New PBClassics Cyberface Thread

[peterbernard]

I'm trying to put together a list of which of my faces are in TC4. Some of the players seem to be in the game more than once and have several versons of the face. I did 2 Rickey Hendersons and one Duke Snider (white hair), but I don't know if they're in the game and which ones they are if they are in there. I did a great Rube Foster from the negro leagues but I don't think he's in the game. The following is a list of my faces that I THINK are in the game. If AlexTony or someone can double-check this, that would be greatly appreciated, as some of these might be superceded by other faces by now as far as I know.

FACES BY ME THAT I THINK ARE IN TC4 FOR FUZZ (in no order):

Don Mattingly

Casey Stengel (Is this in there?)

Reggie Jackson (sunglasses)

Sandy Koufax

Norm Cash

Lou Gehrig (retouch of cheeks)

Preacher Roe

Phil Rizzuto

Bill Dickey

Lefty Gomez

Vern Law

Smokey Burgess

Wally Moon

Dick Allen

Thurman Munson

Willie Mays

Bob Uecker

Tom Seaver

Rich Gossage

Sparky Lyle

Ron Guidry

Shoeless Joe Jackson

Pete Rose

Sal Bando

Leo Durocher

Rogers Hornsby

Nellie Fox

Tony Oliva

It's something like 25-30 I think. If you don't have space for all that, it would be great if you could mention that I did Mays, Koufax, Munson, Seaver, Guidry, Reggie, Scooter, Rose and others. THANKS!

EDIT: I can't delete the poll, huh? Well, it's funny, I sent it to my friends. One of them wrote back that she thought choice three should have been, "BabaBooey."

[Jim825]

I'm looking through the game to see which of my faces are in there and I noticed other things about the 70s Yanks. For some reason Cliff Johnson is rated as teh best player on one of the teams, he was a good bench player but not the best player on the team. And Chambliss is listed as batting cleanup, which I don't think ever happened. Jackson was cleanup, except when Martin was "punishing" him. Piniella often batted 5th or 6th, alternating with Chambliss or Nettles, probably because he was a righty hitter. Randolph and White were either 2nd or 8th in the order, Dent was always last. Nettles used to complain about how low he was in the order. So basically Jackson should be 4, Piniella 5, Chambliss or Nettles 6 or 7, and Randolph or White 8 or 2 (depending on pitcher).

Just thought anyone who wasn't around back then might want to tweak this in their own versions to make it more realistic. Chambliss wasn't really a power hitter even though he was a big guy and is remembered for the playoff homer in '76. He just had some power, and he always batted after Jackson in the order as far as I can remember.

Peter - I was the one who tweaked the batting orders for the '70's Yankees ('77 and '78 teams) in TC4. Believe it or not, in 1977, Chambliss did bat cleanup more often than anyone. I was around back then (the '78 Yanks are probably my favorite team of all time) and I too was shocked by this. I did, however, verify that this was true by looking at the information on the retrosheet.org website.

If you go to retrosheet.org, select "Franchises" on the left menubar, select the team you want to look at and then the year. The standings for that year will appear.

Next, select the team you want to look at, click on "Complete Roster (By Position)", click on an individual player, scroll down to the year you want to look at and then click on "Splits", you can scroll down and get the batting order information for the player.

Here are Chambliss' batting order stats for 1977:

Bat Order   G	AB   


3rd		 1	 4


4th		83   324


5th		48   190


6th		15	52


7th		 4	 6


8th		 6	24

Here are Reggie Jackson's batting order stats for 1977:

Bat Order	G	AB


2nd		  1	 3


3rd		 21	79


4th		 59   214


5th		 34   123


6th		 29   103


9th		  2	 3

As you can see, Chambliss batted cleanup in more games and in more AB's than Reggie did in 1977. In 1978, however, the positions were reversed.

The logic I followed when setting up the batting orders was to look at the batting order stats for each player to find the lineup spot where they spent the most games (e.g. in 1977, Mickey Rivers batted 1st, Chambliss batted 4th, Jackson batted 5th, etc.).

In some cases, two players had most of their AB's in the same position, however, I "awarded" the batting spot to the player who had more. For example, in 1977, Willie Randolph batted 1st in 68 games and 8th in 47 games (i.e. the majority of his games he batted 1st). Mickey Rivers, however, batted 1st in 91 games, so I had to put him 1st in the batting order that year. This meant that I put Randolph in the 8th spot (the position with his next highest number of AB's).

Does this make sense? It wasn't a perfect system, because there were a few judgement calls, however, I did the best I could based upon the numbers. You're welcome to go to retrosheet.org and check the numbers yourself, but I think you'll see that I'm correct (or as correct as I could be).

[peterbernard]

That's amazing. No wonder Reggie still says bad things about Billy Martin even years after his death. So what happens to the batting positions in the middle of 78, after Bob Lemon takes over? I bet Jackson gets stuck in the 4th spot and left there, which is probably a big reason they came back in the second half that year. I remember Martin openly telling the press he wished Steinbrenner had signed Joe Rudi instead.

Nevertheless, I put Jackson 4th in the order, I don't use the drunken Billy Martin batting order.

Thanks for clearing that up!

Now, what's the deal with Heathcliff getting such high ratings?

EDIT: Actually this reminds me of how Casey Stengel would hold Whitey Ford back to have him available for certain pitching matchups and he never got enough chances to have 20 wins with Stengel. Ralph Houk came in and pitched him regularly and he had his best season. Casey was at least trying to use strategy, Martin on the other hand was allowing his personal feelings to overrule his professional actions in my opinion. I saw Jackson on that Michael Kay talk show saying that Martin called him racist names etc. I don't think it was that Reggie was black and hispanic, I think it was that he wasn't humble. It really bothers some people when you're confident in your abilities. My father also hated Reggie (who he called a "hot dog") but liked Chambliss because Chambliss was quiet. But to bat a guy who hits 17 homers a year 4th just to spite the future hall of famer that you don't like personally is a real Billy Martin kind of a decision. There probably arent' many managers left like him, I think today most managerial decisions are made using arithmetic and a computer, haha.

[Jim825]

That's amazing. No wonder Reggie still says bad things about Billy Martin even years after his death. So what happens to the batting positions in the middle of 78, after Bob Lemon takes over? I bet Jackson gets stuck in the 4th spot and left there, which is probably a big reason they came back in the second half that year. I remember Martin openly telling the press he wished Steinbrenner had signed Joe Rudi instead.

Nevertheless, I put Jackson 4th in the order, I don't use the drunken Billy Martin batting order.

Thanks for clearing that up!

Now, what's the deal with Heathcliff getting such high ratings?

I can't answer that one. I just modified the ratings based upon the values that were sent to me. AlexTony might be able to give you an answer.

[peterbernard]

re: Heathcliff Johnson:

I'm not complaining, it's nice to have an extra great hitter on the team. In draft mode though, he tends to show up as a star cleanup hitter on some team though, that's weird.

Didn't he get in a fistfight with Rich Gossage in the shower one day and miss games from the injury? I vaguely remember something about that. The Bronx Zoo.