Yes, sports fans, even though it seemed nothing could raise the stakes any further we see that baseball lives for the surprises!  The Socratic League, thought tight, has now acheived astonishing levels of eveninity!

Three teams, Brooklyn, Gainesville, and Marietta are now tied for first in the SL!  Yet Jersey City and New York are only one game off the pace.  That’s five, count ‘em, FIVE teams bunched up for the lead.  There’s only two of them going to the playoffs in a few months.  Can one of them break out of the pack and put this thing away?  There’s no evidence of that so far!  Keep watching, true believers!

The Platonic League is largely boring.  With Pittsburgh in a strong lead the only drama comes from the four teams chasing the wild card spot.  Cairo leads that race and the last one of the pack, Stockholm, in only two and one-half games out.

On the injury front this sim Marietta lost 2B Shackleford for six days and Helena lost starting pitcher Freeman for 1-2 weeks with a tender shoulder.

I’m still working on connecting to the server to upload the web pages so those’ll be up sometime over the weekend.

The next sim is Monday, by me filling in for a travelling Mack.  Be there!

OK, after this last sim I’me convinced that I need starting pitching help. I’ve got one pitcher performing very well (Guille Alvarado, 6-0), and a bunch of fringy veterans and not-quite-ready prospects that are not getting it done.

So, I’m looking for a proven SP.

What can I offer? Well, I have some depth in OF. Gonzalo Fernandez is playing well this year in CF. Also newly signed Paul Caldwell is hitting .368 and is signed through 2008 at a reasonable price. Brendon Townsend is a having a bit of a down year but is my best OF and is also signed at a reasonable price through 2007. Obviously the above is the order in which I value them as well.

I also have, ironically enough, a glut of SP prospects. Some of them have been up to the majors and haven’t cut it yet, some are at AAA or AA. So there’s Eric Pelham, Mario Funke, James Lineberry, Darren Lindo, Tsuki Tashiro, Jose Alvarez…. even Paul Valles, but he’d be expensive.

I’ll also consider moving 2B Aloisio Morales, and am very willing to take back salary in any deal.

So, take a look, let me know! I’ll be looking through people’s rosters and may be sending out some offers also.

We’re up to the Ides of May (a lesser known Ides, but an important one nonetheless). And, the Socratic League is a complete mess with FIVE teams within one game of the lead. The Jersey City Skeeters and New York Knights lead the league, but with a one-game differential, what’s it really matter?

In the Platonic League, the Pittsburgh Pisces continue to roll with a seven game lead over the Cairo Leveemen and eight clear of the Miami Masters of Their Domain.

In injury news, two Cairo players were injured in a collision while baserunning on May 15, but the injuries are only day-to-day. The only serious injury, Sylva’s Samuel Corrado, is for about 10 days, so that’s not too bad.

Short post tonight, so find the rest of the details yourselves.

Nate’s got the next sim on Friday. League file is uploaded and web pages will be sent up soon tonight.

In what amounts to a needed move, the GPP decided to ship struggling pitcher Tobias Rosado to the NYK for 3B Saloman Tavarez, OF Thomas Tietjien, and its 3rd round pick in 2006. The move will hopefully give GPP a needed stick to a lineup which has seen terrible run production.

Insiders have stated that current 3B, Suguru Mutsuhito current 21 game hit streak is a fluke and he is a danger to the team. In fact one player in the clubhouse walked in on Mutsuhito’s pregame meal, which was a healthy helping of Fugu.

PITTSBURGH (AP) – The Pittsburgh Pisces sent minor league reliever Tony Giese to the Helena Handbaskets in exchange for disgruntled third baseman Ben Anguita.

“We think Ben’s got some life in his bat,” said Pisces Owner/GM Mack Shultz. “I know he’s hitting like a crippled Girl Scout right now, but we hope he can turn it around with some regular playing time. We’re definitely starting him against lefties and perhaps even against righties. We haven’t decided yet.”

Following that statement, Betty Boop, President of Girl Scouts of America, announced a boycott of the Pittsburgh Pisces. Boop said, “We’re offended by Mr. Shultz’s statement. Our girls, even the ones with disabilities, could top a .319 OPS.”

The boycott is expected to severely impact the Pittsburgh franchise, as not only will the scouts stop attending Pisces’ games, they are refusing to sell cookies to any member of the Pisces organization. Even the delicious Samoas, which all right-thinking Americans know are the best Girl Scout cookies ever.

Hey folks. Made a few improvements to the site last night. Most pressingly, I fixed the bug that made you unable to see posts or comments if you weren’t logged in. Now you ought to be able to click on the posts and see it whether you’re signed in or not.

Secondly, I added a line to the top of the post displaying who posted it. Useful, I think.

Finally, and possibly coolest: the blog will now auto-link team names to their league pages. Caveat: It only works if you type out the full name — city name and nickname. Cairo doesn’t work, Leveemen doesn’t work, but Cairo Leveemen will link to the team page without any coding on my part whatever. This works for all teams, major and minor. I’ve also made this work for the top-20 players (actually 40, 20 pitching and 20 hitting), full names only. I think it’s pretty cool. If folks have objections for some reason, I can disable it, but I think it’s a timesaver.

As always, please comment or email with any suggestions.

Figures.

On May 9th, Sylva’s Leonel Spires threw the season’s second no hitter against the hapless, and now fourth place, Marietta Mammoths.  Spires won his only game so far this year against the Ohio River Hitless allowing only two walks and striking out six!

As mentioned, the Socratic League has become even more chaotic with Jersey City now in the lead with New York, Brooklyn, Marietta and Gainesville all less than three games behind.  Who’ll win this one?  No one knows, sports fans!

In the Platonic League Pittsburgh maintains its six game lead over Cairo.  Cairo isn’t secure in the wildcard spot, though, as Miami, Maryland, and Stockholm are all less than three games out of the second playoff spot!

In injuries this sim Marietta lost strong relief pitcher Bill Smith for five to six weeks with a muscle tear.  Figures again.

Next sim is Wednesday by Mack!  Be there.

For those of you who, like me, might be having trouble commenting, there’s a “log in” link under “Meta” near the bottom of the middle column.  Once you log in with the password sent by Brent (assuming you set your password tobe remembered), everything works just fine.  Just a heads up for anyone else as dumb as I was (am).

Hello folks,

Welcome to the new home of the OEL! With Nate’s and Mack’s blessing, I’ve donated some of my server space to set up this blog, as well as to host the league pages. Here, everything’s all in one spot.

A few items of interest: I’ve set up a page for past league champions, as well as a contact page. You can get to the leauge pages by clicking the left button in the navigation bar. There’s also a links list in the middle column with links to each team’s page.

All the posts and comments from the old blog should be here, so we have the collected history of the OEL on one page, basically. We may go through some adjustments as I figure out what should go where and how to make things work. If you have any suggestions, please leave a comment here or email me.

You should each have received an email with your username (same as your team name) and a password (which you should change). If you have problems with the site, send me an email, and I’ll take care of it.

Thanks, and enjoy,

Brent (Cairo)

It’s May 6. In the Platonic League, Pittsburgh has opened up a 5.5 game lead over its rivals. Frequent trading partner Cairo stands in second, 1.5 games clear of Miami and 2 up on Stockholm.

Meanwhile, in the Socratic League, Marietta clings to a slender half-game lead over Jersey City and New York. Defending champs Brooklyn have closed to within two games of first place and Gainesville stands only another half-game back. With five teams within 2.5 games of the lead, it looks like a wild race in the Hegel Division.

On the injury front, the only injury was a doozy, as Helena lost reliever Martin Volpe for two months to a torn bicep.

In other news …

Cairo’s young catcher William “The Whammer” Byrd and Jersey City’s Basil Gomez captured Player of the Week honors.

On May 1, Cairo demonstrated its need for new closer Ariel Santos as it blew a four-run ninth inning lead to Marietta and lost 6-5 in ten innings. Unfortunately, Santos and Desilva are still in transit, apparently stuck on a snag in the river.

On May 2, Maryland’s Baltasar Acevedo gave up just one hit in eight innings in a 4-1 victory over Helena.

On May 3, Cairo pounded Jersey City 11-0, featuring eight shutout innings from Bryan Im.

On May 4, Gainesville rode Lenard Ramirez’s eight shutout innings to a 5-0 victory over Miami.

On May 5, Stockholm’s Robert “Ogre” Mccree and Cairo’s Rafael “Cricket” Palermo, two of the most promising prospects in the game, each clubbed two home runs to lead their teams to victory.

In other news, we’re hopefully nearing a solution on hosting the web pages for the league. I’ll be testing it later tonight, so check the comments.

League file is uploaded. Nate’s got the next sim on Monday.