YOUNG NO-HITS CANARIES!

It was a festive atmosphere in...well...whatever city the Haymakers play in. (In real life, it was Troy, New York.) On a sunny afternoon, the league's most successful franchise unfurled their fourth Creighton Cup banner to the polite applause of a fanbase that has become accustomed to winning. After the ceremony, the Haymakers took the field to face the new-look Canaries. Cy Young assumed his customary perch on the mound, making his eighth consecutive Opening Day start.

Young was sharp right from the first pitch. The Canaries, including new leadoff man and on-base machine Billy Hamilton, just couldn't barrel up to the veteran's heater. Young sent the visitors down in order in the first and again in the second. His teammates tagged Canaries starter Addie Joss for a run in the bottom of the second on a double by Deacon White, but Joss was otherwise nearly as masterful as Young. Joss was, indeed, the reason the Canaries had shipped longtime ace Tim Keefe to the Blue Legs in exchange for Hamilton, and the third-year hurler did everything in his power to reward the Canaries' confidence in him. 

Sadly for Joss, Young was on another level. He dispatched the Canaries again in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth. The league's all-time winningest pitcher was perfect through six full innings. Then came a very eventful seventh.

Billy Hamilton is truly the toughest out in the circuit. He drew a leadoff walk in the top of the inning, ending Young's bid for a perfect game. The no-no was still intact, but a rattled Young then promptly walked Hugh Duffy. Two on and nobody out, but a double play and a popout retired the side.

The score remained 1-0 for the home team in the bottom of the frame. With second baseman Bid McPhee on second and only one out, Young came to the plate. The modern play would be to bunt in that situation, but this is the nineteenth century, damn it, and these pitcher swing the bat! Young went up there to try to help his own cause, but he came up lame running to first in a failed attempt to beat out a grounder. A hush fell over the Haymakers' faithful as their star pitcher winced in pain. With some help from Dr. Dee Twenty (injuries in Strat-O-Matic are resolved by a die roll), Young remained in the game. The next batter, Joe Kelley, hit a ringing double to bring home McPhee, making it 2-0.

The score, however, was almost irrelevant. The question remained: Could Young toss the first no-hitter in league history? He needed six more outs, and the team would not take any chances with their defense. They pulled iron-gloved Jesse Burkett from left, shifted Kelley into Burkett's spot, and inserted plus-plus defender Ned Hanlon in center. Young hardly needed help from his outfielders, though, as the Canaries struggled to make solid contact. He breezed through the top of the eighth, and after his teammates were retired in order, he came out for the ninth inning and a date with destiny.

Due up were the eight, nine, and one spots in the lineup. George Wright grounded out meekly. One down, two to go. Joss, batting ninth, was replaced by pinch hitter Wilbert Robinson, who met the same fate as Wright. Down to their final out, the Canaries had the best-possible candidate to break up the no-no: Billy Hamilton. A weak grounder to shortstop Bobby Wallace was best Hamilton could offer. 

For Young, it was a piece of history. In this league or otherwise, I've never had a pitcher throw a no-hitter in Strat-O-Matic. In fact, I never thought I'd see one. What a way to start the season!

Opening Day

Plaaaaay ball! It's Opening Day for the eighth season of my nineteenth-century Strat-O-Matic baseball league. The Haymakers host the Canaries and the Resolutes host the Blue Legs. 

Last year, the Haymakers won the Creighton Cup, their fourth title in the seven-season history of this league. Will their dominance continue? Will the blockbuster offseason trade between the Canaries and Blue Legs help get either of these teams get back on track? Will the Resolutes reach the championship series for a third consecutive year? I can't wait to find out the answers to all these questions and more!

The Sigmar Cup: Season 2

The Reavers went out and took care of business in the Season 2 Sigmar Cup championship, defeating the reigning champion Giants by a 12-6 score and avenging their overtime loss to these same Giants in the Season 1 title match. Although the Giants opened the game with a relentless physical attack, the Reavers found their footing and matched the dwarves point for point. Gradually, the Reavers pushed the Giants back to midfield and injured enough dwarven players to open up the space they needed to leverage their superior speed. The turning point came about midway through the match when the Reavers' blitzer and catcher double-teamed a lone dwarven lineman, bringing him down and allowing the catcher to scoop up a loose ball and run it into the end zone for the game's only touchdown. The Giants came back strong, but the Reavers' blitzer shrugged off several punishing hits to deny the dwarves some key points on challenge cards in the closing minutes, and time expired before the Giants could close the gap on their human foes.

Now that Season 2 is in the books, I'll turn back to Strat-O-Matic for a while. Perhaps when I'm ready to return to Blitz Bowl, I'll add a fifth team. Skaven? Undead? Goblins?

Sigmar Cup: Season 2 Preview

In the first season of my Blitz Bowl league, the Giants upset the first-place Reavers with an overtime victory in the championship game. This season, the Reavers came back with a vengeance and dominated the league with a record of 8-2-2 and a whopping +41 point differential. Anything less that a title will be a huge failure for this Reavers team. So, can they seal the deal at last? Let's take a look at the numbers!

Aside from the debut of the halfling Grasshuggers team, the key storyline from this season has been the enormous drop in touchdowns as teams have scored (and prevented their opponents from scoring) by focusing on challenge cards instead of the end zone. Teams scored 1.46 touchdowns per game last year, while this time around it was just 0.69. The first-place Reavers suffered the steepest decline, from 1.63 to 0.75.

The Reavers, however, were very effective at adapting their offense to this new style. They scored a league-best 11.17 points per game, down just slightly from last season. Their success in Season 2, however, was driven largely by what they did on the other side of the ball; the Reavers allowed a miniscule 7.75 points per game -- tops in the league and nearly three full points per game better than last year's squad. 

Once again, it will be Reavers against Giants for the Sigmar Cup. With the Reavers boasting the league's best offense and best defense, do the Giants -- the defending champions -- have a prayer? They did finish with the second-best offense and defense, and they were also the only team to pose a serious challenge to the Reavers, who went 2-2-0 against the Giants compared to 6-0-2 against the rest of the league. The Giants will bring their punishing, physical game yet again in our Season 2 Sigmar Cup, but I think the Reavers are just too good to blow it twice in a row.

Races & Backgrounds

Over my lunch hour, I blitzed through the first playtest document -- rules that cover races and backgrounds, as well as feats and other content that plugs into the two aforementioned topics -- and I have some hot takes!

• In One D&D, a new character's ability score increases are determined by the character's background choice, not their race. Interesting! Class is the single most important decision in the character creation process, and players often consider only races that provide bonuses to the most important ability scores for that class. That's why we get so many dwarf clerics and elf wizards. However, is this change just going to repeat the same problem and drive players toward particular backgrounds instead of races? If you want to play a fighter, example, why wouldn't you choose the soldier background to get the +2 Strength and +1 Constitution? Maybe it's not an issue, because...
• There are simple and clear rules for creating and customizing backgrounds. I absolutely love these background rules, and I foresee so many campaign-specific options for really cool backgrounds that give players exactly what they want from a stat perspective but also fit neatly into the story. These backgrounds are also very well balanced. In classic 5e, some background benefits were way more useful than others. Now all backgrounds grant a feat. If I'm creating my own unique background, I can select the ability score improvements and the feat (among other, fluffier choices) that work best for my chosen character class and character concept. But hang on, might those background-related feats be a sign that D&D is sliding back into some bad habits?
• Any time feats come up, I get worried. Earlier editions of D&D (and Pathfinder) got bogged down in a "feat tax" that railroaded players into taking specific feats in order to keep pace with other players and (in particular for 4e) with monsters that scaled up aggressively as the players leveled up. If you didn't want that 30th-level kobold to kill you, you really needed to ensure you had every bonus you could possibly scrape together. I really liked that feats in classic 5e were optional, but that does not appear to be the case anymore with One. I'll be keeping a very close eye on feats throughout this playtest.
• What else did I notice? Well, there's a lot more use of the Inspiration mechanic. (Inspiration is so incidental to classic 5e that I feel a definition is necessary here: Inspiration is a single-use benefit that allows a player to gain advantage on a d20 roll.) In One, we'll see Inspiration pop up in all sorts of interesting places, most notably on rolls of natural 20. That's right, if you roll a 20 on any check (sorry, "test" -- I see they've upgraded to the trendier lingo), you get Inspiration!
• Although we only have rules for races and backgrounds at this point, I'm seeing a major uptick in features that you can use a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus and then require a long rest to recharge. In comparison, I see way fewer features that recharge on a short rest. For my beloved fighter, I'll be eager to see whether Action Surge and Second Wind still recharge on a short rest, or if they get revised to this proficiency-based model. 
• Last but not least, Primal magic returns! I'm suddenly having 4e flashbacks, but hey, maybe we'll end up with a One D&D shaman class?!

Here Comes One D&D

Well, at least it isn't an entirely new edition, but it's definitely a bigger change than I was hoping for. In any case, I'm grateful for the opportunity to playtest and provide feedback. 

Okay, One D&D, let's do this!

Trades That Shaped the League

Before getting started with my next hockey campaign, I thought it might be interesting to look back on the past seven seasons and reflect on trades that have fundamentally altered the course of this league.

Prior to Season 1: Thistles trade Gord Roberts (LW) to Bulldogs for Jack Ruttan (LW/C)

I conducted a brief tournament prior to the start of Season 1 so that I could learn the rules of Strat-O-Matic hockey and tweak the rosters for balance. For those brief few games, Gord Roberts, arguably the second-best player in league history after Cyclone Taylor, was a Thistle. I didn't see his potential; what I saw was a (seemingly) low shooting percentage, less positional flexibility, and a greater likelihood to take penalties. So when I swapped Roberts and Ruttan, I didn't realize it would end up being the most lopsided trade imaginable. How lopsided? Ruttan has managed to get into 40 regular-season games and has collected nine measly goals (and only two before this most recent season); Roberts, meanwhile, has suited up for every one of his team's 104 regular-season games and has scored 75 goals, the third-most ever.

Season 1: Bulldogs trade Alf Smith (RW) to Thistles for Ernie Russell (RW)

It didn't take me long to realize my mistake with Roberts. Alf Smith was a similar player, and I was sure I had badly underestimated his potential, as well. To make it up to the Thistles for the loss of Roberts, I had the Bulldogs trade Smith to the Thistles for Ernie Russell. To justify the trade in narrative terms, I noted that Smith had started the season out stone-cold. While this trade wasn't quite as lopsided as the notorious Roberts/Ruttan swap -- Smith has scored 69 goals in 104 games, whereas Russell has 28 in 81 -- it does make me wonder how everything would have turned out if Roberts had stayed on the Thistles and Smith had stayed on the Bulldogs!

Season 2: Bulldogs trade George Richardson (RW/LW/C) to Comets for Scotty Davidson (RW)

Richardson was a spare part on the Bulldogs but has blossomed into a star with the Comets, and now holds the captaincy. I certainly didn't anticipate his rise to prominence when I made this trade in Season 2. That year, Richardson finished twenty-fourth in the league in total points, but in Season 3, his first full season with the Comets, he jumped all the way to eighth. He's remained a top-tier player ever since (finishing tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and seventh over the past four seasons). Davidson, meanwhile, was a useful player for the Bulldogs until he was shipped to the expansion Bearcats midway through Season 7.

After Season 2: Thistles trade Tommy Dunderdale (C/RW) and Paddy Moran (G) to Bulldogs for Riley Hern (G) and Harvey Pulford (D)

Although the Roberts/Ruttan trade was the most lopsided, I'd have to say that this trade would rank as the most impactful overall. Dunderdale was coming off of a down year, but still had MVP-caliber talent. The Dogs put him on a line with Bruce Stuart and Gord Roberts, and the rest is history; that trio has become the most dominant line in the league. For the Thistles, the centerpiece of the deal was Hern, who's won two Goaltender MVP trophies in the five seasons since that trade. Clearly, both teams benefited from the exchange; the Dogs, however, ultimately came out on top. While Pulford was little more than a throw-in who played just a dozen games for the Thistles, Moran has performed very well in goal for the Bulldogs, and even won the Playoff MVP trophy in Season 4 and Goaltender MVP in Season 7. The Thistles, meanwhile, are still seeking their first title, and Hern has been the worst playoff goaltender of all time, with a horrific 3-11 record and .877 save percentage.

Season 4: Millionaires trade Fred Whitcroft (RW/D) to Thistles for Harry Westwick (C/RW)

When the Millies joined the league for Season 4, they had zero natural centers on their roster. They made do as best they could until they were able to flip Fred Whitcroft to the Thistles for Harry Westwick, a center who was playing out of position at right wing because the Thistles were already loaded up the middle. Westwick made an immediate impact for the Millies, and was even better in Season 5 when he finished tenth in the league in total points and helped the Millies win the Creighton Cup in just their second year of existence. 

It's no coincidence that the Victorias are nowhere to be found on this list. In order to keep things interesting and to make all the franchises feel unique, I've adopted a "franchise philosophy" that governs how I handle personnel decisions (drafts, trades, etc.) and in-game tactics (matchups, line combinations, etc.). In terms of personnel decisions, I've set the Vics up to be extremely conservative, hanging on to their players (even when it's slightly disadvantageous to do so) and making only minor, "safe" trades. Seems like that approach has worked out pretty well for them so far!