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Penny Valley Profile: Evelyn Stanier
Hi all, just as a quick heads-up, I'll be taking some historical liberties with withdrawal dates, build dates and service careers in these, so sorry rivet-counters. Also, sorry for the shitty artwork, I did it in school :P
Pre-Preservation
Evelyn is a London, Midland and Scottish Railway 8F locomotive built in 1942. Upon her completion, she was immediately requisitioned for use by the Royal Engineers in hauling trains in North Africa. When returned in 1945, she was repainted and allocated to Barrow Hill depot where she'd serve diligently until her withdrawal in 1964.
Preservation
In 1970, Mr. Luke and Mr. Hughes found Evelyn rusting away in a siding near Newton Abbot, where she had supposedly been forgotten about. She was quickly snapped up by the pair and hauled by road to Rattery Engine Works. There, they stripped her down to nuts and bolts and reassembled her from the ground up, refurbishing what they could and replacing what they couldn't. When she returned to traffic in 1976, she was very eager to work. During her trials though, it was found that she was near-sighted to the point it was a miracle she hadn't caused a major accident. Rattery works quickly fabricated a pair of glasses for her use and she's been a loyal worker ever since.
Personality/Characteristics
Evelyn, despite her size and strength, is a very shy engine. She struggles with basic interactions with anyone she doesn't know, often mulls on awkward moments and sometimes even sweats during conversations. The one remedy to this is Luna. Her and Luna are quite possibly the closest friends on the line, with some speculating it could be even more. Luna's feistiness and stubbornness balances out with Evelyn's shyness and generally being something of a doormat. Even though she lets people walk all over her, she tries her best to be a good friend to Luna and the others.
Closing
All in all, Evelyn is an engine that works best when not in the spotlight, preferring (and sometimes needing) to take a backseat role to do a good job.
Thank you all for reading and I hope to see you in the next one.
Cheerio!
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"Lost 2003 animated pilot based on the the video game 'Cel Damage', clip was resurfaced from a VHS broadcast recording, saved on DVD, never uploaded to the internet until now".
Made with Adobe After Effects, Illustrator, and Premiere.
#Made with Adobe AfterEffects#Illustrator#and Premiere.#animation#cartoon#analog#fake#foundfootage#lost#althistory#alternatehistory#videogame#2000s#y2k#celdamage#gamecube#xbox#playstation#g4#gamenetwork
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What if: Japan won the Battle of Leyte Gulf?
me and a couple of friends use this AltHis for our non-historical Pacific Theatre Bolt Action games, would be interesting to hear your thoughts.
Well!
The Battle of Leyte Gulf had an extreme disparity of forces involved, so that makes me immediately go put my thinking cap on and pose the thought experiment that we would have to consider what would be realistic and attainable "Win Conditions" for the Japanese at this time.
Severe and complete incompetence, or bad planning as they did not have a unified command from what I recall, could leave the US Task Forces exposed and vulnerable, but I cannot see a total defeat of the American forces at that battle. What could however have happened is just that, a Task Force could have been isolated and ambushed if expert outmaneuvering and intelligence was implemented, and -could- have been destroyed or crippled.
So, if we can call that a "win" for Japan - which I think it can be called - in which the Japanese Imperial Navy moves about, isolates parts of the entire American force we would see present at Leyte Gulf, it would be a set-back for the Americans in the Pacific. But the Japanese ability to wage war was already hampered, and it was growing more grim by each day.
For the Pacific Theater in the context of Bolt Action games, it may mean less complete dominance of the sea and islands which leads to less confidence to perform naval invasions and the missions and operations we know today would look different - but in the grand scale it would mean that the war would just continue for a bit longer. The logical steps of the islands we saw liberated from Japan would most likely follow as they did in our time.
Barring any more critical blunders on the American side, of course.
And I want to comment that having some "AltHistory tweaking" is a great way to create a working narrative in historical war game campaigns!
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With "Earth Retrograde," writer R.W.W. Greene is concluding his alt-history sci-fi duology, "The First Planets." In this exclusive interview, Greene discusses what inspired and influenced this series, as well as why his main character isn't named New Jersey.
📖🚀👽
#RWWGreene#RWWGreeneInterview#RWWGreeneEarthRetrograde#RWWGreeneEarthRetrogradeInterview#RWWGreeneMercuryRising#RWWGreeneTheFirstPlanets#Books#Reading#AuthorInterview#AuthorInterviews#SciFi#SciFiBooks#ScienceFiction#AltHistory
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That Self-Same Metal by Brittany N. Williams A stunning YA fantasy debut, perfect for fans of Holly Black and Justina Ireland, about a Black girl (and sword expert) fighting a Fae uprising in Shakespearean London. Swashbuckling, and romantic, this series starter delivers an unforgettable story—and a heroine unlike any other. View the full summary and rep info on wordpress!
#bisexual#black#dailybook#Fictiongen#mga#queerrep#race#2020s#300pg#althistory#bookseries#faeelves#fantasy#femaleprotagonist#historicalfiction#lgbtqia#queerbooks#settingBritain#theater#time1600s#YAbooks
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House Wittlsbach is on the Throne after being elected by all major princesses of the Empire, Emperor Maria is crowned on the Red Throne at age 40. The League of Empresses forms between Song Empress (Bao), Bengal-Ganges Empress, Tsarina of Russia, German Kaiserin and Persian Shashanah in an effort to control the Empire away from Rose Red and towards their respective realms. Their bid on Maria is poorly made when he begins centralizing the Empire. They think they can control their daughter Enya to do their bidding. The Queen of Phoenicia-Canaan is one of the many invited to the scheme, but reports it to the Secret Service, who begin their investigation.
The League then orders Maria to be killed on the day of Prince Coby's first birthday. They begin with stoking rebellious provinces, mainly in the east, to rise up against the power of Rose Red. The League of Assassins kill Maria on the day in question. King Nadeem, now acting regent, begins the preparations to prepare his daughter Vilma to ascend to the Red Throne. The League ignites their Green Shirt rebellion in the east. During this, the League begins slipping by acting too directly to end the rebellion, mostly paying rebels off.
The Tsarina, in a fervor of the events going on, outs herself with photos taken of her bribing certain members of a then unknown rebel leader. The Sickle Rebellion begins to ally themselves with the Green Shirts. Following many months, the leader of the Sickle Rebellion turns on her benefactor in exchange for a deal. She indicts the Tsarina spilling many of the juicy details about her plan to pay a rebel leader to rebel, in order to gain control of the 8th Imperial Army. The 8th Imperial Army is a Russian group which at the time secretly swore to the Tsarina before the event. The Secret Service discovered the leader and her details through the photo. The Tsarina is executed for treason under orders of Nadeem.
Following the execution, the 13th Imperial Army under orders from Bao set into motion the kidnapping of Vilma’s husband, Prince Timur, in an effort to gain the upper hand and strike a deal. The 8th Army, a month following the execution, is reorganized with loyalist leaders. Empress Vilma is crowned in a quick ceremony during campaign in Novgorod. During this time the Kaiserin, Queen of Egypt, and Yavana Queen bladder to the Secret Service in an effort to distract them from frame both Empress of Great Scythia, Basilissa, Queen of Romania, and the Queen of France (all of whom were never involved with the League) as the perpetrators of the rebellions. Blaming the Tsarina for their involvement. Following the capture of Prince Timur, Bao makes a demand to Vilma, personally, to abdicate or her husband gets it. Not exactly having a leg to stand on, with her Empire falling and Bao attempting to subvert them all, she gives in. Nadeem after figuring this out has a bounty put on Bao in secret.
Enya is crowned at the age of 11 in a grand ceremony offered by Bao and her compatriots. The League suspecting the Service is off their tails start to manipulate Enya for their own purposes, as an emergency diet is called, and then elects Bao as temporary Speaker until the crisis is over. King Nadeem becomes regent of the young Enya. The service releases new evidence pointing to the League which made news world wide that there is a shadow cabal running the government via the new Empress. Revolts start to intensify as Bao attempts to keep order in the realm. The tribal districts and states are the first to attempt to leave, with massacres being very effective to keep them within the Empire. As the populace starts to fall in this new normal for the time being. Bao starts to divert what powers she can from the Diet, President, Empress, and Subdiets to the Empresses of the Empire, fulfilling the goal of the League. Enya begins to be the hero the League needs and buys into their propaganda of decentralization. Bao dies of old age at 56 of a gunshot to the back of the head.
Following this Nadeem is elected Speaker and coaches Enya to become her own Empress. Enya goes on a quest to explore herself, her Empire and most importantly figure out what is really going on. During her 3 years of explorations she makes friends, and realizes the atrocities that Bao and her co-conspirators have committed against the populace with their new found powers.
The Service finally has found the smoking gun for their entire investigation. While Enya was away they got permission from Nadeem to investigate the Imperial Palace and other offices of the Capital. There they found the entire correspondence of the League, as well as the receipts for their hitman and rebellion leaders. In the same office they also found files on top of files of a ring going back as far as the Empire’s founding, and them talking of a secret organization which according to them “aims to capture the minds, and make reality as they see fit” or “to suppress the truth of the flat earth and discredit anyone claiming that dinosaurs do not exist”. In a more shocking turn of events during a raid on a League owned company outside of city limits, they found the receipts for funding various criminal organizations out of Gotham including the infamous Falcone crime syndicate. In the same offices they find a room for torturing and murder, along with personal effects of those murdered there. Implements were found and the instigators of this crime are rounded up. In a third location they found ties to hidden and secretive cults in low places. As well as ties to various different worldwide criminal organizations. This newfound fury led to dozens of assassination attempts against members of the League.
The League, now with more known members and a list longer than my arm, has been brought to trial with Empress Enya, and King Father Nadeem acting as judges. Half of them receive death sentences. Most of the rest were forced into Brazilian Penal Colonies or banished to Aethiopia. Few escaped with their lives and dignity intact, though were still stripped of titles. During the chaos of this period the Diet forced the Song Empress, Wang Zhi, into abdication and eventual banishment to Brazil. Enya returns from her trip with friends, and a potential future queen, galore! She also comes back a wiser, more knowledgeable person. The League of Empresses Conspiracy is ended, Enya begins recentralizing everything that was decentralized.
In the following years reports are made, security is tightened, and things begin to return to normal following the Royal Wedding.
Authors Note: This is an expansion on the world before the current Empress. Also, Chapter 1 shall be coming out soonish, just been a bit procrastinating on it. Most of these filler stories are the ideas I have come up with for now before expanding upon Athena's Story
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Zone 13
Mr. Y. Akerolik states, that on 14th May 1996, he his brothers and three of their sons took a boat to Nome to, set up their Summer camp, buy some supplies, and take his son, who had just turned 21, to a bar for the first time. The parties returned to the island approximately 70 hours after leaving. He says, they knew something was wrong from about two miles out. It looked like there was an unseasonably thick snow covering on top of the South West peak of the island. Several feet of white, piled on the western peak but no sign of any snow anywhere else. When they got closer they realised, all the other boats were gone, nobody was out collecting food, and they couldn’t see anyone moving in the village. The men reached School Teacher’s Pier to find a word scrawled on a boulder “Qupqugiaq”. Looking again at the top of the mountain Mr. Y. Akerolik says he could see that what he initially thought was snow was like a thick pile of wet fur. A stream of clear gluey liquid flowed from the underside of the fur to the ocean. Mr. Y. Akerolik and Mr. T. Akerolik had a search of the village, leaving the others with the boat. Once it was clear the village was completely abandoned, the men left for a prearranged muster point at the Port Clarence Coast Guard station.
FRC David Cross was dispatched to investigate the claims made by the King Island Inupiat. Once the attestations were corroborated, the US Navy was contacted. A determination was made by a Navy team as to the target’s organic nature, at which point the NOAA were brought in, and the Pacific nations were informed of the potential threat. Upon investigation NOAA discovered the creature sitting atop King’s Island was a hitherto unknown species of giant starfish, later named Asteroidea Qupqugiqae. The jelly-like substance leading into the sea was found to be a highly corrosive mix of reproductive, and digestive fluids. A vast number of coin, to palm sized starfish larva and gorging crabs have been washing ashore since the incident. The Army Corps of Engineers has been called in to assist with the clean up.
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The cordon, blockade, perimeter, or whatever it is called in today’s itinerary cannot be maintained without more ships. Fishermen and crab boats have used the area for too long to be warded off by one cutter. We all know what happened to The Lorelei II. Those guys didn’t stand a chance, because we just don’t have the resources for both cleanup and protection.
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Penny Valley Profile: Samantha Kitson
Pre-Preservation
Samantha is a Taff Vale Railway O1 built in 1894 by Kitson & Company of Leeds. For most of her early life she bounced between sheds in the Welsh valleys. With the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, Samantha volunteered to ship out with the R.O.D, as did many other engines at her shed. In 1917, she was damaged in an incident at Cologne in which an improperly secured gunpowder van went off. Luckily for her, she was far enough away to not sustain any major damage but was hit with a piece of flying shrapnel, giving her the scar on her face. After the war, she returned to service on the Taff Vale, which was soon absorbed into the Great Western. Upon the grouping, Samantha was sold off due to her non-standard nature and ended up being bought by a colliery in Devon. She worked this job up until 1966 when she was well and truly worn out.
Preservation
In 1967, Mr. Hughes and Mr. Luke happened upon Samantha languishing under coats of rust on a small siding. Striking a deal with the colliery and later BR, they had her taken by rail to their Penny Valley Railway and shunted into Rattery Works. From there, the shop crew got to work, carefully restoring the thoroughly knackered engine until she was in a condition to steam again in 1970. Since then, she's been a loyal and unwavering presence on the railway.
Personality/Characteristics
Samantha is both a caring, wise old sage and an angry old woman. She tends to be very irritable and standoffish in the morning, though she usually calms down once actually in steam. During the working day, she's quite pleasant and agreeable, despite her severe case of resting bitch face. She tends to get along with engines younger and smaller than her quite well, all except for Buck. Samantha has a deep hatred for the mogul, considering him reckless, tactless and a lot of other words that end in less.
Conclusion
Though she's old, small and grumpy at times, Samantha is a valued addition to the railway's roster and a mainstay on the steam fleet.
Thank you for reading, I hope to see you in the next one.
Cheerio!
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So one idea floating around my mind is a map of the USA conquering most of the world. I was inspired by Rvbomally's map of the CSA taking over the whole world (it's on DeviantArt and it's called Rebel Yell) and Soviet Empire by MrImperatorRoma, where the USSR takes over the whole world too, also on DeviantArt.
#worlda#WorldA#althistory#alternate history#alt history#union#usa#united states#united states of america#america
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In her new historical fantasy novel "Sun Of Blood And Run," author Mariely Lares puts her own alt-history spin on Zorro. To find out how, and why, check out this exclusive interview.
https://paulsemel.com/exclusive-interview-sun-of-blood-and-ruin-author-mariely-lares/
📖⚔️🐈⬛
#MarielyLares#MarielyLaresInterview#MarielyLaresSunOfBloodAndRuin#MarielyLaresSunOfBloodAndRuinInterview#Books#Reading#AuthorInterview#AuthorInterviews#Fantasy#FantasyBookSeries#HistoricalFantasy#AltHistory#Zorro
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The Best of the Unrecognized
If you apply statistical methods to look for the very best player in baseball history who is not in the Hall of Fame, the answer that you wind up with is George Davis."
- Bill James, "Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?"
When Bill James wrote the quote that leads this essay, it was arguably true: James goes into some detail explaining his case in Chapter 16 of his book, using both traditional statistics and a few 'tools' that he invented for his own use and describes earlier in the book. Different analysts may have come to different conclusions, based on what constitutes the 'best player' in baseball and how to compare that player to other players. (For example, if a player is still eligible for the Hall, but not yet in, does he count?)
But that was in 1995, when James's book was first published. (It had been published in an earlier edition with a different name, but I can't confirm if this chapter existed in that book.) By 1998, with attention focused on Davis at least in part due to this argument, the Veterans Committee that reviewed MLB players who no longer qualified to be inducted on the annual Base Ball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) ballot decided to put Davis into the Hall. Curiously, though some might find this reassuring and a vindication of Davis as a great player, James himself at the time he wrote about Davis was more sanguine, ending Chapter 16 this way:
George Davis is dead. He is forgotten. I can't see that it would accomplish a hell of a lot to vote him a plaque now.
In my last post, I pointed out that I had used Out of the Park Baseball (OOTP) to simulate an entirely different 'modern' history of baseball, starting in 1961 when the Washington Senators moved to Minnesota, becoming the Minnesota Twins, and two new expansion teams joined the American League: the LA Angels and the 'new' Washington Senators. You might wonder whether Davis, whose last season in MLB was in 1909, remains the best player in history not in the Hall of Fame, especially considering that OOTP does not incorporate a Veterans Committee, instead choosing to only induct players via an annual ballot.
The first Hall of Fame ballot occurred in 1936, and in the 'real world' that first ballot elected five players, all of whom qualify as among the titans of the game: Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Walter Johnson, and Christy Mathewson. You would think, given that my universe had the same history prior to 1961 as 'real' baseball, that the same five players would have been selected, and you'd be right, since OOTP seems to have kept the 'historical' results, complete with historical vote totals. With the absence of a Veterans Committee, though, any player who in the 'real world' had been elected by that committee after 1961 simply didn't get in. The best example of this would be John Montgomery Ward, a pitcher/outfielder who moved to the infield as the result of persistent arm troubles, and who attended law school during the off-season, eventually earning a law degree and becoming active in the managerial and administrative side of early professional baseball after his retirement. (Ward was also good friends with George Davis, which makes for an amusing synchronicity.) Ward had tremendous impact on the development of baseball as it moved from the 19th to the 20th century, but because not all of that impact was 'friendly' to the powers-that-were at the time (as an example, Ward was instrumental in forming the Players League, a league where players had significantly more rights and made significantly more money than they did in the National League or American League at the time, and was thus responsible for drawing many of the game's most recognizable players away from the other leagues), recognition for his role in popularizing baseball was a long time coming, and Ward wasn't named to the Hall until 1964. In my alternate universe, Ward was included on the initial 1936 ballot, hardly anybody voted for him (he was listed on 3.8% of the ballots, which even under the rules at the time would have caused him to be dropped from the next year's ballot), and he arguably faded into obscurity.
That's not quite what we're looking for here, though. For starters, Ward was playing a fundamentally different game than what we consider baseball -- in 1879, for instance, he won 47 games while throwing 587 innings, which are basically impossible feats in modern baseball. We're really more interested in players who got their start in baseball after that dividing line between 'real' baseball and our alternate universe -- did the alternate universe significantly change the fortunes of some players, and if so, which ones?
With apologies to James, if you use statistical methods to search for the very best player in this alternate history who started his career after 1961 and was not elected to the Hall of Fame, you get two solid candidates:
Cal Ripken, Jr.
When evaluating primarily by a metric called Jaffe WAR Score (or JAWS), the best player whose career started in this alternate universe after 1961 and is not in the Hall is Cal Ripken, Jr., but the reason why this is so likely says more about how the real Ripken is something of a baseball unicorn; it seems likely that, given a significantly large number of alternate universes, Ripken might well end up on the outside of the Hall looking in more often than he actually makes it in.
In the 'real world', Ripken was drafted by the Baltimore Orioles in the 2nd round of the June 1978 amateur draft. He quickly moved up the minor leagues, and made his big-league debut on August 10, 1981 when he pinch-ran for Oriole right-fielder Ken Singleton in the 12th inning of a game against the Kansas City Royals and eventually came around to score the winning run. This was at the tail end of the most successful period in Orioles history, which technically began when they won the World Series in 1966 under Hank Bauer, but really came into focus when legendary manager Earl Weaver took over the club during the 1968 season. During Weaver's 14 seasons at the helm, the Orioles finished first or second in the AL East division 12 times, getting to the World Series four times, and winning once in 1970. Ripken didn't join the team full-time until 1982, Weaver's last year as manager, and though Ripken won the Rookie of the Year award that year, the Orioles finished a game behind the eventual World Series champion Brewers in the AL East. The next season, though, under new manager Joe Altobelli, the Orioles won the World Series, and Ripken was clearly their best player, winning the 1983 Most Valuable Player award in the AL. Unfortunately for Baltimore fans, the old core of players Weaver had assembled was aging badly, and the Orioles crashed out of contention starting in 1984. Even summoning Weaver out of retirement for the 1986 season couldn't prevent the Orioles from falling below .500 and joining what traditional baseball fans referred to as the 'second division'.
Ripken, as the team's best player, was penciled into the lineup every day, but as he slowly became the face of the franchise, a weird sort of reality-distortion field surrounded him, and the Orioles' identity began merging with Ripken's identity in a way that's only happened a few times in baseball history. (As an example, the Cleveland Bronchos of 1902 were re-named the Cleveland Naps for just over a decade in honor of their best player and manager Napoleon Lajoie.) In 1987, the owners of the Orioles decided to lean into the merging of their team's identity with that of their best player and replaced Weaver as manager with Cal's father, Cal Ripken, Sr. Ripken, Sr. also brought up his other son (and Cal Jr.'s brother) Billy to play second while Cal played short. And, though Cal Jr. was clearly showing some signs of losing effectiveness from his habit of playing every day (he'd dropped from a .282/816 slash under Weaver to just a .252/769 slash in his first year under his dad), Cal Sr. continued the practice of penciling his elder son into the lineup every day. Though this didn't last long -- Cal Sr. was fired six games into his second season when the Orioles started the year 0-6 -- by the time Frank Robinson took over as manager, the idea of Ripken being an 'iron man' was firmly entrenched into baseball consciousness, and Robinson dutifully continued to pencil Ripken into the lineup, and continued to play him at shortstop, both practices that continued under later managers despite growing criticism of Ripken's now-obvious pursuit of Lou Gehrig's long-time consecutive games played streak of 2,130. Finally, on September 6, 1995, Ripken passed Gehrig, taking over the all-time consecutive games streak in MLB. Ripken continued to play, extending his streak until it finally ended on September 20, 1998, after a total of 2,632 games, by this time the longest consecutive games streak recorded in any professional baseball league in the world.
On the strength of two MVP awards, the second earned in 1991 playing for a team that finished 67-95, a career spent entirely in Baltimore as the face of the Orioles, and that consecutive games streak, Ripken was elected to the Hall in his first appearance on the ballot, being named on 537 of the 545 ballots issued that year.
Compared to that history, my alternate Cal Ripken seems pretty mundane. Drafted #5 overall by the Kansas City Royals in the 1977 first-year player draft, Ripken spent three years moving between various rookie leagues and A-leagues before, in 1981, the Royals brought Ripken up to the major league club. Ripken actually spent his first few seasons playing third for the Royals, as their regular shortstop was a fellow by the name of Robin Yount, while the club used another light-hitting glove man named Ozzie Smith as their utility infielder, subbing for Yount on his occasional days off. (Ripken actually won two of my league's equivalent of the Gold Glove award for his defense at third during this time.) After Smith was traded to Oakland in 1981 and Yount became a free agent after the 1983 season, Ripken finally took over at short full-time. The Royals had trouble finding a third-baseman to replace Ripken, though, until they slotted Howard Johnson into the role in 1985 and, along with an outstanding pitching staff, the Royals won the AL West three straight years from 1985 through 1987. However, after the Royals crashed out of the first division in 1988, finishing with a 75-87 record, Ripken decided to test free agency, signing a 4-year contract with a fifth player option year to play for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Though Ripken frequently played between 158 and 160 games per year, he had never played every game in a season, and there was no consecutive games streak for him to protect when he changed teams.
Ripken's move to Pittsburgh was almost prescient, as the Pirates improved by 10 games after he arrived in 1989, finishing just three games behind the powerhouse St. Louis Cardinals. The Pirates kept hammering at the door, though, and in 1991, they finally broke through, winning both the NL East and the World Series that year, with Ripken winning the MVP in the NL. Ripken and the Pirates went back and won the World Series again in 1992, but Ripken decided to decline his fifth contract year and become a free agent again, signing another four-year contract with a fifth player option to play for the San Diego Padres. The Pirates, meanwhile, never looked back, slotting 27-year old Jay Bell into the shortstop position and winning the World Series for the third consecutive year in 1993, and finishing as arguably the 'team of the 90's' by winning the NL East eight times during the decade.
If Ripken's move to Pittsburgh had been prescient, his move to San Diego was less so; though the Padres, like the Pirates before them, seemed on the verge of a breakthrough in 1993, having finished second in the NL West in 1992, Ripken's arrival didn't move the needle at all for the Padres, as they followed up their 85-win 1992 campaign with 83, 82, and 85 win campaigns in the next three seasons, coming within 6 games of winning a weak NL West in 1994 but not really getting all that close to playoff baseball. After the team's record crashed to 68-94 in 1996, Ripken again chose not to exercise his player option and became a free agent, though the soon to be 36-year old's skills had clearly degraded to the point where he finished his career as a journeyman, playing for four different teams (including the Orioles) in his final five seasons before retiring.
Ripken retired with over 3000 hits, 375 home runs, and a career batting average of .271, which while not phenomenal would still be solid when combined with his power, especially at the shortstop position. So when he first arrived on the Hall ballot in 2007, it was not surprising that he drew a lot of support, being named on 64.9% of all ballots, just over 10 percentage points short of election. He improved his showing the next year, as most players do, being named on 66.5% of ballots, and then...well, things just didn't go Ripken's way.
In 2009, Ripken's Hall of Fame support began to erode, as he dropped to being named on only 51.3% of all ballots. Normally when a player drops in support, there's some obvious reason; either a large number of clearly deserving new candidates arrive on the ballot at the same time and 'suck the air' out of the ballot for a year, or a new player who is clearly comparable to the player and more qualified than that player arrives on the ballot, usurping his support. Neither of these really apply to Ripken in 2009. When Ripken drew 66.5% of the vote in 2008, Will Clark and Chuck Finley were overwhelmingly elected to the Hall in their first appearances on the ballot, but in 2009, Rickey Henderson and Fred McGriff were the first-timers who got recognized, with less impressive vote totals than Clark and Finley in 2008, so in theory not taking up nearly as much space on ballots. There was another shortstop on the ballot as well during this time, Ripken's former teammate Robin Yount, but Yount was the one who was clearly losing support to Ripken, not the other way around -- Yount had garnered 46% or so of the vote in the two years before Ripken got on the ballot in 2007, then dropped to 39.1 in 2007, 36.4 in 2008, and 29.9% in 2009 before running out of eligibility and leaving the ballot for good. If there was a problem for Ripken during this time, it was that he was arguably the best at a position that had something of a glut of options for voting: Yount and Tony Fernandez were already on the ballot when Ripken arrived in 2007, then after Yount was dropped from the ballot after the 2009 election, Barry Larkin arrived on the ballot in 2010, and though Ripken still outpolled Larkin, 63.3% to 55.1%, had Larkin's arrival been delayed even a year, Ripken likely would have been elected in 2010. As it was, the shortstop vote was split between those three players, Ripken, Fernandez, and Larkin, until 2014 when the arrival of Nomar Garciaparra sucked all the air out of any other shortstop candidacy, by which time Ripken would have only two more years on the ballot. Even with Fernandez being dropped for running out his eligibility in 2015, Ripken could not gain enough momentum to rise back up the ballot before his own eligibility ran out in 2016.
Jaffe WAR Score tries to sum up the 'peak value versus longevity' argument into a single number to evaluate a player's Hall of Fame case based on Wins Above Replacement, but that's not the only metric you can use to evaluate players. James himself devised a pair of additional tools to use to evaluate players. James's Hall of Fame Standards measure looks at the player's statistics and gives points based on how those numbers compare to existing Hall of Famers, such that, at the time James devised the measures, the maximum score would be 100 with the 'average' Hall of Fame scoring 50. James also devised a Hall of Fame Monitor, which he doesn't really describe in 'Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame', but does describe in his Baseball Abstracts of the 1980s as a system that tracks a player's achievements, both statistical (did he get to 200 hits in a season) and as part of a team (did his team win the World Series); that system had no practical maximum, but was set up so that once a player got over 100, the question would turn from 'why should this player be in the Hall of Fame' to 'why shouldn't this player be in the Hall of Fame'.
OOTP tracks James's Standards and Monitor in its own database, and if you evaluate the players in this alternate universe by those measures, the best player whose career started in 1961 or later and isn't in the Hall is:
Mike Piazza
In 'real life', Mike Piazza played a long, distinguished career, mainly for the Dodgers and Mets, and though he never won an MVP or was considered the best player in baseball, and was considered to be an average at best defensive catcher, he was such an impressive hitter at the position that he found himself named to 12 All-Star teams and got elected to the Hall of Fame in 2016.
In this alternate universe, Piazza came up in 1991 with the Cincinnati Reds, and played 12 seasons with them, hitting well pretty much every year and being named to 10 consecutive All-Star teams as a Red from 1993-2002. Unfortunately, the Reds were woeful during Piazza's tenure, finishing below .500 in all but two of Piazza's 12 seasons with the team, and even in the two seasons they broke .500 they didn't do it by much, finishing 88-74 in 1997 but still finishing fourth in an insanely competitive NL Central, and finishing 82-80 in 1999, finishing third in the division but still 25 games behind the 107-win Cubs that year.
Piazza left the Reds in 2003 to sign as a free agent with the Atlanta Braves, who had won six straight division titles and a World Series in the 1990s while Piazza was playing for the Reds, but who'd fallen back to a lower tier (though not below .500) in the new millenium. Piazza hung on with the Braves until 2006, when they broke through again to win another World Series, though by this time Piazza was far from a regular contributor, falling behind both veteran Mike Matheny and 27-year old Jeff Bailey on the Braves's catcher depth chart. Still, Piazza had his ring, and retired after the 2006 season.
Piazza nearly got elected in his first year on the ballot, getting named on 74.4% of all submitted ballots, and probably expected to be elected in 2013. Like Ripken, Piazza was splitting support with another similar player, Javy Lopez, who was not quite the hitter that Piazza had been but was a much better defensive catcher. Though were it not for the presence of Dave Nilsson on the ballot, Piazza might well have been elected. Nilsson was an Australian-born player who won three rings, two with Cleveland and one with Philadelphia, won the MVP with Cleveland in 1998 and nearly won the batting Triple Crown in 1996 with Philly, finishing behind both Piazza and league leader Barry Bonds in homers while winning the batting title and leading the NL in RBI, and had dropped from a bit above 20% support when he came on the ballot in 2008 to under 15% by the time Piazza arrived.
2013 proved to be a mere replay of 2012 for Piazza on the Hall ballot; he finished at 73.4%, well ahead of Lopez at 56.8% and Nilsson at 6.6%. But a flood of newly eligible players entered the ballot in 2014, and six of them were immediately elected: Frank E Thomas, Pedro Martinez, Larry Walker, Nomar Garciaparra, Mike Mussina, and Curt Schilling all polled over 75%, with Gary Sheffield and John Smoltz also placing well in their first appearances on the ballot. But the big problem for Piazza was the arrival of Ivan Rodriguez, who was clearly a better candidate than Lopez (who dropped to 9.8% support) or Nilsson (who didn't even draw a single vote and was dropped from the ballot). Piazza and Rodriguez proceeded to engage in an epic duel over the next seven years, with Piazza often beating Rodriguez in vote share, but not able to gather enough to get to that 75% threshold. Piazza's last year on the ballot saw him named on 71.0% of the ballots, enough to be the top vote-getter in 2021, but not enough to get in.
There are a few other well-regarded, high-ranking players in both statistical and popularity measures who aren't in the Hall in my alternate universe, but for most of these, it's more accurate to say that they're not in the Hall yet, as players like Cliff Lee, Matt Holliday, and David Price have all retired recently enough that they're not yet eligible for the ballot. Given their pedigrees, they might well soar into the Hall once they arrive on the ballot. So with that said, we'll end our analysis for today.
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Join us on the #BookTour with Guest Post & #Giveaway
From the Ashes
by Sandra Saidak
Genre: Science Fiction, Alternate History
In a dramatic departure from her popular prehistoric fiction, Sandra Saidak now offers up her first alternate history novel.
Two generations after Germany won World War II, a lonely college student named Adolf Goebbels wanders into a dusty museum and discovers books and artifacts of a dead race called “Jews”. Although a member of the Nazi elite, Adolf resents the oppression, fear, and isolation that are part of daily life in the Aryan “paradise” his grandparents helped build.
As he reads the forgotten books, and meets the outcasts who gather at the museum, Adolf discovers a purpose he has long been searching for—and danger he has never imagined.
Based on real-life Nazi plans for museums of dead races, this sprawling alternate history novel takes the reader from decadent Berlin, the capital of the Nazi world empire, across the conquered nations of Europe to uncover the startling secrets at the heart of the worldwide Reich.
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Do you think that in the temeraire universe carabineers get associated with lesbians because of the aerial corps? Like the corps isn't a queer safe haven, it's still Napoleonic era British military, but compared to everyone else in the empire they are very liberal where things like sex and gender roles are concerned. Add to that why some women would want to leave the expected path of marry, become a housewife and have children to a career path where they aren't expected to marry and only expected to have at least one kid if they make it to Captain (and even then, it's just until they get the kid not the rest of their life. Not to mention that if temeraire gets his way not having a captain won't be such a big problem anymore)... Well
#big panic because all the daughters keep signing up as groundcrew to get with some hunky corpswoman#temeraire series#corpswoman is to women what sailor is to men#i also don't think the actual amount of lesbians in the aerial corps would matter I don't think the average nap. era british gentleman could#see a difference between a lesbian and a female dragon captain. both go against his notion of gender and women#althistory is so interesting man
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Did Catholicism create Islam? #Althistory
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