Filling the Rosters
I started by dividing up the 103 Negro League legends among the 8 teams: Birmingham, Detroit, Kansas City, New York, Newark, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Washington. I used Strat-O-Matic’s “Recommend Player” feature to recommend the best available player at that position. One issue I had to watch out for was selecting a player at a position that was not his primary position. I made the choice to use Martin Dihigo exclusively as a fielder rather than a pitcher.
I began with the catchers, selecting first for Birmingham. (Strat-O-Matic recommended Josh Gibson, so I suppose that is a good sign that Strat-O-Matic knows what they are doing!) I then rotated through the rest of the teams in alphabetical order until all catchers were selected.
For first base I moved Birmingham to the bottom of the list and began with Detroit. Kansas City picked first at 2b, New York at SS, Newark at 3b, Pittsburgh at LF, St. Louis at CF, Washington at RF, and then back to Birmingham for pitchers.
I then moved on to MLB Hall-Of-Famers. I removed all of the players that were in both sets (for example, Satchel Paige is in the Negro League Legend set as well as the HOF set). I reversed the order of selection for these players, working in reverse alphabetical order for selections. Washington picked first for catchers, as well as pitchers. St. Louis was first at 1b, Pittsburgh as 2b, Newark at SS, New York at 3b, Kansas City at LF, Detroit at CF, and Birmingham at RF.
I wanted each team to have a closer, but the Hall of Fame set I was using only had 7 legitimate closers: Bruce Sutter, Lee Smith, Rollie Fingers, Goose Gossage, John Smoltz, Dennis Eckersley, and Hoyt Wilhelm. So, I had to dip into my “Baseball Heroes” set to select Dan Quisenberry for the eighth closer. (Joe Posnanski did a feature on Quisenberry a few days later, which I took as a sign that I made the right choice!)
Lineups
I decided to go with two lineups (A & B) for each team. These lineups are mutually exclusive. I know it might seem crazy to have Oscar Charleston on your team and only play him half the time, but I wanted each player to participate and I wanted the players to play roughly the same amount of games to make comparing players easier.
The four game set will feature:
- Away A vs. Home A
- Away A vs. Home B
- Away B vs. Home A
- Away B vs. Home B
The home lineup has Negro League legends at catcher, 2b, 3b, and cf. The other four positions come from the HOF set.
The away lineup has Negro League legends at 1b, ss, lf, and rf.
I am using designated hitters, so any Negro League legends not in a starting lineup will see some time at DH.
Because the games are scheduled for Thursday-Sunday each week, giving a barnstorming feel to the games, I am going with a 4-man rotation. Each team will start 2 Negro League legends and 2 players from the HOF set. Everyone else is in the bullpen.