[Syd Thrift]

Hmm… IRL the NA fell apart in part because they couldn’t retain the big cities in an association-of-players based model. I think the only modern team who can trace their lineage to the NA - I know this holds for 1871 - are the Braves, who started as the Boston Red Caps (and arguably can trace back to the 1869 Reds, as most of those players jumped to the Boston team after 1870). Anyways the first deal there is that none of those teams will ever become AL teams so there’s literally no worry about them turning into the Yankees.

All that said, the game is designed around playing from 1901 on. If you play through 1900 I *think* the AL will get added but it’ll be as the second league and that will start really messing up schedules once the 60s hit. If you have the extra time you could set things up manually although that’s going to be a good deal of work to be honest. There are whole entire leagues - the American Association, Union Association, and Players’ League that the game doesn’t handle.

To me a great starting point is actually 1893. That’s the year after the AA and the PL folded and things are basically all set up. In 1900 4 teams disband to get down to the 8 “original” NL teams and in 1901 the American League emerges. You’ll still have to do some moving around come 1901 - well, at least I would, because the schedules will never quite be right - but it’s a lot less personal work than getting the 1870s and 1880s to go.

If you do go back further, you’re going to have a lot of teams folding at the end of the year, a couple instances where they don’t get to the end of the year before they fold (including one case where a team folds and then a new team is “admitted” - fortunately with the same roster as the old team - to take their place), and lots of weirdo one year issues. Of course the rules were also constantly changing and OOTP does not really reflect this except that the stats come out (so, like, if you watch games, guys in 1871 will still strike out after 3 pitches, not (essentially) 9, it’s just that there will be very few of them), and the people I know who do this with historical accuracy in mind have to a bunch of work on the side (I know Eckstein 4 Prez will literally go look at contemporary newspapers because he is insane). I did a fictionalized version a few versions ago and even that was quite a bit of work.