The Unofficial Straight Dope Message Board Out of the Park Baseball League has an opening for someone who thinks that s/he can be a general manager of a baseball team.
Out of the Park baseball is a computer simulation game where players take control of a fictional team. They draft rookies in the annual amateur draft, sign free agents, make trade with other owners, assign players to the majors or one of the three minor leagues and set the lineups and pitching rotations.
The league simulates two weeks’ worth of games every week. Between each simulation, you can make changes to your roster, make trades, etc. You upload your changes to the FTP site (all done with a button that is pressed in-game – you don’t have to have any advanced computer knowledge for this) and wait for the results.
Our league is a long-running stable league. We’re about to start Spring Training of our 22nd season, with the Maui Mashers winning their third Cecil Cup (our championship trophy) in four seasons. The league has been running for over a decade (in real time).
The team we have available is the Monck’s Corner Monks. The team is a former two-time champion, looking for an owner to bring the trophy back to the team. If you take control of the team before the season starts, you will also be able to relocate and rename your team (if not, you can do so during the next off-season).
When you take control of the team, your first task will be to become familiar with your team during Spring Training and make decisions about who makes it to the Opening Day roster and who gets released or demoted to the minors. You can also negotiate trades with the other owners, allocate your resources in scouting and determine which players should be in the majors and which should be in the minors (and at what level).
You can view the league site (where you can get stats, league history, etc.) here , and the league blog (where we analyze the game, talk trash, boast, etc.) is located here .
The game is called Out of the Park baseball and can be downloaded from here. We are using version 13 of the game. It can be downloaded from here. The cost for the game is $19.99. To participate in our league is free.
Are you interested? Up to the challenge? Let us know. Please feel free to ask questions; either I or another league member will answer for you.
Zev Steinhardt