Thehealthiestscratch wrote:

Not entirely sure how I missed this, but I think you are doing a fantastic job for your first time. My general rule of thumb now is to reread your write up and decide

1. Does the point of what the reader needs to know get explained. If yes, the rest is basically filler.
2. It is great to have filler because it brings more depth, but read your write up back and decide if it kept your attention the whole time as the reader, not the writer.

That is what I have done more recently with my series, and it has made me less stressed, less burnt out and it makes the posts a lot less text and a lot more fun visuals. Visuals make things more tangible, bringing a sense of reality to readers and you are great with them. Just keep having fun, we will too I promise.

From what I have had time to read, I really enjoy this New York rivalry. I much prefer the Athletic because of their brand, but I wish they kept those stripes. I think a great publicity stunt to fire back at Brooklyn for the "CHAMPS" jersey would be the fans nicknaming the club something like Burrowers.

This would claim all areas of NYC, stating they are the big boys of New York, while giving an interesting name out of that era. Could also set up a unique identity revolved around a number of animals such as:
mole
gopher
groundhog
rabit
mouse
ect.
 

I genuinely love the idea of burrowers, but since it's actually spelled borough I put my own spin on it. I hope you enjoy

1899 Season

1899 offered a lot of shenanigans compared to other years. With multiple teams looking to make a push, the year offered itself to be far more competitive than the last two.
 
Brooklyn, having lost their star 2nd Baseman in the offseason, was still plenty deep. Pankey’s production was incredible for a rookie, slashing .321/.413/.424 and being a complete defensive monster. The main story this year, as with last, was the story of Asher Lisiewicz. Once again, he was the only pitcher with over 200 K’s and a sub-2.00 ERA, blowing each mark out of the water with 322 punchouts and a 1.47 ERA. Neither of these impressive stat-lines, however, prepared Brooklyn for the toughest season in their team’s history. Shoulder injuries took Lisiewicz out for 2 weeks in the thick of the pennant race, and disaster struck on September 2, 1899, when he aggravated his shoulder once again. It’s unclear whether or not he’ll ever play baseball again. Just as bad, however, was when Mike FIlsinger, star 1st baseman, who slashed .303/.353/.413 heading into September, fractured his foot and was ruled out for the rest of the season. Despite this, the team was able to claw its way into the American Championship.
 
Baltimore, for the whole season, trailed Brooklyn and, at times, Federal Athletic. Liquet continued his stretch of pitching dominance from the year prior, while Bryan Taubenfeld once again dominated at the plate. The rest of the team was offensively impressive as well, with the squad finishing second in the East in runs. However, besides Liquet, pitching proved to be their downfall. Multiple times when the team scored over 5 or 6 runs, their opponent would score 6 or 7. They got within 3 games of Brooklyn as late as September 10th, but could never seem to make headway and finished the season 73-71. Ownership and fans alike are getting extremely tired of the under-performing pitching, and it’ll be seen in the offseason whether or not management decides to pull the trigger on signing some major talent.
 
Federal Athletic, a basement dweller even in the Mid-Atlantic, somehow found success despite a lack of retooling in the offseason. No player really stood out, rather It was solid team ball that led them into contention for the first time ever. Locked in a battle for the East pennant with Brooklyn, they were actually first from the beginning of the season until the end of June, where Brooklyn stormed back to even their records at 39-30. After that, the team fell hard. While Brooklyn kept winning, Federal Athletic had a dismal 8-20 July, including going 2-6 over two series with Brooklyn. After that, they never got within 8 games of the lead, finishing the season with a respectable 73-71 record, 3rd behind Baltimore (lost-h2h-tiebreaker system).  The team were revered as the “Miracles” during the season, because never before had DC seen competent baseball. Since the team was owned by a larger athletic club, baseball wasn’t even their primary source of revenue nor was it a priority, so to see the team do so well was nothing short of a marvel.
 
Athletic was supposed to compete this year, but finished 8 games out of 500 despite a near-MVP season from Disanti and a probable-MVP season for Dan Richmond, who continues to toil away for a team either unwilling or incapable of making the changes necessary to compete with Baltimore and Brooklyn. Skipper Chris Waters remained in charge of managerial duties, but the pieces never fell into place for him the way they did last year. Pitching was poor, and his decisions to leave some starters in for far too long cost them multiple games. Worst of all, however, was how they fared against Brooklyn. In an effort to combat the attacks by Brooklyn, NYCA-affiliated Journalists began referring to the team as the Boroughers instead of the club-preferred Oranje to show the team encompassed New York as a whole. To mock them, Brooklyn fans and journalists referred to them as the Burrowers and, by extension, the Moles as a play on their self-appointed nickname. This led to an interesting newspaper, as articles in the same newspaper written by different journalists called NYCA different things. Regardless, their head-to-head record was 10-18.
 
Philadelphia had a strange year. They *almost* split every head-to-head record they had, but were just 1 or 2 games below .500 against each team. This resulted in the team looking less than spectacular as a unit, but the squad did have some bright spots. Max Chestnut, an already solid outfielder, hit his stride in 1899 by leading his team in AVG, HR, and RBI. If it weren’t for such a poor team performance, he might be one of the most talked about players in the whole country. The team’s abbreviated “PHILA” on their uniform has helped coin the term Philas by their devoted fans.
 
Boston has yet again wasted another year of Danny Ostrowski. Known nationally as an extremely talented pitcher, Ostrowski struggled a little early on, adjusting to a new catcher in Jon Emig. By the end of the season, his ERA was at his all-time high at 3.18 and because of this Ostrowski demanded that Emig either be fired or himself be traded. Neither thing happened, and the locker room is now on thin ice around the two. Despite the tumultuous circumstances surrounding the star pitcher-catcher duo, outfielder Billy Epp and 3B Billy West put together seasons that match the best in club history. The teammates finished in the top 4 in all hitting categories, multiple times as first and second. The pair of Billys have Boston newspapers calling them the B’s or Bees, but by far the most prominent name is the Billys, with Billy Goats a close second.
 
St. Louis’ season was really strange, no ifs, ands, or buts. The team started out strong behind yet another Frank Palmer season, with the star slashing .364/.420/.498 along with 10 home runs and 113 RBI by year’s end. However, unlike previous years where the team around him couldn’t match his production, Jeremy Cunningham provided solid contributions, and despite a slight statistical drop-off, led the league in runs with 116. The key to getting over the hump, however, was offseason signing Bobby Farmer. The former Philadelphia standout notched himself a 2.85 ERA by the end of the year, and between the beginning of August and mid-September, he won 10 straight games to help propel the team to 1st in the west while Chicago took a nose-dive.
 
SA Chicago came into the year off of the greatest record in league history and no major losses in personnel. Despite this, they weren’t able to pull away until the end of July, ending the month 5 games ahead of St. Louis. After the hot streak to end the first half of the season, Chicago took a nosedive in August, surrendering a 5-game lead in the West and flipping that into 3 games behind St. Louis. They kept close for the rest of the season behind the three pillars’ strong pitching (especially the best pitcher in the West, Thad Fiefield), and by the last series of the season, against a struggling St. Louis team, Chicago was within striking distance and needed to sweep for an outright West title. Heading into game 144, the teams were tied with an 81-62 record.
 
DETOUR: CHICAGO VS. ST. LOUIS, GAME 144, BOTTOM 9, 10 -1 CHICAGO:
Tom Viar, after his monstrous past two seasons, fell off a bit in ’99. His ERA had expanded to 3.53 going into the game, but all day he had kept St. Louis in check with a dominant 6 hit, 1 run performance. Going onto the mound, there was no way he could screw up a 10-1 lead.
Walk.
Walk.
Walk.
Walk.
Walk.
Walk.
4-6-3 double play.
Walk.
Walk.
Walk.
Walk.
Walk.
Walk.
Walk.
Tom Viar walked 13 of 14 batters, and was pulled after the lead was closed to 10-8. When faced with questions by the media, he declined any and all requests to interview, but released a statement in the Tribune stating that he was not affiliated with anyone, nor was he trying to throw the game. A decision will be made in the offseason by an owner and player vote.
By virtue of 3 more unintentional walks by Jimmy Coffman, who only played in 6 games, St. Louis wins the game (and pennant) 11-10.

END OF DETOUR.
Cincinnati was once again playing 3rd fiddle to the 2 powerhouses of the West, coming in at a respectable 74-70. While LF Joel Skaggs improved on an already impressive career statine, hitting .316 on the year, major offseason acquisition Joe Watkins regressed for the 2nd straight year, slashing .280/.354/.388 in 1899. To compete for the pennant, they’ll need to see greater production from the batters, as the pitching corps led by Preston Ingram continued its impressive statistics into this year.

Milwaukee, after an offseason of doing nothing, produced nothing on the diamond. After Owner Nick McCormick failed to attract new talent to Milwaukee on and off the field, the team looked incapable of doing anything right. Josh MacIntosh rebounded a little from a mediocre year, but ended up playing second fiddle to RF Mike Barlow, a local product getting paid a tenth of what MacIntosh is, who’s begun playing at a star level. Depending on his progression, Barlow looks to be the future of Milwaukee baseball.

Detroit, for the 3rd straight year, was embarrassing. Expectations were still low after letting go of Manager Rick Shultz, in fact the team didn’t even have to reach .500 and that would be okay. However, they still didn’t meet the standards set by management. This didn’t mean, however, that there weren’t any bright spots. A pitcher Mike Sharp, Detroit’s best pitcher last year that stayed the entire season, pitched the first no-hitter in Association history which was also emblematic of Detroit. Over 9 innings, Sharp had 0 K’s, 5 BB’s, and 3 runs scored en route to a 7-3 win. Mike Sharp had the team’s best ERA, with 3.84. 2B Sergio Pimienta and SS John Makofske were still the best *qualifying* hitters on the team, but mid-season pickup Kevin Bell hit 6 home runs in 55 games. Expanded out to a 144-game split, that would be a league leading 15 homers. This team is beautifully weird.

With tensions running high after a disappointing campaign, Cleveland hoped for a lot more than their final record and losing the tiebreaker with Detroit to finish last in the West. Starting pitcher “Exorcist” Jim Brown failed to live up to his nickname this year, giving up an ERA close to 4.00 in his first year back from a devastating injury. That left Manny Wright to be the new ace, pitching a 3.33 ERA before an elbow injury in August killed his season. The also had the worst starter in all of the Association, Jeremy Fouts, who over 46 starts finished his season with a 6.56 ERA. Once again the offense raked, but it didn’t matter as they were the worst in both baserunning and stolen bases, as well as the definitive worst defense in the history of their club.

TL;DR: Lisiewicz's career is in jeopardy after a mysterious shoulder injury. DC surprises and gets out of the basement, leading the East til July and ending with a winning record. NYCA gets bullied and is nicknamed the Moles by Brooklyn. St. Louis beats Chicago in the last game of the year for the pennant and creates rumors about Tom Viar's involvement with the mob. Detroit still sucks.

I hope this was a little easier to read, and I'll keep condensing as time goes on. I'm just trying to lay as solid a base as I can. 

Decided to venture into the Baseball section of ahs and now I’m hooked on this thread. I have to say that it is a lot of reading and I know that others have pointed this out. But else then that I really enjoyed the graphics and jerseys. Keep up the work! I look forward to seeing what unfolds next.

Congrats to BKN!! Wow that bottom of the ninth between Chicago and St. Louis tough...

Champs? More like Chimps. Their arrogance heavily outweighs their intelligence. If they win its normal, no matter what jersey they are wearing. If they lose, man they will look dumb. If I was a reporter I would bring a camera to the field on the deciding day in hopes of capturing the moment. A Brooklyn player hunched over with "CHAMPS" displayed on his chest as the NYC group celebrates behind him. Brooklyn's time will come.

H-Town1141 wrote:

TL;DR: Viar got all mad and threw the game to get back at the organization for not letting him start an extra game in the Championship the year prior. The Association creates a president position filled by Worton Campbell, who is in charge of a committee that can ban players. They ban Tom Viar with ease.

Great story and writing! (Also appreciated the TL:DR)

Keep it up.