A few months back, when it looked like the MLB season might not happen at all, I decided to buy a copy of Out of the Park 21 (OOTP21) so I could have some fun with simulating seasons in lieu of a real season. (Frankly, one would be hard-pressed to argue that we ended up with a real season even with the games being played.) One of the fun things the game allows you to do is create a fictional alternate historical timeline.
In this one, I’m imagining a Europe where soccer never catches on quite as it has in the real world. Instead, baseball is introduced by US soldiers from the American Expeditionary Force and that catches on instead. Starting in 1920, a league forms with 8 teams in England, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands: the Federation Internationale de Baseball (FIB).
The teams in this first league are in Manchester, Chelsea, Amsterdam, Brussels, Lyon, Nice and two in Paris. Going into spring training on February 29, 1920 the prediction engine thinks CB Paris (Le Coq Rouge) will win the regular season title and the other Paris club (Les Hussards) will be last.
I’m not sure how often I’ll post about this. It’s quite easy to let the sim run through vast stretches of time quite quickly, but the alternate universe aspect is fascinating to me and I plan to make some edits to expand the league, suspend play during the second World War, etc. I’d like to take stock every week or so of game time and look for fun story aspects and notable achievements. I dunno, maybe it won’t be as interesting to do that as I imagine, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Neh 