OOTP 2020 VIRTUAL ORIOLES SEASON

[DrungoHazewood]

I mentioned somewhere that OOTP21 has a new 3D ballpark creator.  One of my dreams has always been to accurately model Union Park, the home of the 1890s Orioles.  There have been many issues with that, mainly that there are very, very few photographs of the inside of the park.  The common one is linked here, from the big late-September 1898 pennant race deciding game with Boston. 

Luckily, a site called Deadballbaseball has a Sanborn fire insurance map of the area around the park, complete with stands and fences.  From that and the photograph (you can just make out the LF foul pole, which helps anchor all the other measurements) I was able to use some calipers and drafting tools to determine the fence distances.  Green Cathedrals listed the LF line as 300', RF as 350'.  My little drawing matched that very closely. 

As far as I know, nobody ever has had complete dimensions of the place, at least not in 100+ years.  But now we know:

RF: 350'
Angle just past RF: 390'
Straightaway RC: 371'
CF: 398'
Bend in deep LC: 415'
Z bend in straightaway LF: 387/395'
Deepest part of the LF bleachers: 365'
LF line: 300'
Home to the backstop: 46'

 

I know this is pretty obscure, but as someone who's studied the NL Orioles for many years this is a big thing.  Now I just need to get the stadium generator to work in OOTP and I can have some games in a park that was torn down in 1904.

[DrungoHazewood]

Two weird things about Union Park:

- Looking out from home plate the field faces due south.  Most modern parks face north or northeast.  OPACY and Memorial face(ed) NE. In the 1890s all games were day games, so the afternoon sun would be in the batters' eyes.

- The main grandstand wasn't centered around home plate.  You can see this in the photograph, but home plate was only 20-30 feet from the right edge of the stands (looking at the fire insurance map above).  This is because of the apartments or rowhouses at the NE corner of the lot which I assume predated the park.  If you lived at 309 E 25th (hard to read the numbers, looks kind of like 309), you'd be closer to home plate than the CFer.

[now]

On 3/24/2020 at 9:11 PM, Tony-OH said:

I did not make that trade either!  Maybe one day I'll write it all up. It was fun and pretty cool how it worked out.

Yeah, would love to hear more details about that post 1977 run of yours, and the 1992 rebuilt team as well. BTW the real O's in that 1979-81 period weren't too shabby either, just ran into some bad luck in the form of PGH, NYY, and the split schedule.

Kudos for taking on this project and sharing with us!

[now]

On 3/26/2020 at 8:28 AM, DrungoHazewood said:

And if you really want some insight into the depths of my madness, I'm in the midst of a project to fix the ancient history of the Continental League.  When I discovered OOTP in 2000 I imported the CBL, but due to obscure technical reasons I couldn't bring in all the history.  When I go to the history tabs everything is complete from 2000-on, but pre-1999 is kind of a mess.  I'm trying to import hundreds upon hundreds of old players so that they appear in team histories and leaderboards using text/spreadsheet imports/exports.  It'll probably take many, many work-days to complete.  All for a league that never really existed except in my head.

Perfect for a lazy corona virus telework month.

Ah, so you must know Robert Coover's classic Universal Baseball Association? If not, be sure to check it out.

[now]

On 3/26/2020 at 9:39 AM, Tony-OH said:

Tony Larussa baseball on Commodore 64 was the first game with graphics that kept stats. Man I played enough of that game to wear out the floppy disk it was on! i also used to play a game called Lance Haffner baseball. He also made football and basketball sims that kept stats though they were text based. Played a ton of that as well.

Yup, I did the Lance Haffner game too, tinkering with dynastic rosters of 3- and 5-year peaks. But Strat-O-Matic was the gateway drug to all the sims.

[DrungoHazewood]

2 hours ago, now said:

Ah, so you must know Robert Coover's classic Universal Baseball Association? If not, be sure to check it out.

Yes, I've read that.  It's probably been 10 years and I thought it was okay, not great.

[now]

2 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Yes, I've read that.  It's probably been 10 years and I thought it was okay, not great.

Fair enough. But an apt potrayal of the "madness" you speak of, no?

[DrungoHazewood]

11 hours ago, now said:

Fair enough. But an apt potrayal of the "madness" you speak of, no?

Sure, in a way.  But I didn't descend into depths of psychological distress when the AI gave Voltaire Powell (kind of the Clayton Kershaw of the CBL) a career-ending injury...

[MongoBoy]

And no stealing signs and banging on trash cans.

 

[BRobinsonfan]

On 3/28/2020 at 12:15 PM, DrungoHazewood said:

I mentioned somewhere that OOTP21 has a new 3D ballpark creator.  One of my dreams has always been to accurately model Union Park, the home of the 1890s Orioles.  There have been many issues with that, mainly that there are very, very few photographs of the inside of the park.  The common one is linked here, from the big late-September 1898 pennant race deciding game with Boston. 

Luckily, a site called Deadballbaseball has a Sanborn fire insurance map of the area around the park, complete with stands and fences.  From that and the photograph (you can just make out the LF foul pole, which helps anchor all the other measurements) I was able to use some calipers and drafting tools to determine the fence distances.  Green Cathedrals listed the LF line as 300', RF as 350'.  My little drawing matched that very closely. 

As far as I know, nobody ever has had complete dimensions of the place, at least not in 100+ years.  But now we know:

RF: 350'
Angle just past RF: 390'
Straightaway RC: 371'
CF: 398'
Bend in deep LC: 415'
Z bend in straightaway LF: 387/395'
Deepest part of the LF bleachers: 365'
LF line: 300'
Home to the backstop: 46'

 

I know this is pretty obscure, but as someone who's studied the NL Orioles for many years this is a big thing.  Now I just need to get the stadium generator to work in OOTP and I can have some games in a park that was torn down in 1904.

I'm guessing a LOT of triples were hit in that park?  :-)

 

[BRobinsonfan]

On 3/28/2020 at 7:14 PM, now said:

Yup, I did the Lance Haffner game too, tinkering with dynastic rosters of 3- and 5-year peaks. But Strat-O-Matic was the gateway drug to all the sims.

I know Strat-O-Matic had a bigger following - and I even tried Strat-O-Matic at one point - but by then APBA was in my blood... everything else was a poor simulation after that.  

[BRobinsonfan]

On 3/26/2020 at 11:28 AM, DrungoHazewood said:

And if you really want some insight into the depths of my madness, I'm in the midst of a project to fix the ancient history of the Continental League.  When I discovered OOTP in 2000 I imported the CBL, but due to obscure technical reasons I couldn't bring in all the history.  When I go to the history tabs everything is complete from 2000-on, but pre-1999 is kind of a mess.  I'm trying to import hundreds upon hundreds of old players so that they appear in team histories and leaderboards using text/spreadsheet imports/exports.  It'll probably take many, many work-days to complete.  All for a league that never really existed except in my head.

Perfect for a lazy corona virus telework month.

And this is why DrungoHazewood is/and always will be, the Hangouter I'd most like to have a beer with!

[DrungoHazewood]

13 minutes ago, BRobinsonfan said:

I'm guessing a LOT of triples were hit in that park?  

 

Yes!  Although exactly how many is unclear, because home/road splits don't go back to the 1890s.  The '94 Orioles still hold the all-time record for triples in a season with 150, in 129 games.  That seems about as likely to be broken as Cy Young's win total.  Since the Orioles moved from St. Louis in '54 no team has hit 80 triples in a season.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

On 3/28/2020 at 1:42 PM, DrungoHazewood said:

Two weird things about Union Park:

- Looking out from home plate the field faces due south.  Most modern parks face north or northeast.  OPACY and Memorial face(ed) NE. In the 1890s all games were day games, so the afternoon sun would be in the batters' eyes.

- The main grandstand wasn't centered around home plate.  You can see this in the photograph, but home plate was only 20-30 feet from the right edge of the stands (looking at the fire insurance map above).  This is because of the apartments or rowhouses at the NE corner of the lot which I assume predated the park.  If you lived at 309 E 25th (hard to read the numbers, looks kind of like 309), you'd be closer to home plate than the CFer.

My grandfather went to Terrapin Park/Oriole Park to watch baseball games before it burned down in 1944.

https://deadballbaseball.com/?p=1805

[DrungoHazewood]

Here's an overlay of OPACY and Union Park.  A little hard to see, but Union Park was much deeper down the RF line, similar in RC/CF, and much deeper in LF/LC except right down the line.  And the entire park easily fits into a small part of OPACY's footprint.