NEW PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENT - 1940 Season Replay with Payoff Pitch!

I am still loving and having a blast playing my 1929 replay using National Pastime III/Skeetersoft - hopefully those that are following along are enjoying it as well.  So, I have no intentions of abandoning that project.  But, as someone who is still relatively new to baseball sims (be it cards and dice or software), I haven't yet experienced so many outstanding looking games that I see being played and I'm itching to start taking a shot at some of the others.  I've bought a few game systems/seasons that I want to give a shot, but something about my personality doesn't get much out of playing one-off games or series - as evidenced by my jumping right into the 1929 replay, I enjoy the idea of making my way through an entire season.  So as crazy as I may have been to start the 1929 project, I'm now about to launch a different replay to begin while I'm still playing the NPIII 1929 season...

A number of my favorite baseball sim-related YouTube channels have featured Payoff Pitch and the mechanics of the game system seemed very intriguing to me, particularly the pitcher-batter interaction.  Plus, if I'm being totally honest, there is something appealing to me about the tactile element of playing with the cards and rolling the dice, etc.  At any rate, I purchased the 1940 season and didn't do much with it for a little while but after watching a few vides recently, decided to give it a whirl - I simply started playing the 1940 season from the beginning, to get a few games into the season, to see how I liked the system.  Turns out, I am loving it as well.  So, after getting a few games in, I decided that I'm going to keep going with that replay while switching off between it and the 1929 NPIII/Skeetersoft season.  Perhaps I will run into trouble running the two replays concurrently, but I am drawn to both games and will probably go through fits/bursts of each game and then jump back and forth.

For this Payoff Pitch replay, I will be using the board game companion software from Digital Diamond Baseball to score games and track stats/standings.  I can't speak highly enough about the Digital Diamond Baseball (DDBB) software and designer Mark Cohen, and it's an invaluable resource for someone embarking on a a full cards and dice baseball replay.  DDBB will track everything, provide box scores, league leaders, awards, etc., with minimal work on my end beyond entering at-bat results as I play games.  The software also provides great screens and visuals to allow me to report on "daily" (in game terms) scores and highlights, which I plan to take advantage of.  Because of these different resources, my postings will differ a bit from what I am doing in the 1929 NPIII replay, but much of it will seem familiar in format...I think.  I add that caveat because I will adapt as I go, if necessary, to keep things fresh and interesting.

So...why 1940?  Well, first and foremost, as a lifelong Reds fan, I am interested in learning more about the 1940 World Series Champions.  As the team "sandwiched" between the winners of the infamous 1919 World Series and the juggernaut Big Red Machine teams, the 1940 Reds are somewhat overlooked even by fans of the franchise.  Equally as appealing to me is that 1940 is a year that has a nice mixture of the golden-era names that I love to learn more about - players like Williams, DiMaggio, Greenberg, Mize, Feller, etc. - and some aging, yet still-great veterans like Jimmie Foxx, Arky Vaughn, and others. So, it's a nice mixture of a championship team from my favorite franchise and getting to play with some of the best players in the history of the game.

The other main thing to point out is that I will not be able to move nearly as fast as I have been with Skeetersoft.  Of the many things I love about NPIII/Skeetersoft, the speed at which games can be played (sit down for an hour or two and you can blow through quite a few games).  With Payoff Pitch, it'll be a full card and dice replay, plus adding in any time with entering results into DDBB.

At any rate, hopefully folks will enjoy this one as well.  I have to admit that I'm quite into Payoff Pitch at the moment, loving the system, and it will probably dominate the posting for a little while.  Hopefully everyone enjoys following along!