What is going on here?

This blog is a repository of all things regarding my replay of the 1972 Detroit Tigers season, using the tabletop baseball game Ball Park Baseball.

The 1972 season was interesting in that the players went on strike at the end of spring training, and were out for a couple of weeks. It was determined that all games missed due to the strike would not be made up. Therefore, teams would be playing varying amounts of games. In the Tigers case, they played 156 games. The second place Boston Red Sox played 155 games. It would prove to be a huge difference maker.

The Tigers captured the AL East on the final weekend of the season, taking two of three from the Red Sox to finish 86-70. The Red Sox finished 85-70. Had Boston been allowed to play a 156th game, they would have had a chance to force a one-game playoff.

I'm a Tigers fan through and through, but even I must admit that the Bosox got jobbed. Major League Baseball should have been ashamed and embarrassed.

This blog picks up my replay at the 56 game mark and will include brief, daily write-ups of every game played from here until the end of the season. I will play the remaining games in "real time," i.e. I will use 2013's calendar to mirror 1972's as closely as I can. There is a two-day difference. For example, June 22, 2013 is a Saturday. So on that day I will play the doubleheader that the actual Tigers played on June 24, 1972. Make sense?

The AL East race was hotly contested. It boiled down to Detroit and Boston, but the New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles were in the mix until mid-September. To reflect this, I will be keeping track of how my Tigers do against Boston, New York and Baltimore and adjust the real wins and losses accordingly, to give a pennant race feel. Every Monday morning I will post standings, but only of those four teams, so you can see how my Tigers are doing relative to the other teams.

Right now, my Tigers are 33-23, good enough for first place!

Every day you will find updated hitting and pitching stats. Just click on the Stats page.

I will also post updates in the BP Baseball Delphi Forum, which will link back to this blog.

Here we go!