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There has been a bit of a pause in the action as I decided to take a little tour of the league as we approach the last month of the 1967 season. Mostly, I wanted to get a better feel for what teams were looking like in terms of current major league rosters, aging, and injury propensity. As the season progresses and maybe especially once we enter the off-season I may come back to this and share some of the conclusions I made and trends observed.
For now just a few notes on that subject:
The Jacksonville Wolf Pack, who are now two-time reigning WPK champs, don't look like they are going anywhere soon. They are not only talented but their best players are mostly young or just now in their prime and not showing any obvious injury proneness. This looks like a dynasty that could last awhile.
On the other hand, the current doormats of the SJL- the El Paso Dawgs- are old, untalented, and/or fragile. The few talented players they have likely don't have much left in the tank. This could be a tough ship to turn around. Dawgs fans might be in for years of disappointment.
Looking at this led my brain to another place, one that many of you might find morbid. It occurred to me that immersion in this fictional baseball universe would be even greater if there was some way to acknowledge the passing of former players. That for me it would be interesting to see which former players might go on to live long lives and which might be taken prematurely. Now, I have no interest in going all J. Henry Waugh and killing off current players, but nobody lives forever, even fictional ballplayers. Plus the news of the passing of a former player is often a good reminder to look back at what they did during their career as a professional baseball player. And, sometimes at least, gives some clues as to what happened in their lives post-career.
So, similar to the method I built to identify and create players who are relatives of WPK players, I have spent the past few days creating (still putting some finishing touches on this) a method of identifying annual lists of former WPK players who will pass away soon (with dates of death and cause of death). This is something that will be triggered at the beginning of the WPK universe year (January 1st in the game, in other words) and will identify former players who will die during that calendar year. These deaths, when they are for significant players or are compelling stories, will be shared when they occur during that year. It will offer an opportunity to further flesh out this world and also to link current WPK events to the WPK past. (Not much past yet, and all the retired players are under 45 years old so likely not many deaths to report on for awhile. The system does have built into it the possibility of younger former players passing away, but surely at far lower rates than older players. It will be some time before this process is really in full swing. But it will be very fun to see what former players might make it well into their 90's and hopefully there will be at least a few centenarians eventually.)
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