Why No Deadball Era Love?
Does nobody care for the era anymore?
Why No Deadball Era Love?
Have you ever thought about how little love there is for the deadball era in sims?
Once upon a time, games needed to have a strong selection of seasons from all eras to compete in the market. This is when both Strat-O-Matic and APBA featured numerous deadball era seasons, back when there seems to have been at least a little bit of interest in the subject.
But look at how things are today:
Diamond Mind Baseball offers no seasons before 1920, and it seems extremely unlikely that it will offer any pre-1920 seasons in the future.
Replay Baseball offers only the 1908 season, which I believe is an early edition, as there are no options for 1x6 tall pitcher cards or 2d6 ballparks. The next available season in chronological order is 1928.
Strat-O-Matic currently offers no card sets for seasons before 1920.
The critically acclaimed NPNG+ offers only 1907 and 1908.
Digital Diamond Baseball offers no seasons before 1927.
While its database includes somewhat realistic seasons before 1920, OOTP’s minor league database before the mid-1920s is extremely sparse and empty — despite the obvious fact that much of the minor league data is easily accessible in baseball guides. OOTP also does not feature realistic major league structures or teams for seasons before 1901.
Now, there are some options out there for deadball era fans. APBA offers seasons for every single season, as did Skeetersoft before it stopped selling cards (the digital version of NPIII still offers all those seasons). There are also old Strat versions of some of the early seasons, though they can be difficult to find. And, of course, Action PC Baseball offers every season, though the quality of ratings and of data is somewhat questionable.
So why do you think this is? Why aren’t there more deadball era seasons for these games?
A few thoughts come to mind:
The game was simply different in the deadball era — though I’m not sure how much I believe that, now that I’ve spent hours combing through old newspaper articles.
Many deadball era players are unfamiliar to modern fans.
People aren’t interested in seasons with few home runs.
Many people think of “modern baseball” as beginning in the 1920s — or, for some people today, as not beginning until 1947 or so.
I’m interested to know what you think, though. I’ve opened comments on this post for everybody.
Brian Yoshunis Statis Pro???? I have a disc in front of me that starts at 1871. Gonna tell a story tell it right.
I think the scarcity of film / video from that era contributes to the lack of interest . The general malaise in reading anything these days also adds to the disinterest. (I got hooked on the dead ball era by books like “ the glory of their times”, “Hoopla” , “ The Celebrant” .) Baseball simulations (except APBA ) have ignored the dead ball era for these reasons plus , of course, the absolute infatuation with the long ball since 1920 (thanks Babe) .
The “inside game” in baseball simulations needs a a new engine to capture the nuances and the personalities that made the game interesting and exciting in the dead ball era .