Just thought everyone would like to know the 2006 season will be our 25th year
Here is a brief history of the origins of our league
History
The league was formed in 1982 under the guidance of Alan Mandell. Alan had played in a league in Ohio before moving to Austin. There is only one original manager from the initial meeting at the Western Sizzler. That is Gary Mayes (Gary left for several years in the 90's). I came into the league with about 1/3 of the season remaining.
The Austin Replay Baseball Association (ARBA) was originally a face to face league, with ALL games played between two managers face to face. The game was played with cards (for pitchers and hitters), charts and dice. Our league to some degree is modeled after a league in Ohio call RML (Replay Mail League). We converted to play by mail in 1989.
Our form of government is a simple democracy, we started out however as a dictatorship. Alan Mandell was overthrown in 1984. In 1995 we changed our constitution from 51% of all managers to 51% of all managers voting, up until this time it was very difficult to get changes approved because a ballot not cast was essentially a NO vote.
In 1993 the MLB players union demanded royalties on all uses of the individual players name, Replay Baseball went out of business and we were forced to look for a new game. The two contenders at the time were Pursue the Pennant and Strat-O-Matic. In 1994 we played our first season under SOM using the advanced rules.
Of a personal note Washington Senators made the playoffs every year from 1984 til 1998 (15 straight years). I only played in the world series once in 1994 and lost (I believe it was to Keith).
Thanks, Ken. The league certainly has quite a history. I joined just in time for the 1988 season and tragically brought in the Tomlinson the following year. It is rather amazing how long some of our members have stuck with this madness, although a few have taken breaks along the way.
I might as well also mention Laramie's painful track record in the playoffs, before Tomlinson brings it up. Despite winning lots of regular season games, Laramie's first 12 or 13 playoff appearances have all ended in disappointment. I think that LAR reached the WS 3 times, most recently in 2004. Our stunning sweep of SFE that year was wasted when my "friend" Danno crushed my dreams by winning in 7 games with Castle Rock. Could this be my year at last? It would be rather ironic if LAR was foiled again by my own CL team (SOS), but both teams have some work to do first.
I came to league in 1992 through Tom Stearns. I had quite a run winning in 92-94, 96 and 98 with gdp. Hdt defeated gdp in 97. Gdp defeated Bos(JR), Lar(eric), Was (ken) and Sfe(Dark Lord Tomlinson). Wow 13 years and many bad trades later.
