{"id":1154,"date":"2009-04-20T12:56:55","date_gmt":"2009-04-20T19:56:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/20\/embracing-failure-the-seamheads-near-miss-league\/"},"modified":"2009-04-20T12:56:55","modified_gmt":"2009-04-20T19:56:55","slug":"embracing-failure-the-seamheads-near-miss-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/20\/embracing-failure-the-seamheads-near-miss-league\/","title":{"rendered":"Embracing Failure: The Seamheads Near Miss League"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friend and colleague Brian Joseph has come up with another fantastic idea for a simulation league and we have another great group of team owners trying to lead their respective teams to a championship that they just missed out on in real life.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Seamheads.com Near Miss League will be similar to the Seamheads Historical League <\/a>that we ran on the site from mid-January to early April that culminated in a championship<\/a> for Joe Posnanski and his beloved Cleveland Indians.\u00c2\u00a0 In that league, we had 28 owners, including Bill James, Curt Schilling, Roy Firestone, John Buccigross, Jonah Keri, and Derrick Goold, select 40 players from their respective franchise’s history in an effort to build super teams that battled for a World Series crown.\u00c2\u00a0 The Red Sox had Cy Young and Pedro Martinez in the rotation, with Ted Williams, Tris Speaker, and Reggie Smith playing side-by-side in the outfield.\u00c2\u00a0 The Yankees’ lineup boasted Babe Ruth alongside Derek Jeter.\u00c2\u00a0 The A’s had early superstars Lefty Grove and Jimmie Foxx in the same lineup with Reggie Jackson and Catfish Hunter.<\/p>\n

The Near Miss League will be slightly different, though the cast of owners is just as strong, featuring ESPN columnist Bill “The Sports Guy” Simmons, his buddy and ESPN colleague Dave Dameshek, ESPN senior writer and “Baseball Today” co-host Eric Karabell, Salon.com columnist King Kaufman, former major league second baseman Jack Perconte, author and Hall of Fame researcher Gabriel Schechter, and author\/writer\/editor\/esteemed historian Gary Gillette.\u00c2\u00a0 Keri and Goold are also back for another go-around, with Keri leading his Expos again, while Goold takes the reins of the St. Louis Cardinals, whom he writes about for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 The rest of the group is made up of intelligent baseball men who blog about, write about, talk about, eat, sleep, and drink baseball, including many colleagues from SABR.\u00c2\u00a0 Needless to say, the competition should be fierce.<\/p>\n

The teams featured in the Near Miss League are teams that were either very good or great but failed to win their division, a pennant, or a World Series for one reason or another.\u00c2\u00a0 Simmons, a long time, die hard Red Sox fan, chose the 2008 team that lost to the Rays in last year’s ALCS.\u00c2\u00a0 Al Yellon, co-author of Cubs By The Numbers<\/em>, chose the ’69 Cubs, who sported a nine game lead over the Mets on August 16, but blew it and finished in second place, eight games out of first.\u00c2\u00a0 Milo Kaminsky will be running the ’69 Orioles, a team that went 109-53 and finished 19 games ahead of the Detroit Tigers, then swept the Minnesota Twins in the ALCS before falling in the World Series to the “Miracle Mets.”\u00c2\u00a0 Keri will be running the ’94 Expos, victims not of a late season collapse or playoff upset at the hands of an underdog, but of a work stoppage that canceled the postseason altogether and destroyed the Expos’ last best chance to bring a baseball championship to Montreal.<\/p>\n

Below is the list of teams and team owners.\u00c2\u00a0 You can find the teams’ rosters here<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 More will be posted about the league as we get closer to Opening Day.\u00c2\u00a0 Stay tuned!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
AL East<\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1969 Baltimore Orioles<\/strong><\/td>\nMilo Kaminsky<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2008 Boston Red Sox<\/strong><\/td>\nBill Simmons<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2007 Cleveland Indians<\/strong><\/td>\nJack Perconte<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1961 Detroit Tigers<\/strong><\/td>\nGary Gillette<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1954 New York Yankees<\/strong><\/td>\nKing Kaufman<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1985 Toronto Blue Jays<\/strong><\/td>\nJason Bova<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1925 Washington Senators<\/strong><\/td>\nJoe Dimino<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
AL West<\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1959 Chicago White Sox <\/strong><\/td>\nNick Waddell<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1977 Kansas City Royals<\/strong><\/td>\nJoe Hamrahi\/Craig Brown<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1982 Milwaukee Brewers<\/strong><\/td>\nRon Anderson<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1965 Minnesota Twins <\/strong><\/td>\nAaron Gleeman<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2002 Oakland A’s<\/strong><\/td>\nLarry Granilllo<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2001 Seattle Mariners<\/strong><\/td>\nJohn Moe<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1922 St. Louis Browns <\/strong><\/td>\nMike Lynch<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
NL East<\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1916 Brooklyn Robins <\/strong><\/td>\nRon Antonucci<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1994 Montreal Expos<\/strong><\/td>\nJonah Keri<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1951 New York Giants<\/strong><\/td>\nMark Healey<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1988 New York Mets <\/strong><\/td>\nGabriel Schechter<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1993 Philadelphia Phillies <\/strong><\/td>\nEric Karabell<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1990 Pittsburgh Pirates <\/strong><\/td>\nDave Dameshek<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
NL West<\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1996 Atlanta Braves <\/strong><\/td>\nPaul Greco\/Lenny Melnick<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1969 Chicago Cubs <\/strong><\/td>\nAl Yellon<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1999 Cincinnati Reds <\/strong><\/td>\nMike Petraglia<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1998 Houston Astros <\/strong><\/td>\nJosh Lile<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1998 San Diego Padres<\/strong><\/td>\nMarc Aaron<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2004 St. Louis Cardinals <\/strong><\/td>\nDerrick Goold<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friend and colleague Brian Joseph has come up with another fantastic idea for a simulation league and we have another great group of team owners trying to lead their respective teams to a championship that they just missed out on in real life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}