Section30 wrote:

Well the Carp almost had a winning record... so thats something lol

Hoping the T-Birds can turn it around sometime soon

Yeah, the Carp are improving. They were one of the better teams of the first decade, but they just missed their window. The T-Birds are showing more solid growth than the Grizzlies, who are wild, never improving consistently. 

Here's the 1967 RICS!


Yet again the Stars and Robins clashed, but this one wasn't even close.

Game 1 - SNO 4, SKR 3 - The Robins took a quick 3-0 lead in the second inning, but the Stars rallied, including a walk-off run to seal the first game of the series. SNO 1-0

Game 2 - SNO 3, SKR 2 - Again the Robins had a great start, but Shinosaka scored 3 in the 8th and Shinkyo just couldn't score in the 9th to lose the game. SNO 2-0

Game 3 - SNO 5, SKR 2 - As the series shifted to Shinkyo, it was the Stars' turn to gain an early lead, and they didn't give it up, preventing a potential rally in the 9th. SNO 3-0

Game 4 - SNO 2, SKR 1 - Facing not just a series loss but a sweep, the Robins tried valiantly to fight another day, but the Shinosaka bats were just too much as pitcher Jeff Hall stymied Shinkyo's offense and the defense gave up 2 runs. Unfortunately, that was 2 too many as Shinosaka fans grabbed their nearest broom for the sweep. It was the first RICS sweep since Shinkyo gave the broom to Joestar in 1958. 

Shinosaka SS Morio Kitamura was named MVP, with 6 hits (tied for most in the series) and solid defense to help his team clinch their 5th championship. 

YOUR 1967 RICS CHAMPIONS ARE: SHINOSAKA STARS!

NEXT: 1968 Offseason + Identity Changes

What is happening to my T-birds  

And I'm getting tired of the Stars winning all the time! But I guess that's what one gets for having a superstar team that nobody wants to mess with! 

Huge fan of the T-Birds update

As you already know I love the powder blue and orange of the Bullets, so I am more than happy to see them here (perhaps Hokkyo is Robin Island's Pittsburgh in terms of team colors). I'm especially a fan of the powder blue road uniform

I think that in the future they should stick with either the R or H logo on the hats and I think an expos style white front panel would be perfect here. I personally think the R logo is stronger since it includes the lightning bolt

Stickman wrote:

I only just got caught up with this series, but I gotta say, really digging this project QCS!  Just from reading through the whole project at once, I can immediately see huge improvements from when this first started, which gets me excited for the future!

It was hard for me to pick a favorite team, but while I'm not the biggest fan of it's away jersey script, I have to say the Aorin Carp always stuck out to me as my favorite design, so I'm rooting for them!  That logo is excellent enough for me to get over my normal green team bias, lol, (otherwise I'd be a Stars fan, especially after their much better redesign that they had recently!  Really solid job on that btw).

It's interesting that the Thunderbirds now have an orange and blue color scheme like what the Carp have, normally you'd want to avoid having teams in the same league (especially when there's just 6 teams in that league) having a similar color combo, but your explanation makes sense why they'd do that, (course there's also 2 teams in the other league with royalty themes in the Kings and Monarchs.  Not sure how the Monarchs didn't throw a bigger complaint over the theme copying, but it could make them natural rivals in that sense, a Battle of Royals so to speak!  Also, both teams look really nice and I had a hard time picking the Carp over both of the). Learned sometime new too, I never knew that the White Sox, of all teams, were the first to wear the powder blues that became such a big trend!  

You're doing well with this, keep it up!

Thank you so much! I'm glad the improvements show, I've gotten a much better feel for how baseball jerseys should be designed and era-appropriate sensibilities. I'm glad you like the Carp, they're one of my favorites as well, it's frustrating how unlucky they've gotten. 

As for the T-Birds switching to blue and orange, I thought about it (in fact, they were always intended to be powder blue and orange) and I decided that the designs are different enough to warrant the ok from Aorin. The Monarchs/Kings thing is justified in-universe by the fact that Kings owner Bernard Bartram was essentially given free rein with the move to San Moriuchi because of the deal put in place to keep the team in Yosemite for a while longer than he wanted. Plus, with the differences between blue/gold and black/yellow, they're visually distinct enough to let them both coexist. 

Yeah, it surprised me that powder blue was first used by the White Sox as well! According to Ebbets Field Flannels, this was the first-ever ChiSox blue jersey:

The trend really picked up with the Pilots, Royals, and Expos all picked it for their aways in '69, but I figured the provincial colors were enough of a reason for the T-Birds to make the switch a tad early. 

Section30 wrote:

Huge fan of the T-Birds update

As you already know I love the powder blue and orange of the Bullets, so I am more than happy to see them here (perhaps Hokkyo is Robin Island's Pittsburgh in terms of team colors). I'm especially a fan of the powder blue road uniform

I think that in the future they should stick with either the R or H logo on the hats and I think an expos style white front panel would be perfect here. I personally think the R logo is stronger since it includes the lightning bolt

Thanks! I'm glad the new scheme works well. The T-Birds were always going to be the first powder blue team, and I figured lining it up with the Bullets would be perfect. I'm sure powder blue and orange will become Hokkyo's version of the black-and-gold, I plan on these teams staying those colors for a while. The lightning bolt R will also get some increased over the years, I'm sure you already noticed I picked it over the official primary for your sig. 

1968 Season:

Draft:
1 - YOS - CL John Parrish
2 - HOK - 1B Gene Hudson
3 - TOR - 1B Hidetake Hirakawa
4 - SJ - 3B Yukinori Nakamoto
5 - SKS - SS Fumio Murakami
6 - AOR - SS Toshinobu Aoki
7 - VER - CL Ron Gradle
8 - VER - CF Naomichi Nonoka
9 - SM - 2B Wei-Tzu Uchida
10 - QNS - CF Bobby Perez
11 - JOE - SP Aaron Ellsworth
12 - SKR - 3B Jayden Parks
13 - SNO - SP Jody Rafaelli

15 - HOK - SP Jason Simpson
40 - SKR - SP Masao Takamoto

Season:


For the first time since 1956, the Shockers are returning to the RICS! Their opponent is Shinosaka, the same team they played in that series. San Juan seemed to have been cursed by switching to brown lettering on their away jersey (so much so that management almost changed it back this year). 

It was more of the same in the SBL. The Stars played well all year and were rewarded with another RICS berth, followed by the Senators, Crusaders, and Tigers, who were all within 2 games of each other. The Carp had another down year, while the new T-Birds declined slightly from last year.

In the RBL, however, it was a whole new story. Not a single team finished in the same place they did last year, with San Juan shockingly (heh) improving by 16 games and taking their second RBL pennant. The Kings were hot on their heels, but slipped near the end of the season to take yet another 2nd place. The surprise of the year, however, were the Yosemite Grizzlies, who had their first-ever above .500 season and were actually leading the RBL for the most of the year. A rough August put them behind, but the team has shown tons of improvement and has a young core that would seriously contend soon. The Robins slipped this season, tying with Vertlac down near the bottom. At the bottom was Queenston, who took the dubious honor of being the first non-expansion team to finish 6th in their league after '59.

And so, it's a rematch 12 years in the making! The Shockers look for their first RICS championship while the Stars want their sixth. Shinosaka is a very scary team, but San Juan has a ton to play for and are a hungry team. It should be a good series!

NEXT: 1968 RICS

RoughRiders9 wrote:

My Monarchs  

But anyway, let's go Shockers!!! Even though they won once already, the Stars don't need another. 

Uhhh, about that....

1968 RICS:


No, that's not a typo, the Shockers scored zero runs this series. The offense didn't play as big a role as the defense did, and it showed.

Game 1 - SNO 1, SJ 0 - It was a pitcher's duel as Stars player Chris Wentz drove in the one and only run of the game in the 3rd. SNO 1-0

Game 2 - SNO 5, SJ 0 - Another tight game, an Alex Hernandez solo homer in 4th opened it up and Shinosaka drove in 4 more in the 6th. SNO 2-0

Game 3 - SNO 1, SJ 0 - The series went to San Juan as game 1 essentially repeated itself and the Stars scored 1 in the 3rd to win. SNO 3-0

Game 4 - SNO 4, SJ 0 - The Shockers were broken as the Stars faced no competition and took the game, and the series, 4-0. SNO 4-0

This is the second RICS sweep for Shinosaka, their 6th championship. Stars 1B Alex Hernandez won series MVP hitting 8 with one homer. I really wish I could say more about this series, but it was just pure domination by the Stars. 

YOUR 1968 RICS CHAMPIONS ARE: SHINOSAKA STARS!

NEXT: 1969 Offseason + Identity Tweaks