967 Cardinals.
There is an obvious balance problem here, of course. The National League teams cover only a 25 year span, for whatever reason. The American League includes two pre-1970 teams, which is a little bit better — but I don’t think anybody is exactly clamoring for the 1935 Tigers, especially since the first Greatest Teams volume already includes the 1934 Tigers.
In fact, there are quite a few similarities between the two disks:
Volume 2 has the 1955 Dodgers; Volume 1 has the 1953 Dodgers
Volume 2 has the infamous 1919 White Sox; Volume 1 has the 1917 White Sox
Volume 2 has the 1935 Tigers; Volume 1 has the 1934 Tigers — and they’re basically the same team
Volume 2 has the 1970 Orioles; Volume 1 has the 1969 Orioles (both teams were dominant)
Volume 2 has the 1978 Yankees; Volume 1 has the 1977 Yankees
Now, there’s certainly nothing wrong with providing more teams. I’m absolutely in favor of that. However, you’ve really got to wonder why they decided to pick a bunch of teams that they had already created.
Seriously — what was the criteria for the creation of this disk? What were they trying to accomplish, other than come up with a disk they could sell for $7.50? They wound up giving the thing away for free in the end, and still do to this day. Why even bother?
