SmallBall College Baseball (SBCB)

I just wanted to write a small piece on SBCB since it is currently the largest league being run in SBBB today. It's my view of how I started in it and saw it nearly crash, but then stepped in to run it today with a full 70 teams. Here's what I wrote -

SmallBall College Baseball (SBCB)

“The start”

It was six months since my feet had walked on the Baghdad sand. Four months since I started my full time return to SmallBall. New to a job in a new city was a new beginning for me and my family.

I had my teams trained back to what they use to be, plus I had acquired some new teams to bring to the table and felt I was ready for some new competition. I remembered being part of the original SmallBall College League (SCL) back before I had a huge computer crash and then I left for Iraq. I found SBCB and thought that this was going to be about the same thing. As I usually do, I went all out in joining the leagues. This was the expansion season where the league was adding a new conference. The members voted on the MAC and since it was new, that was the first conference I entered. I ended up entering all but one conference. It was a decent season and what I would consider a decent return. I was co-champ in the ACC with Willybang and was looking as if Season 7 was going to be great.

“Season 7 and the Crash”

Season 7 started out with a proposition that after some thinking I took. I was returning to run a UL as I was asked to run the SEC. After a few stumbles at the beginning, Mo (the founder of SBCB) got me working good and the league was scheduled. I one time asked him if I could run a pre season event in the same way SCL did, he came back to me with the statement that has been assisting me from the beginning ,”This is not SCL.” That statement stuck in my head and has molded my way of thinking ever since. The season went smoothly right up to the last day of the regular season then it happened. The fan in my computer was not kicking in and there was no re-boot. I tried over and over to fix it but it just wasn’t going to happen. I must give props to The Computer Guy in Gastonia, NC finding out that the motherboard was fried but at the same time recovering what was in my hard drive. By the time I had returned the Conference Tourneys were over and I had missed out on any chance of doing anything for season 7. All my teams had taken a hit in skill and I was in rebuild mode.

“The Announcements”

By the time season 8 rolled around I was ready to return. TRD was taking a major part in helping run the league and David7May was just picked up as another conference commish. SBCB seemed to be at the top of the food chain within the SmallBall leagues. Season 8 saw the removal of the MAC and the entrance of the Big12. Though it was not filled to capacity, there were less than a dozen openings in the six conferences. This put us around fifty teams. The league had run very smoothly over the first weeks and it look like it was getting ready to possibly grow even into next season when the announcement was made. It was August 8, 2008 and a post was made in the SB Forums that would change SBCB greatly.

To quote Mo , ”I will not be around the smallball community anymore because me and my wife are having medical problems with our daughter and it has become very time consuming and I want to be by their side as much as possible. I have given all of my team and UL info to a person that I trust in the community so that any league that I run may try to continue at some capacity. I am sorry to all the people that are currently in my leagues and you all know that I am not the type to leave a league or event lingering so I hope you all will understand that my desire to take care of my family is much more important then my desire to keep up with smallball. I wish you all the best of luck, take care!” The thought of SBCB without Mo was not one many people thought was ever going to happen. The person that Mo handed the league over to was TRD. TRD handled the second week of the season greatly but then came the second announcement.

To quote TRD, “I am working on conference tourneys right now but once they come out some of you may notice a difference in the conferences I myself have a team in. I am taking my teams out of the post season since SmallBall does not work on my Vista. I will train them up until this weekend and if I still cant get it to work then I am retiring all 4 of my teams.”

In one season we had lost both administrators to the league. TRD did retire his teams as college was too much for him to train at the same time. The season finished and the future was unclear.

“The Exodus”

With the emergence of the Vista problems and the loss of the two league managers of SBCB there was no true set direction of SBCB. Someone had to step in and more had to step up. I decided to in the best way to keep SBCB alive with the words Mo told me, “This is not SCL.” We had many trainers leave during this off season. I forget the total numbers, but I believe by the time that season 9 started we were around 40 teams. Season 9 was a rocky road helped out by the fact of bobjones83 stepping in to be our newest commish and David still hanging strong. Even through this time we were planning for the future. We had epiphanic on board as a statistical consultant to help with the rankings and we tried our best with the limited forum access we had to bring the best league to our members. Even though this season was one of the smallest that SBCB had seen the fait of the league hung in the balance on the decisions that were made during this season. After much discussion we came up with the ideas that led to season 10.

“The Return to prominence”

We had a milestone in the history of SBCB. We had made it to season 10 and it was looking like we may have a great season ahead of us. We had a pre season tourney planned and in honor of the 10th season the winner would receive a DT ticket. We welcomed Sarge as our newest commish as he took over the Pac10. Our numbers climbed back to over 50 and the season was working back to what it was prior to season 8. The ranking system was in place thanks to epiphanic and we were able to bring our members a very high level of competition throughout the season. We had many new faces and many new trainers come out of the shadows to surprise many people. The final four had two teams who had never been there before including the first Big12 team to make it, plus the lowest ranked team during the SBCB regular season to ever make it to the final four. South Carolina won their first championship and SBCB was rolling on.

“The Expansion”

Even though we were giving our members a high quality league, we still were not able to bring it over the top with our limited access to the forums. This changed one day in chat, as founder of SBCB Mo had returned. He still had access to the forums so he elevated me to an administrator and I was dubbed SBCB Commish. We had a lot of interest in season 11, so much so that the idea of adding a new league was floated around. We were going to hold off until we could fill the other leagues to near full capacity. This came fast though and the thought of bringing in the Independent Conference was put into effect. The conference was carefully filled so that the people who were already on waiting lists could join first. We slowly filled the conference plus had an open drawing for additional teams. Along with this bob ran a great HR derby. By the time season 11 started, we had all 70 spots filled and we have more people waiting in the wings.

“The Future”

SBCB has come a long way since that day in April 2008 when I joined. It’s had its ups and its downs, but right now it’s here to bring the best of SB together. We have just started on this journey that Mo started in 2007. We have many new trainers with there first league experience here and now. We also have the PL1 champions who are looking for more competition than what they get during the PL’s. When you look at it now, it’s truly a competition of 1 vs. 69. So what does the future hold? The future holds only what we plan for today. We have more UL’s at our use so the future may hold more expansions and more competition. You might even have to look for the return of the MAC real soon. So even if you are not part of SBCB, come and check out the game play and see if you can tell who will be the next SBCB Champion.

SBCB Forums - http://sbcb.bestphpbb3.com/index.php

Our past champions are – Willybang, SlipnSliders, Alex23, the troubadour, tnowlmanOur current champion is - Orange20

JtB

Smallball College Baseball
PLAY TO WIN, WIN TO KEEP PLAYING!