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12/20/2020 4:30 pm  #161


Re: Robin Island Baseball Federation

1974 Offseason:

Player Movement:
It was another busy offseason. I'll hit the highlights here:

In a trade with the Senators, the Carp sent catcher An-shi Qiao and a prospect for pitcher Ernie Beaudoin. This should help Aorin shore up their pitching to chase Shinosaka.

Crescent City traded away a solid centerfielder in Willis Villegas to San Juan for some prospects. They also sent Vertlac Jeff Petrescu, a player who had become quite good unexpectedly for the Ducks.

But Vertlac wasn't done with that, as they swung a deal with Hokkyo that sent two solid prospects to the Raicho for star pitcher Matt Halliburton. This was their best offseason in years, and they're hoping it'll be enough to get them over the hump.

San Juan also acquired injury-prone pitcher Jonathan Lopez from the Senators in exchange for a prospect. They also improved a lot, hoping to dethrone the Kings in the division.

Speaking of, the Kings took part in the deal of the offseason: pitcher Hector Calvario, a relatively new pickup from the Dominican Republic, was sent to the Steamers for two prospects. Shinsakai becomes new competitors in the SBL South, yet another team to compete with Aorin, Shinosaka, and the Senators.

Retirements:
In Joestar, Ryan Shumacher called it a career after 13 years with the Crusaders. The St. Lucia native had a great career, just missing out on a RICS win in 1960, his first year.

Additionally, Humberto "Pistol" Larios hung up his cleats after 13 years of service. He spent all but one year with the Stars, winning four championships, two MVP awards, and a Rookie of the Year in 1961.

Across the Sugiyama River, the Tigers lost a legend as Kazukuni Yoshimoto retired after 18 years. Playing since 1955, Yoshimoto finishes with 206 wins, 145 losses, 104 saves, and an ERA of 3.15.

Identity Tweaks:
Three new teams made the jump to manufactured uniforms, here they are:



No changes made. The Monarchs simply adapted their current design to Faultline's template. The big news was the Aorin-based Faultline making a move for a team in the RBL, which some had thought was Ace's territory.



Again, no big changes. The away uniform gained NOBs, so that, in the words of owner Toru Seki, "Fans in other cities know who to root for". The championship stars remain in their full glory.



In somewhat of a surprise, the Kings made some changes to their design. Their block lettering was supplanted by a medieval blackletter font, and yellow was promoted to the primary color, although the road uniforms stay black. The home uniforms are the first with a manufacturer to utilize pinstripes.

(QCS' Note: I'm really not sure how I feel about this redesign. I like the blackletter, but the balance feels off to me. Any suggestions?)

There you have it! The 1974 offseason is complete. The '74 season will actually be the RIBF's 20th, but I don't have anything special planned for it (that will come at 25!).

NEXT: 1974 Season

 

12/20/2020 6:16 pm  #162


Re: Robin Island Baseball Federation

Try a black away cap for San Moriuchi to fix the balance on the away.




Inmate and Official Riot Provoker of the AHSylum
 

12/21/2020 3:41 pm  #163


Re: Robin Island Baseball Federation

I'm digging the blackletter for the Kings, the only problem I could see is the yellow wordmark and numbers on the home uni could be hard to see from a distance



 

12/22/2020 1:52 pm  #164


Re: Robin Island Baseball Federation

I like the medieval letters for the Kings, but I think the S and M could be a little more "taller" to make it more square or more vertical instead of horitiziontal. 

Most caps logos usually look better when it's more square/vertical than horizontal, IMO.  

 

12/22/2020 3:53 pm  #165


Re: Robin Island Baseball Federation

Thanks for the feedback, I'll play around with the Kings to see what works. Hoping to get through the 1974 season/playoffs before Friday, since I'll be gone for about a week after. Don't worry, it's a private rental with close family. Might have the season up later today, not sure.

     Thread Starter
 

12/22/2020 11:22 pm  #166


Re: Robin Island Baseball Federation

I just scrolled through your thread, QCS, and it's rather fun to see your progress in your designs for the teams and how you present them. I don't have a favorite team yet, but I'll work on that. I think in general, upgrading the template helped you a fair bit and I liked how you tied it into your storyline. The background history of the island itself is also incredibly detailed and enjoyable to read up on.

As for the teams themselves, I would encourage you to arch your block letter wordmarks more often. I think you could also benefit from expanding the width of the text part on your roundels, so that the text is bigger and spreads more around the roundel. For Shinosaka, I think if you put Shinosaka on the top part of the roundel and Stars on the bottom, you could incorporate the stars themselves on the sides and given the odd number, incorporate a star as an A into the Stars word mark? I like their color scheme a lot though, same for Queenston. With the Monarchs though, I'd like to see consistent striping patterns between the two jerseys. Lastly, I think Queenston owns the crown-over-letter logo. With the Ducks also in the same division sporting yellow, I think that opens up San Moriuchi to prioritize red over yellow and the ruby over the crown, which could help set them apart from Queenston and fix what Section30 mentioned about being able to see the yellow text and numbers from a distance. Maybe something like a red-yellow-black order of colors could make the team pop (and I think Sol is the only other red dominant team in the league, right?). I'm excited to continue to see you progress though and am enjoying the storyline!

Last edited by Megildur (12/22/2020 11:22 pm)

 

12/23/2020 6:00 am  #167


Re: Robin Island Baseball Federation

I like the blackletter font that the Kings have now quite a lot, very fitting!  I think this is the letter font that you should use for them permanently! 

However, I would say that the Kings' redesign overwise is a bit of a down-grade.  The away jersey is mostly fine, though I'm not sure the pinstripes on the pants would work well with the solid black shirt and yellow hat (which I'm not crazy about either, seeing as the biggest feature of the logo is the yellow crown, which blends in too easily into the hat.  If you're sticking with a yellow hat, I'd consider changing the crown's color)

The biggest problem for the home jerseys is pushing yellow as the new primary color.  The yellow letters get a bit overpowered by the black pinstripes, which isn't ideal.  You could ditch the pinstripes, but those have been a staple for the Kings' uniforms for a while now, right?  So you might not wish to do that.   I would go back to black numbers and.... "black letters"..., (get it?  cause the font is called blackletter..... okay I'll see myself out)

Actually, before I see myself out, while I'm basically suggesting a change back to using black as the primary color, I still wouldn't change their current jerseys for a bit.  As I always say, in real life, sports team make new jerseys all the time, and as we all know, they don't always work out.  Keeping the yellow heavy jersey for a while would keep things realistic.  

So while maybe not their biggest success, I do still love the creativity here!




 

12/23/2020 2:37 pm  #168


Re: Robin Island Baseball Federation

Megildur wrote:

I just scrolled through your thread, QCS, and it's rather fun to see your progress in your designs for the teams and how you present them. I don't have a favorite team yet, but I'll work on that. I think in general, upgrading the template helped you a fair bit and I liked how you tied it into your storyline. The background history of the island itself is also incredibly detailed and enjoyable to read up on.

As for the teams themselves, I would encourage you to arch your block letter wordmarks more often. I think you could also benefit from expanding the width of the text part on your roundels, so that the text is bigger and spreads more around the roundel. For Shinosaka, I think if you put Shinosaka on the top part of the roundel and Stars on the bottom, you could incorporate the stars themselves on the sides and given the odd number, incorporate a star as an A into the Stars word mark? I like their color scheme a lot though, same for Queenston. With the Monarchs though, I'd like to see consistent striping patterns between the two jerseys. Lastly, I think Queenston owns the crown-over-letter logo. With the Ducks also in the same division sporting yellow, I think that opens up San Moriuchi to prioritize red over yellow and the ruby over the crown, which could help set them apart from Queenston and fix what Section30 mentioned about being able to see the yellow text and numbers from a distance. Maybe something like a red-yellow-black order of colors could make the team pop (and I think Sol is the only other red dominant team in the league, right?). I'm excited to continue to see you progress though and am enjoying the storyline!

Thanks a ton! I've been quietly keeping up with your CCSLC thread (and using it for inspiration) so this means a lot! I pretty much agree with everything you suggest, I only hold off on it because teams don't always look their best. I really like your suggestions for the Stars, I'll probably utilize something like that in the future. As for the Kings, while I like the idea of emphasizing red, that's never been the plan for them and they actually wouldn't be the only red-yellow-black team (Hayakawa also uses that exact same scheme, right down to the color balance) but I have made changes for the future that I think will fix the issues.

Stickman wrote:

I like the blackletter font that the Kings have now quite a lot, very fitting!  I think this is the letter font that you should use for them permanently! 

However, I would say that the Kings' redesign overwise is a bit of a down-grade.  The away jersey is mostly fine, though I'm not sure the pinstripes on the pants would work well with the solid black shirt and yellow hat (which I'm not crazy about either, seeing as the biggest feature of the logo is the yellow crown, which blends in too easily into the hat.  If you're sticking with a yellow hat, I'd consider changing the crown's color)

The biggest problem for the home jerseys is pushing yellow as the new primary color.  The yellow letters get a bit overpowered by the black pinstripes, which isn't ideal.  You could ditch the pinstripes, but those have been a staple for the Kings' uniforms for a while now, right?  So you might not wish to do that.   I would go back to black numbers and.... "black letters"..., (get it?  cause the font is called blackletter..... okay I'll see myself out)

Actually, before I see myself out, while I'm basically suggesting a change back to using black as the primary color, I still wouldn't change their current jerseys for a bit.  As I always say, in real life, sports team make new jerseys all the time, and as we all know, they don't always work out.  Keeping the yellow heavy jersey for a while would keep things realistic.  

So while maybe not their biggest success, I do still love the creativity here!

I'm the blackletter is a hit, I've been in a mood with it and I wanted to use it in Robin Island. I agree with the hat, but if I made the hat black, the letters would get lost, and they don't look as any other letter. I'm not getting rid of the pinstripes, they're actually currently the only RIBF team that uses them and I'd like for that to stay. Not sure when the changes will be made, but I think they'll fix what you and Megildur had to say.

Anyway, here's the 1974 season!

1974 RIBF Season:


RBL North:
The Grizzlies win the division for the fourth time in a row, battling back to take from the Robins right at the end of the season. After a period of decline, the Robins seem to be coming back to relevance, which will make Vertlac and Sol's competition even tougher. Despite a big offseason, the Emeralds really didn't compete, and of course the newer Orions are still struggling.

RBL South:
The new-look Kings took the division once again, pulling away from the Monarchs in August to seal the deal. Queenston led the division for most of the year, but fell apart at the wrong to let San Moriuchi take it. San Juan and Crescent City weren't in it, but they both have some potential in the future.

SBL North:
It came down to the wire as the Heroes suddenly exploded to compete with the Tigers for the division title. However, with the teams tied on the final game of the season, the Steamers played spoiler for Hayakawa while the Tigers claimed victory over their arch-rivals Joestar to repeat as division winners. Hokkyo has fallen off pretty hard after their two championships, while the Crusaders remain stuck in their bizarre ways. Joestar owner Hikari Mizuno is getting old and some fans are hoping he sells the team soon.

SBL South:
Shinosaka, Shinkyo, and Aorin all had chances to wrap up the division for themselves, but in the end it was the Stars who claimed victory. The Senators took second yet again after a good, but not great year and the Carp continue to be competitive but not competitive enough to make the playoffs. Finally, the Steamers were the only team to not even come close to the division lead.

Playoff Preview:
San Moriuchi and Yosemite meet for the third time in four years in the RBLCS. The Grizzlies have won every meeting so far and also lead the season series but it was closer this year. A good bet would be on Yosemite, but a case could definitely be made for the Kings finally getting back to the RICS.

Over in the SBLCS, it's a different story. Shinosaka boasts a powerful attack and strong defense, although the Tigers actually hold the #1 offense in the SBL. Shinosaka leads the season series, but it was close this year as well.

Experts are predicting another Stars-Grizzlies RICS, but don't be surprised if one or both of those teams gets upset in the first round.

NEXT: 1974 Playoffs

     Thread Starter
 

12/23/2020 3:05 pm  #169


Re: Robin Island Baseball Federation

As I always root for new teams to win, I'll be rooting for the Grizzlies, they've gotta win it one of these years...




 

12/24/2020 12:13 am  #170


Re: Robin Island Baseball Federation

1974 Playoffs:

RBL Championship Series:
The Grizzlies continued a streak of stomping on the Kings in the postseason. The highlight of the series for San Moriuchi was a 2-game walk-off in Game 5 to hold out and avoid a gentleman's sweep. Yosemite once again defeated their former team to head to the RICS.

SBL Championship Series:
Shinosaka was dead set on repeating as champions, and they looked like it after destroying Toramoto for the first three games. The Tigers bounced back, winning games 4 and 5 (including a 13-1 battering in Game 5) before forcing a Game 7. And you better believe it! They took Game 7 and completed to reverse 3-0! They'll head back to the RICS to face Yosemite.

1974 RICS:

Game 1 - TOR 7, YOS 2 - Toramoto made a statement win over Yosemite in Game 1. TOR 1-0

Game 2 - YOS 6, TOR 4 - Yosemite bounced back and took down the Tigers to tie the series heading back to Toramoto. TIE 1-1

Game 3 - YOS 7, TOR 6 - The Grizzlies continue their momentum with a solid win in Toramoto. YOS 2-1

Game 4 - TOR 8, YOS 6 - Toramoto comes from behind with a three-run walk-off by Byron Holden to win the game. TIE 2-2

Game 5 - YOS 4, TOR 2 - Yosemite held on to take a 3-2 series lead heading back to Yosemite. YOS 3-2

Game 6 - YOS 2, TOR 1 - The Grizzlies' defense showed their stuff with a 2-1 win over the Tigers to seal the deal and win the team their first-ever RICS! YOS 4-2

Yosemite 2B Leo Albarado was named series MVP for his heroic efforts of 8 hits, 1 homer, and 7 RBIs. Congrats to the Grizzlies and their fans!

NEXT: 1975 Offseason

     Thread Starter
 

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