The second round, and beyond

We have 48 teams still in the tournament. This round features seeds from 17-42 plus the six survivors of the first round. The 1-16 seeds are still idle until third-round play.

Here are the pairings in bracket order, which is also the order of how they’ll be played:

Oregon vs. Rhode Island (winner plays Texas)
Arkansas vs. Twin States (winner plays Georgia)
Illinois vs. Venezuela (winner plays Michigan)
Nebraska vs. Virginia (winner plays New York)
Louisiana vs. Maine (winner plays North Carolina)
West Virginia vs. Colorado (winner plays Tennessee)
Maryland vs. Europe (winner plays Ohio)
Indiana vs. Mississippi (winner plays Missouri)
Kentucky vs. Canada (winner plays Iowa)
Wisconsin vs. Dakota (winner plays Washington)
Panama Plus vs. Minnesota (winner plays Japan)
Massachusetts vs. Alaska/Hawaii (winner plays Puerto Rico)
Florida vs. Yellowstone (winner plays Pennsylvania)
Oklahoma vs. Connecticut (winner plays Alabama)
New Jersey vs. Dominican Republic (winner plays California)
Cuba vs. District of Columbia (winner plays South Carolina)

We have some interesting “groupings” down the road, if the teams make it that far. For instance, Texas and New York, two of the favorites to win the whole thing way back when we started talking about it, would meet in the quarterfinals. Same with Pennsylvania and California. The “middle” looks more wide open with Ohio and Japan as the best seeds there.

But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. The first series of Round 2 matches two states, Oregon and Rhode Island, who probably haven’t played each other a whole lot in anything. Neither squad has especially strong pitching, and the winner has the unenviable task of tackling Texas. Based on their seedings it’s 32 vs. 33, so it should be as tight as any series we’ve had yet. And we go to best-of-seven for the rest of the way.

Delaware vs. Colorado

Game 1 at Colorado

Delaware........ 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 - 1 7 0
Colorado........ 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 0 6 1
W: McDonald L: Halladay
HR: Mench

Kevin Mench homered and Webster McDonald pitched a six-hitter to give Delaware the opening win on the road.

McDonald walked one and struck out one. Colorado’s biggest threat was in the sixth, when John Stearns and Johnny Frederick singled and Roy Hartzell walked to load the bases. But McDonald retired Larry Harlow on a groundout to end the inning. He set down the last nine Colorado batters to finish his 112-pitch outing.

Roy Halladay pitched great for the hosts, giving up just four hits in seven innings. But he hung a slider to Mench in the fourth and that cost him.

Game 2 at Colorado

Delaware........ 0 0 2 0 1 0 1 0 0 - 4 9 0
Colorado........ 1 0 0 3 0 0 1 0 x - 5 13 0
W: LaRoche L: McMahon S: Gossage
HR: Mouton

John Stearns’ single scored Johnny Lindell with the tiebreaking run in the seventh and Colorado earned a split at home.

James Mouton hit a leadoff homer in the first and drove in another run in the home team’s three-run fourth. Dave May had three hits, two of them doubles, and knocked in three runs for Delaware.

Scott Elarton went six innings for Colorado, striking out five and adding a single in the three-run fourth. Dave LaRoche got the win after allowing May’s two-out RBI double in the top of the seventh and Goose Gossage pitched out of a two-on, one-out situation in the ninth for the save.

Sadie McMahon, in relief of Chris Short, gave up a double to Lindell and the Stearns single in the seventh and took the loss.

Game 3 at Delaware

Colorado........ 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 0 - 3 6 2
Delaware........ 0 0 0 2 2 0 0 0 x - 4 6 4
W: Cunningham L: Packard S: Morris
HR: Stearns

Bert Cunningham pitched 8 1/3 innings and contributed a two-run single to give Delaware a 2-1 series lead.

Rube Vinson’s two-out, two-run single put Delaware ahead in the fourth and Cunningham knocked one through a pulled-in infield after Johnny Lindell dropped a fly in the fifth. Gene Packard gave up two earned runs, four total, in six innings to take the defeat.

It was a sloppy game, with Delaware committing four of the six errors, but Cunningham managed to pitch around the defensive problems. John Stearns hit a two-run homer in the eighth to cut the Delaware lead to 4-3, and after Delino DeShields booted a grounder with one out in the ninth, Delaware manager Dallas Green went to the pen. Huck Betts and lefty John Morris each got one out to wrap it up.

Game 4 at Delaware

Colorado........ 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 4 12 0
Delaware........ 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 - 1 4 0
W: Hughes L: Snell S: Gossage

Johnny Frederick had four hits and Tom Hughes pitched seven strong innings to keep Colorado alive and force a Game 5 back at home.

Hughes walked six, but gave up just three hits and got the victory, with help from Tippy Martinez and Goose Gossage, who got the last two outs for the save. Delaware stranded 10 runners in the contest.

Colorado got on the board right away against Ian Snell, with Frederick getting a base hit with two out in the first. Johnny Lindell doubled him home and then scored on Roy Hartzell’s single. Larry Harlow and Chuck Cottier drove in runs in the third. Snell lasted only four innings, allowing nine hits.

Game 5 at Colorado

Delaware........ 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 - 1 8 2
Colorado........ 0 2 2 0 1 0 0 0 x - 5 11 2
W: Halladay L: McDonald S: Gossage

Johnny Lindell went 3-for-3 with a pair of RBI and Roy Halladay did the rest, pitching into the ninth and carrying Colorado into the second round.

Halladay scattered eight hits and struck out eight while walking none, as Delaware was held to a single run for the second game in a row. After a pair of singles in the ninth, Goose Gossage came on, and after an error loaded the bases, Gossage got pinch hitter Spook Jacobs to hit into a double play to end the series.

Webster McDonald wasn’t as successful this time for Delaware, giving up five runs – three earned – in six innings. He balked with two on in the second, leading to an RBI groundout and sacrifice fly. Lindell drove in the second of two third-inning runs with a double and got another two-out, run-scoring hit in the fifth.

Next: The stars of this series, and a look at Mississippi against most of the Eastern Hemisphere.

The first round

Here’s a better preview of these early-round series:

Twin States (48) vs. Mexico (49)

MEXICO has Fernando Valenzuela and a few guys who can hit the longball – Vinny Castilla and Erubiel Durazo. TWIN STATES is led by Carlton Fisk and will have to piece together a rotation led by Chris Carpenter. Winner faces Arkansas, the 17 seed.

Colorado (44) vs. Delaware (53)

COLORADO doesn’t have a lot of hitting, but boasts an ace in Roy Halladay and killer relief led by Goose Gossage. DELAWARE doesn’t have any Hall of Famers, but Webster McDonald and Chris Short might be enough starting pitching in a short series. Winner gets West Virginia (21).

Mississippi (45) vs. NJAA (52)

Cool Papa Bell, Dave Parker and Roy Oswalt lead MISSISSIPPI. The NJAA team – that’s “non-Japan Asia and Australia” – did a good job to finish ahead of two teams in the overall standings. They’ll have their hands full here. Indiana (20) awaits the winner.

Mountain West (43) vs. Dakota (54)

The MOUNTAIN WEST team, which includes New Mexico, Utah and Nevada, is the highest seed of the teams in this round, and is led by Vern Stephens and Ralph Kiner. DAKOTA, representing North and South, won just five games in the 34-game season and will have to win three of five to pull the upset and move on to face Wisconsin (22).

Alaska/Hawaii (46) vs. Kansas (51)

KANSAS, as we mentioned previously, finds itself in this round rather surprisingly. But they have Walter Johnson going twice in a five-game series. ALASKA/HAWAII, however, has a fine rotation for a small duo of states with not very many players: Curt Schilling, Charlie Hough, Ron Darling and Sid Fernandez. Should be a good series, with the survivor to take on Massachusetts (19).

Arizona (47) vs. District of Columbia (50)

As of the time I set the rosters, these teams were evenly matched in size, with D.C. having 89 players to choose from and Arizona 82. Not much has changed since then, of course, with D.C. led by Don Money, Maury Wills and Nip Winters, while Arizona has Shea Hillenbrand, Chris Duncan and Andre Ethier … yeah, it’s a long way up for them. The winner takes on Cuba (18).

Moving forward

Yeah, I know. All that buildup, and we didn’t even get through the openers. At least, I didn’t put them up.

I was playing ahead of posting, and got into the second round of the schedule when I realized …. there are 28 or 29 games to go per team. It might take me another year to play them. I already took most of a year to establish the teams. So that’s probably two years … and THEN I would have the tournament, which was the real point of all of this, to have a big showdown to see which team was the king of the world for this project anyway.

So I changed it up a bit. I still needed to rank the teams somehow, and to do that, I decided to set up the teams for autoplay under a slightly different schedule. The teams were arranged three six-team groups to a “league,” so they had 18 teams within their larger group. So I set them to play 34 games, one at home and one on the road against each team.

That’s what I will use to seed the teams for the 54-team tournament. I’m letting them all into the tent. It’s easier that way, and with the autoplay function, I found out a lot of what I thought was true in the first place.

The 54-team tournament will look a little like the NCAA basketball tournament did before they expanded to 64 teams (and way before they thought of 96). The “preliminary” round will take the bottom teams and have them play against each other to get it down to 48. The top 16 get a bye in the “first” round, the one featuring the 32 teams that will have to face off to get a shot at one of the top 16.

OK, on to the results. While we knew some of these teams were good and others weren’t, there were still some surprises.

As it turned out, some of those original divisions were wildly mismatched. So it’s just as well I didn’t play those games out to figure that out.

* Texas was the best team in round-robin play, going an incredible 32-2. They beat California twice, Japan twice, and just marched through. Their only losses were to Washington (Bruce Kison pitched a one-hit shutout) and Puerto Rico.
California was next at 29-5, one game better than Japan in their original “group.”

* Ohio, not Pennsylvania or New York, was the top team from the East region, going 27-5, one game better than North Carolina. South Carolina, not highly thought of, was 20-12.

* Iowa was the best team in the “Midwest” group of 18, going 24-10.

* Maryland, despite the Babe, Foxx and Lefty Grove, had a losing record, at 16-18.

* The Dominican Republic, another power, went 15-19. No one in the “West” group won in single digits. NJAA, the non-Japan Asian team, was 10-14 and then lost its last 10.
Washington claimed the fourth-best record out West, going 21-13, narrowly edging Puerto Rico which at 20-14 was No. 2 among international teams.

* Kansas, despite Walter Johnson, was one of the very worst teams with just 10 wins, and will have to come out of the play-in round. (Johnson was 2-4 with a 4.14 ERA.) The only teams that didn’t win in double digits were Dakota, the hybrid of North and South, at 5-29; and Delaware, at 6-28. The Quicksteps were 1-19 before catching fire, winning five of their last nine.

* Stat leaders: Cap Anson of Iowa was the top hitter (.460), Babe Ruth of Maryland hit 15 homers and Texas’ Frank Robinson had an amazing 50 RBI. Indiana’s Mordecai “Three-Finger” Brown was the top ERA man with a minuscule 0.66 (he was 6-0 with a save in 55 innings), California’s Don Drysdale and Texas’ Nolan Ryan had eight wins, and North Carolina’s Hoyt Wilhelm and Tennessee’s Bryan Harvey shared the saves lead with 10.

Next, we’ll have the pairings for the tournament, including the six “play-in” series to get it down to 48.

Central casting

Unlike the previous two groups, there is no obvious winner, nor is there necessarily a sixth-place team that jumps out at you. The Central may be the most competitive group, along with the South, and therefore could be the most fun. Expect a lot of tight games featuring some of the greatest pitchers to ever toe the slab.

If you were going by baseball “population,” Missouri would be far and away No. 1. And they should at least advance to the tournament round. But it will not be easy, because as you can see, there are no days off in this group.

My guess:

1. Oklahoma. Not by size, but by peak talent. The Mick, Stargell, Bench and Joe Rogan will lead the way. Rogan’s pitching, and ability to play second base when he’s not on the mound, will be the difference.

2. Missouri. They don’t have the big bats of some of the others, including Oklahoma, but their consistent pitching led by Carl Hubbell and reasonably productive offense (Yogi, Ken Boyer) will keep them in the medal play hunt.

3. Nebraska. With Bob Gibson and Pete Alexander starting about half the games, and enough offense with Boggs, Ashburn and Crawford, I really can’t see them failing too often.

4. Kansas. Now it gets tough. Any of the other three could go here, and certainly one could knock out one of the top trio. I will pick the Kansans because of Walter Johnson.

5. Iowa. Hard to picture Bob Feller not making it to the medal round, and it certainly could work out that the Hawkeyes make it, but I don’t know if they will score enough to support their talented twirlers.

6. Arkansas. Would be a contender in most groups, and they will be a tough team here. But there’s no Gibby, King Carl or Rapid Robert on the squad.

Next: International.

Capitol punishers

This group also could be known as the “Left Outs.” I used the headline – which should be spelled Capital – because that’s what Frank Howard was called, and I always liked the big guy from Ohio.

As for the groups, my problem was that I could make six or seven logical groups out of the nine, but some teams were going to be left out.

New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio are adjacent to each other, but none can be in the same group as the others because they’re too strong. New York has the northeastern states.

Pennsylvania, in the Atlantic group above, has the states along the mid-Eastern seaboard. So where do we go with Ohio?

They get the mish-mosh. They get Michigan, at least partly because of Woody and Bo, and Michigan is kind of left out of the Great Lakes group (which admittedly is dumb, because most of the Great Lakes formed the state). There’s Virginia and West Virginia. D.C. didn’t fit in the Atlantic Group. And Europe; someone has to take them. It makes sense for it to be one of the East Coast groups.

Ohio is the class of this group, pretty easily. It’s one of the unbalanced groups in my opinion. Again, the battle should be to see who stays out of fourth place.

As I see it:

1. Ohio. See above. Too much everything. Cy Young and Roger Clemens head the rotation.

2. Michigan. Kind of a sleeper overall, and will easily make it through to the tournament. Maybe not enough offense to really threaten, but the pitching is strong and deep.

3. West Virginia. A nice “little” team with a strong infield and OK pitching. It’s either them or …

4. Virginia. This team is a little hard to figure, and should be much stronger in 10 years or so. Even now, if they beat up on the bottom two enough, they’ll advance.

5. D.C. Not really that good, but still better than …

6. Europe. Blyleven and Mullane are interesting guys, and would probably be interesting teammates. Not enough help though.

Next: The Central.

Group analysis – Atlantic

First, a few words about the process.

It looks like 32 of the 54 teams will advance from the group play into the “medal” round, or the tournament. The top three teams in each of the nine groups will qualify automatically, giving us 27. Five of the nine fourth-place teams will also advance. If you finish fifth or sixth in your group, thanks for playing, but sorry.

The pairings will be determined before too long, probably by lot, but with seeding for the top teams. I don’t know how I’m going to bracket 9 first-place teams with 8 seeds available, but I’ll figure something out. I don’t think I want to go strictly by won-lost records, because the competition level is quite different among the groups, as you will see.

These are semi-educated, wild guesses on my part. Not only am I uncertain how good these teams are, I’m trying to compare them to other teams I have no real idea about, and we’re finding out the “truth” in a small sample size of 30 games. So I will likely be way off on many of them.

One more thing. I really can’t wait to play the games. It is looking like it will be early 2010 before we do, however. We have to check a few birthplaces and make sure the rosters are just right.

OK, here goes on the Atlantic. Of course, this is just an exhibition, not a competition so please, no wagering.

As stated in the last post, the Atlantic probably is the strongest group. Pennsylvania is possibly the best team in the whole field, New Jersey and North Carolina are very solid teams and Maryland has Babe Ruth and a few other all-time greats. South Carolina and Delaware will probably struggle to finish in the top four, which is the minimum teams will have to do in order to qualify for our tournament.

I’d almost be willing to wager (if it were allowed) that the fourth-place team here will move on, unless the top three really beat up on the rest. I don’t think that will happen in the Atlantic, though, as there doesn’t appear to be that much difference between 2-3-4 in my rankings below.

1. Pennsylvania. The Atlantic will leave them battle-tested for tournament play. We’re only playing 30 games but I’d still expect the Keystones to come out on top.

2. New Jersey. You could pick the next three out of a hat. I’ll go with the Eagles on overall balance, with a HoF outfield and Derek Jeter, and some underrated pitchers.

3. Maryland. I’m giving the Orioles the nod over N.C. on the basis of the Babe, Foxx and Grove. We’ll see how the rest of Maryland’s staff looks, however.

4. North Carolina. The Tar Heels can use this post as motivation. I just like New Jersey’s overall pitching and Maryland’s hitting a little more, but North Carolina will be a qualifier.

5. South Carolina. Jackson, Doby and Rice are nice, but the pitching is not nearly enough for the Sandlappers to challenge, especially in this tough conglomeration.

6. Delaware. Six or seven wins for the Quicksteps would be doing pretty well, I’d think. At least they are represented.

NEXT: The oddly grouped Capitol gang.

State(s) of the game

Well, I guess the Dodgers aren’t going to get a full season out of Manny Ramirez after all … but you’ve probably already read about that elsewhere. It’s still difficult to conceive of them losing the division as there doesn’t appear to be any real competition.

Zack (I called him Zach) Greinke finally lost, a 1-0 decision to Joe Saunders, but his ERA is still an incredible 0.51. That sounds almost like Flounder’s grade-point average at Faber College.

Anyway, I “warned” you that I was planning on going in another direction here. A while ago, just for laughs, I decided to assemble an all-time all-star team of players born in my home state, Illinois. There are almost 1,000 of them, so it took a little bit of research, but I liked doing it.

I decided to see if I could do it for the rest of the states in the union, plus the District of Columbia, plus any nation that has sent players to the major leagues and the Negro leagues.

Not every state has enough players to field an entire team, so to use another Animal House quote, some of them will have to share.

My thanks go of course to Sean Forman and baseball-reference.com, without which this project would have taken exponentially longer to complete. Many other Web sites, like baseball-fever.com and baseball-almanac, also helped.

The teams are going to vary wildly, of course. The big states will be cutting Hall of Famers, while players like Del Bissonette and Ken Hunt will be hitting cleanup for the smaller states. But to me, that’s a big part of the fun here.

And to add to the fun, after we finally assemble all the teams, we will play a tournament using the Strat-O-Matic baseball game, and crown a national – or international – champion.

First up, in our next post, will be the First State of Delaware. With just 48 players through the 2008 season, it barely has enough players to make it work.