THE "HOO" PROJECT
The "HOO" Project is a massive creative baseball simulation
conceived and implemented by "Cousin" Bob Levy ("Cousin"
Bob's Levy's book).
As Bob envisioned this, it would attempt to incorporate some of
the most famous and colorful players playing on their minor league teams against
each other in 4 different minor leagues. Hence, you will see the likes of
Satchel Paige playing on the KC (American Association) team alongside Whitey
Ford and Mickey Mantle. In the International League, you'll find the
Jersey City franchise where Jack Chesbro is in the rotation alongside Pedro
Martinez.
Here's how Bob himself describes the HOO creation process:
"U-WHO (aka U-HOO) were
brainstormed one summer by me, to see if I could invent (and then actually
complete) all-time all-star leagues of so many teams it would be hard even to
fill out the rosters. Because I could look up schedules on the ol'
bookshelf, I decided to play an Org with five leagues of 8 teams each, the
leagues and teams of my teenage, the "high minors", circa 1944-48. The
biggest problem at the start was determining ground rules, then making several
switches as player selection ground along. The Leagues would be the
American Association, International League and Pacific Coast League (the AAA
leagues of 1948) and the Southern Association and Texas League (the AA
leagues). I began with all playing 154-game schedules, but regretted
154 for the PCL, which historically enjoyed longer schedules.
Criteria for player selection
was simple, because, as League High Commissioner, I could choose and assign
anyone I wanted from all of Baseball history. First, I
choose players I really liked, and none I didn't. That was easy
at the start---Ruth, Cobb, Lajoie, Wagner, Dean, Koufax, Kiner, Bagwell, Biggio,
Bonds, Clemens.... Believe it or not, it began getting difficult at only 300 or
400. Then, I went back and took most remaining Hall of Famers; added some
players I didn't much care for but were needed to give me a fair representation;
also chosen were Negro League players; stars from Albert G. Spalding of the
White Stockings in 1876 to Eric Gagne of the 2003 Dodgers.
And still more players were
needed, about 1800 in all, but the selection process got done. First, all
duplicates, one player from two or three years, had to be resolved.
Then the headache of assigning them to teams. My first round of that was,
a player must go to the city where he was a minor leaguer one season; next, he'd
go to the city where he played as a major leaguer, or where he managed; next, to
put a player on a roster to fill a hole, such as a catcher for Toledo where
there were none, for example; next, to try to match a player with his
hometown. Just to fill rosters to 40 men, with great
acumen built up over my 60 years as a fan----shuffling all remaining
players and pass them out, one at a time, face down, to each team. Then,
upon finding a team with no second baseman (it happened at almost every
position for some teams), I had to take one from a team with an
abundance.
There resulted such rosters
as the Los Angeles Angels'---who, with pitchers including Sandy Koufax, Bobo
Newsom (30 wins for the Angels in 1931), and Camilo Pascual; position players
like 1B Steve Bilko (off his 1955-57 seasons, 37-55-56 home runs) of the minor
league Angels (building his "card" with BBW WinWizard; 3B Mike Schmidt, OFs Sam
Crawford and Shawn Green---already dead last in the PCL, 15GB with 30 games
played.
A handful of players were
arbitrarily placed on rosters; since the Yankees aren't in these leagues, I
placed Babe Ruth in Baltimore, his birthplace (well, would you have him at
Tulsa?), adding Lou Gehrig because they should play together; Willie Mays
went to Minneapolis, where he hit .477 after being sent down by Leo Durocher in
1951; all three of the DiMaggio brothers went to the San Francisco Seals,
where they each played before reaching the Majors.
But Barry Bonds had to play
there, too, so one of the DiMaggios, Vince, went to Hollywood, where he also
played. The Seals became loaded quickly, with the assignment of Lefty
Gomez, Larry Jansen, Augie Galan, Arky Vaughan and, for a moment, the two Waner
brothers. It was immediately obvious that two sets of 5 brothers AND Barry
Bonds would create an impossible situation, so the Waners went elsewhere.
As quickly as the Los Angeles Angels plummeted, the SF Seals shot to the top of
the PCL, winning 15 in a row to take over first place, where they are as I write
this.
Rusty Staub was sent to New
Orleans, where he grew up, to play with the Pelicans. Mel Parnell pitches
there, same reason. Ernie Banks went to the Dallas Eagles, down where he
was born; many of the Old Orioles went to the Newer Old Orioles---McGraw,
McGinnity, Keeler, Wilbert Robinson, Jennings, filling out the Ruth-Gehrig
tandem to overflowing. The Houston Buffs, with a rich minor league
background, started with Dizzy Dean, Ducky Medwick, Mort and Walker Cooper,
mixed them with J.R. Richard, Nolan Ryan (hey, this was MY choice, right?), and
my personal favorites like Craig Biggio, Jeff Bagwell, Larry Dierker, Luis
Gonzalez, Dickie Thon, et al. My Greatest Buffs team ever assembled,
however, lies in 7th place after 30 games, with only a hint of what could
be. Likewise, the Oklahoma City Indians, with 1947 stars Al
Rosen, Ray Boone, Joe Frazier and Ray Murray, enhanced by 1946 Dale
Mitchell and 1948 Mike Garcia (the bunch of them with "cards" based on their
later APBA creations), much less a threat than Houston, currently float between
first and second, baseball being fickle and will break your heart.
A nagging conviction that the
PCL should play a longer schedule, like they really did, bothered me until I
couldn't stand it any more. I created a new Org, with just the PCL, and
copied the league's schedule from 1944, when teams had a 170-game
schedule. (it wasn't that 1944 was so great, but it was the only schedule
I could find without getting out reams of microfilm)
With the initial, 5-league
Organization, I couldn't do it right. I opted to delete all further
PCL games in the U-HOO / U-WHO Org, leave boxscores from games already
played to avoid losing boxes from the other 4 leagues. That's why you'll
see a PCL within the U-HOO / U-WHO, but in another, separate PCL Org the league
will pursue 170 games, based on 1944, which was easily available and which
will count, not the other. The slightly longer schedule is a killer,
as teams play a very unbalanced schedule, mostly 7 games in one town in 6 days
(Sunday twin bills) and long train trips as far as San Diego to Seattle,
hoping military troop demands won't muddy things up too badly.
I couldn't figure how to
insert this new 170-game schedule in place of the original 154-game one, so I
just stopped play in the latter, deleted later games, and started over, from
scratch, two weeks "before" the other leagues began, a game at a time to
catch up. FYI, I'm within a week of being able to renew play in the AA,
INT, SA & TL and then all five leagues move forward, together, a day at
a time. My habit is to play each game as it comes, managing two, one or no
teams myself (even using two micromanagers, I always set lineups and
bench pitching rotations).
There'll always be two
Orgs, but that's okay: back in 1948 the American Association winner played
the International League champs in the Junior World Series, best of seven; ditto
the Texas League champions vs. the Southern Assn winners, in the Dixie
Series. The PCL had its own playoffs, in 1944 the # 1 and 2 teams met,
while the # 3 and 4 teams played, all best 4 of 7 series, the victors met each
other for the final PCL championship (in other years and/or other leagues, the #
1 and 4 might have met first, with # 2 vs. # 3 and then on to the next
round)."
All in all, you'll find pretty much every player, famous and
infamous.
Check it out (we'll update this as Bob progresses with the
project).
MINOR LEAGUES Standings as of May 24, 1948
Batting Leaders | Pitching Leaders
Team Batting | Team
Pitching
Go to HOO
PCL