1941 BBW Replay Opening Day

All the prep work is done, and it's time to start playing games. The player’s disk is installed, the league set-up is complete, and the non-game impacting updates have been made. ATMgr is configured and the opening day lineups are set as well as all the scheduled transactions that will occur over the course of the season. The stadium backdrops are all in place as well, and so with all that, it's time to play. New York (AL) opens at Washington on April 14, 1941, Marius Russo versus Dutch Leonard. Only one game today and the rest of the league will start their seasons off tomorrow.

Ted Williams
As part of the preparation activities, I try to do some level of research as to details that occurred during and around the season. While it doesn't strictly impact gameplay, it is always nice to absorb a little of the history of the league, the players, and the times. Somewhere along the way, I had previously acquired a book by John Holway: Ted Williams - The Last .400 Hitter (Amazon). I would not classify this book as great literature, but it does provide a good backdrop to Ted Williams and his 1941 season. Holway also provides plenty of ancillary information - what movies and songs were popular, general news of the day, and there is plenty of overshadowing from the war concurrently raging in Europe. It does a fine job of stage setting for someone preparing to do a 1941 replay.

Joe DiMaggio
Of course, any book that covers the 1941 season will also include plenty of detailed information on Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak. When this book was written (published in 1992 but researched mostly in the 1980s) many of the teammates and opposing players were still alive and Holway was able to reach out and get interviews from players on both Williams and DiMaggio. Holway does a good job of contrasting and comparing the two players and the two different events - the hitting streak and the last .400 season - and how they jointly contribute to making the 1941 season one for the record books. If you are a baseball as well as a history fan this is an interesting read and if you are planning to replay the 1941 season, I highly recommend it.

DiMaggio and Williams
Another link for replayers that I recommend is Charlton's Baseball Chronology. While they don’t comment on every game played, there is still plenty of baseball news and color to help fill in the day-to-day reality of the season in question.
 

I was curious, so I looked up to see if there were any players who played in 1941 that were still living (Link). There aren't, not that I expected there would be, but I was surprised to see so few players who made their Major League debuts in the 1940s that are still with us. This is the list of players who appeared in the 1940s and the year of their debut season:

 

George Elder (1949)

Larry Miggins (1948)

Bobby Shantz (1949)

Chris Haughey (1943)

Carl Erskine (1948)

Tommy Brown (1944)

Curt Simmons (1947)

 

The cloud of war over Europe was certainly in the daily news in this country in 1941 and it was an event that was well known amongst baseball players as well. At this time, the U.S. had clearly stated for the record that they weren't going to get involved, but of course, Pearl Harbor happened just two months after the end of the 1941 season and changed all that. Many players would eventually end up in military service, and while many did play baseball for their military units, many did see actual combat as well. Two MLB players were killed in WWII (Link), neither of which played in 1941.

 

The 1941 season had its usual number of players who came up for a cup of coffee and were never seen again at the Major League level, but obviously, the war impacted the lives and careers of those players too. Who might have succeeded at the Major League level, or who among those players in the minors who never got their opportunity to step to the plate at Yankee Stadium? Studies can be done on those who did come back and play, and an assessment can be made on their careers, but from strictly a baseball perspective, the effect of the war on the lives of all the baseball players can never truly be known.

 

With all that being said, it's time to roll the dice (or whatever the BBW equivalent is). I am really looking forward to seeing what happens in this replay. Have a great summer everybody and expect to see regular updates to this blog as the replay progresses.

 

Links to the blog posts for my other replays are as follows:

 

https://rogers1901apbareplay.blogspot.com/

https://rogers1911apbareplay.blogspot.com/

https://rogers1930apbareplay.blogspot.com/

https://rogers1941apbareplay.blogspot.com/

https://rogers1949apbareplay.blogspot.com/

https://rogers1957apbareplay.blogspot.com/

 

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