Baseball Classic Replays

  Three games today, two of them really-well played, while the White Sox-Senators was a bit of a runaway.  Today finally saw the Cardinals get their first win of the season, in a game where neither starter went particularly deep.  The Cubs lost their first game of the year but will certainly take a 4-1 start.  The Game of the Day, though, featured a matchup of two star starting pitchers. Game of the Day: Detroit Tigers vs. Cleveland Indians 4-21-1940 (Day Game): 1940-Tigers (3-1) vs. 1940-Indians (2-1) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E 1940-Tigers 1 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 2 5 8 0 1940-Indians 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 3 6 1 Schoolboy Rowe (DET) Bob Feller, coming off of a complete game shutout on opening day, faced off against Tigers starter Schoolboy Rowe.  In this duel, it was surprisingly Rowe who came out on top.  Rowe pitched into the 9th inning before getting into a bit of a jam and turning it over t...

Only two games played today, neither a particular classic, so to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure there's one here to be labeled "Game of the Day."  As the scoreboard above shows, neither game was ever really in doubt, as the starting pitchers for both Chicago clubs dominated, so we will just skip directly to the day's best performances. Johnny Rigney (White Sox) Today's Best 1. Johnny Rigney, Chicago White Sox (9 IP, 1 R, 5 H, 8 K, 3 BB) - Starter Rigney was spectacular in getting the White Sox their first win of the season.  Rigney also went 2-4 at the plate. 2. Bill Lee, Chicago Cubs (9 IP, 1 R, 5 H, 1 BB, 4 K) - Lee was almost as good as Rigney, as he led the Cubs to an unexpected 4-0 start to the season. 3. Bobby Sturgeon, Chicago Cubs (1-4, 2 RBI) - The light-hitting Cubs shortstop surprisingly knocked in two runs today.   Voted Player of the Game, but Bill Lee actually had the more impressive performance.  

  Looking at today's scoreboard, there were a number of great individual performances, if only one great or really good game...although now as I type this, I realize that the scoreboard doesn't reveal how deep the Cardinals-Cubs game went, so keep reading below to see what was the runaway Game of the Day. Game of the Day: St. Louis Cardinals vs. Chicago Cubs 4-19-1940 (Day Game): 1940-Cardinals (0-2) vs. 1940-Cubs (3-0) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 R H E 1940-Cardinals 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 4 0 0 0 0 6 12 2 1940-Cubs 0 0 0 3 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 7 15 1 Gabby Hartnett (CHC) What looked like a runaway Cubs victory turned out to have so much more - a four-run 9th inning comeback, the Cardinals turning 6 double plays on the day, taking 13 innings to decide things, and ultimately the Cubs getting a walkoff win in a game that they should have put away in the standard nine innings.  The Cubs, and starting pi...

  Only three games today, two of which weren't particularly close, but the third game of the day was a true pitcher's duel and provides our Game of the Day. Game of the Day: Boston Red Sox vs. Washington Nationals 4-18-1940 (Day Game): 1940-Red Sox (1-1) vs. 1940-Nationals (1-1) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E 1940-Red Sox 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 5 1 1940-Nationals 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 x 2 8 0 Sid Hudson (WSN) Washington Nationals starter Sid Hudson was spectacular today, going the distance in a 5-hit, 1-run performance that gave his club a razor thing 2-1 victory.  Also performing brilliantly was Red Sox starting pitcher Jim Bagby, who himself pitched seven innings of 2-run baseball.  In fact, the Nationals trailed 1-0 (thanks to Dom DiMaggio double in the 3rd) until they finally broke through to tie the game in the bottom of the 5th.  The Nationals managed to tack on another run in the bottom of the 7th on ...

  There was only one game played today, so by sheer process of elimination...it is the game of the day.  The funny thing is, though, it was actually a great game anyway and would have been a contender for a Game of the Day tag even with a normal day's action.   Game of the Day 4-17-1940 (Day Game): 1940-Yankees (1-1) vs. 1940-Athletics (1-1) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E 1940-Yankees 0 0 0 0 2 2 0 3 0 7 11 2 1940-Athletics 1 0 1 0 3 1 0 0 2 8 13 0 The Athletics jumped out to an early lead with a solo homerun in the bottom of the 1st by Wally Moses and added another run in the bottom of the 3rd.  There was a flurry of runs scored in the 5th and 6th innings by both teams, but the real drama started in the 8th inning.  Trailing 6-4 coming into the top of 8th, the Yankees got two men aboard as Joe Gordon stepped to the plate...one pitch later and the ball was flying over the fence for a three-r...

And we are off and running with the 1940 season, using Payoff Pitch for a complete replay of the season where my beloved Cincinnati Reds won their first World Series since the infamous 1919 Series!  I'm still thinking/working through how to present results, but I'm thinking I will make daily (in game terms) posts with these pictures of all the box scores - I love this screen in Digital Diamond Baseball to display all the day's action. I will then choose a "Game of the Day" to recap and rundown the day's best performers.  I'll also likely be doing "weekly" (again, in game terms) type posts to update standings, league leaders, etc.  Digital Diamond is a big help in that regard as well, as it has a very cool feature with league leaders, MVP candidates, etc - I can't recommend the software highly enough as a board game companion tool!  And with that...take a look at the full scoreboard above for all of today's score and then scroll down to se...

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...