Game Management

Given that APBA BBW 5.75 is a game it is necessary to note what settings will need to be set and what other gameplay limitations need to be acknowledged. Beyond just settings, it is a matter managerial discretion and limitation to ensure these are used but not abused.

Stadiums and Rain-Outs

I have installed period appropriate stadiums for all the teams and they have all been set to Domed to ensure we don’t have rain-outs. Actual 1930 rain-outs are already worked into the schedule as is.

The stadium's files I have collected are in a semi-compacted format and need to be uncompressed before they can be used:

• Copy the <name>.DI_ and <name>.IN_ files to a temporary directory
• Open a DOS window (i.e, a CMD window)
• CD to your temp directory
• Use the expand command, as such:
• Expand <name>.DI_ <name>.DIB
• Expand <name>.IN_ <name>.INI
• Copy the newly expanded DIB and INI files to the Ballparks folder where the game is installed
• Assign the ballpark to the appropriate team in League Manager
• Make sure the ballpark is marked as Domed to avoid unwanted rainouts.

Complete Games

(Dale Alexander) While 1930 is still considered old-time baseball, the offensive onslaught that marked the 1930 season limited complete games to 1095 out of the 2468 total game played (44.37%). The trick in managing complete games is to not overuse the good starting pitchers or under-use the bad ones.

Ties

They don't happen much, but they do happen. In 1930 there are two, both Philadelphia at Chicago, both in the second game of double-headers, both while in extra innings, and both in the same week (August 16 and 19).

In these cases, I will provide a starting line-up, but not actually include any gameplay, and the position appearance will be the only thing counted in the stats. That is easy to account for in the BG stats collection, but in BBW 5.75 a stat editor will be required to increase the games played/started for each player (This is how a player gets 155 or 156 games played in a 154 game season).

Errors and Defense

I am not planning on redoing any defensive ratings. However, only the Philadelphia Athletics averaged less than one error per game (145 errors in a 154 game season). As an early observation, I see plenty of good fielding cards out there, so I am - at least for now - pessimistic I will ever reach these totals. There were three teams that had 230+ errors for the season.

Double plays turned occur at a rate of slightly over one per team per game. Oddly enough, the Athletics had the fewest double plays turned (121). There will certainly be enough runners on-base during the season and not a lot of strikeouts, so more balls should be put into play, so there should be plenty of DP opportunities. We'll see how this turns out.

Pinch-Hitting and Pinch-Running

Total PH attempts varied wildly between teams, with 100 PH attempts being the lowest and 205 being the highest. It does average out to about one PH attempt per team per game, but that wouldn't be a good rule of thumb to follow.

Each team appears to have 2-3 players with 20+ HR attempts (including a few pitchers), and another few with 10+ attempts. Given that I will be using lineups as played the players available to pinch-hit should be easily identified in the middle of a game.

Team PR attempts range from a low of 10 to a high of 35. On average, about one PR usage per week per team, but as with PH, that average will not be a good rule of thumb to follow.