Atlantis Georgias

The Georgias Hubris Cycle reached cataclysmic heights this season as we went from a record-breaking 113 wins and a nice 69% win rate in the main season to being viciously swept out of the postseason in our first round. So what went wrong?

The Georgias were abuzz right from the start as we were projected to be the strongest team this season, due to a very solid pitching rotation and a great defence to back it up. However our offence was comparatively mediocre, despite a few star players in the form of fan-favourite 80s horror protagonist Penelope Video, deep-sea rave DJ Hyena Dropper, and Gianna Schenn who became our best hitter thanks to an incredible Yummy reaction only to be stranded at the end of our Lineup by a Reverb.

By the end of the main season we had given up fewer runs than any other team, but were only tenth in total runs scored. This reliance on defence gave us a lot of close games, and while the length of the main season ensured it averaged out in our favour, for the postseason it left us easily at risk of being eliminated by a few bad games.

And what a few bad games they were. With the rise in overall league offence from the midseason Elections, combined with the Georgias failing to secure any Squid Gifts or Blood Jams and choking in both of our Prize Matches, it was probably inevitable that our initial advantage would wear off. Things went even more disastrously in the second game against the Shoe Thieves when a massive blizzard froze the weaker half of the Shoe Thieves’ Lineup, leaving us facing an absolutely deadly array of batters, including former Georgia Babka McCoy, who was Feedbacked for Lorcan Griffey earlier in the season.

-Jangalian (Jangalian#7646 on Discord)

Charleston Shoe Thieves

This Circuit we’re highlighting (but not Charging) Zora Kramer, a garbage pitcher whose fighting spirit inspired us all.

Our playoff series versus the Wild Wings showed the depth of Zora’s grit. They pitched first, eager to give us a win, and immediately gave up a 2-run homer. We lost that game 19–6, and Zora squatted on the mound, disappointed. They tried, but the rest of the Rotation would have to carry us.

But in the third game, a winter storm Froze two subsequent pitchers, and Zora was called back from the bullpen! A second chance. Zora took a breath, concentrated. A hardened gaze through the snowstorm.

The Wings scored 7 runs that inning. Final score: 25–3. Zora was in anguish. Had they not tried hard enough? They looked inward as we looked to the next game and to Hartley Pebble, who had already given us a win this series.

But wait— who’s that walking to the mound? It’s Zora! They begged for one last chance to give their team a win, and who could say no to that hunger, that drive? So, in defiance of all reason, bottom-of-the-league Zora Kramer took the mound for the third time in a five-game series.

Each pitch was a herculean effort. Visibly straining, Zora held the Wings to one run for an unthinkable six innings. We watched in disbelief as they tore themselves apart to keep us in this series. By the seventh inning, they were spent, but never stopped fighting. The Wings won, but only by two runs.

Zora’s heart was broken, but ours were full of pride. They left it all on the mound, and what more could you ask of a player? We didn’t charge Zora Kramer, but don’t let that fool you. Zora will be with us forever, in heart and sole.

-Jeremy T (APieceOfWorkAmI#8349)

Chicago Firefighters 

Well, if nothing else, the Chicago Firefighters had another interesting Circuit. 

Let’s start from the beginning: when the teams were first revealed, we appeared to have a pretty standard Firefighters team. Average at best with some half decent batters, bad pitching, okay defense, and far more peanut allergies than not. It seemed as though we would be headed for the Fiesta, if we were lucky.

That did not happen.

Less than 40 games into the season, the Firefighters experienced a Night Shift for the thirdCircuit in a row, bringing out Owen Turbo, who would end up being the best pitcher in the League (and despite Feedbacking to the Spies, would only lose two games the entire season), inevitably helping the team narrowly miss the Fiesta. 

That’s not where the weather stopped, though. The team had three Feedbacks over the course of the season: a shockingly mutually beneficial early one with the Crabs, the aforementioned Turbo feedback for Cher Kumar of the Spies (which took a day to go through because of “features”), and a late season batter swap with the Garages. With the Firefighters only having two non-Allergic players, it was no surprise when fan favourite Tube Nebula got decimated by a Peanut (and was equally not shocking when they became our Guest of Honor). Most notably, however, was Craig Faucet getting incinerated and proceeding to play another 10 games afterwards, who despite our best efforts— was not even charged for their troubles.

The thing is, none of these things stopped the Firefighters. Despite winning no Blessings or items, being bombarded with weather, and using their only boosts to salvage a hurt player, they managed to claw their way to third seed, claiming fifth in the league despite all odds. And more than anything, I think that’s the story of the Firefighters this Circuit and beyond; the ability to make something out of nothing.

–Stara

Hellmouth Sunbeams

The Hellmouth Sunbeam entered this Short Circuit right where they wanted to be– bound for the .500 line. Sure, in a season with parties for the worst teams and Playoffs for the best, that had downsides, but the Beams knew what they were about… and then they tanked their way into the midseason fiesta badly enough to get into round one and they were ready to Party their way to the top! And then… they didn’t. One game in EPT, a bit of timeline shenanigans, and the fiesta ended with the Beams better than before but not playoffs material. But not for long!

Because then the Beams claimed (one of) the Title Belt(s) and Royce Spider decided to sit on it, the universe decided that that was Royce’s. And then… the belt got taken. But not for long! Because then the Beams got the only Wild Card slot! They were in the Playoffs! They were going for the championship! And then… they got kicked out round one. And all this happened in a bog-theatre-gothic horror-small town with a chandelier containing the last shards of a dead sun. And their final record was 82-80.

There were icons, like Sun Paladin Amanda Rowdy, or incineration replacement Calvin Revenant, or Samuel ‘Slamuel’ Finnegan, but there was one real hero. Julian Greene had plenty going for them. An early standout on the starting roster, Julian entered the world with 3.9 batting stars. They’d have a top 10 OPS+ (ignoring all the undead invaders from another universe) and a taste for snacking on snow which would bring them to nearly 5 batting stars over the course of the season (before dragging them back to a measly 4.5). But who cares about that? Pregame Ritual Charging? Let’s gooooooooooooo!

-Nix

San Francisco Lovers

It was a beat-down for the Lovers this circuit, trying their best to sell their angle to no avail. The team narrowly slid their way into the midseason Fiesta, missing out on all the action before it could even begin. According to insider sources, a feud between the Lovers and the Mexico City Wild Wings started to get hot after headliner Fontaine Teacup Feedbacked with Liv Chan, but the show was not over for this B-Team yet.

The Lovers held to their wills, and held up their pants holding onto one of the… two title belts until right before the Postseason. When Parker declared reunification, it was a headliner match against Miami. It was a clean finish with the Lovers on the mat. Miami went on into the post season, leaving the Lovers to nurse their aches & bruises.

Eliot Heartfield was sent up into the Mic with the hope that they wouldn’t be destined to become just another Jannetty, but the fate of our Charged players is a story line for another era. All in all, these Lovers couldn’t keep the gold, but that didn’t mean this season wasn’t a popcorn match. With the circuits over and the next era in limbo, maybe this team can get on after all.

-Avery M. (Ackasi#9049 on Discord)

Mexico City Wild Wings

The Mexico City Wild Wings were good this Short Circuit. This was very confusing for a lot of long term Wings fans, because the Wings have never been good. Even when they won their Championship, they came from fourth in the conference. Even when Burke Gonzales was one of the best pitchers in the League they were barely a 0.500 team. So 99 wins and a trip to the Championship, even if it was to lose to The Breath Mints. (a fine, deserving winner) was the sort of inexplicable thing that tested the very boundaries of the game’s capabilities to handle, and was thus appropriate for a Short Circuit.

The “why” of the Wings being good is actually very easy to explain. They hit the ball a lot (1468, first in the League), hit it the furthest (SLG 0.501, first) and thus scored the most runs (975, first). Such was the ferocious offensive output that meant it almost didn’t matter that Tobias Diallo and Mitch Pink forgot where the strike zone was for innings at a time (third and fourth in walks league wide, respectively).

The continual high performance of Soledad Drama, Nova Bye, Alonso Clement, and Lillian McKinley (a 98% consensus pick to charge the microphone) led to the most improbable Wings team to ever exist, a rollicking riotous ball of fun that wasn’t constrained by the Wings of seasons past, and featured such fantastic names as Genesis Toad and Slow McDonald.

Will the Wings be this good again? Probably not. But it won’t matter. The one time we were good was fun, and underdog stories are also fun, and maybe one day we’ll get to see Lillian hit a ball a long way again. Which will be fun.

-BNN Wild Wings correspondent Spludge

Philly Pies

The Pies have traditionally been very good at Elections, so the Front Office started this Short Circuit by enacting a Faustian Pact to have more Elections than we knew what to do with. However, the Front Office failed to read this diabolical document closely enough, missing the footnote where it said anything the Pies elect either wouldn’t matter or wouldn’t actually ever be received by the team.

The mood in the Pies locker room was high despite all this; the team partied hard in the Mid-Season Fiesta, culminating in Nadia Outlaw proclaiming, “I’m never leaving Philly!” and chaining themselves to the radiator. This served to deny the Microphone’s later Feedback attempt, leaving the Wild Wings’ Slow McDonald standing outside the clubhouse.

Kristi Finnegan and Wolf Buss carried the team’s rotation post-parties, and things seemed to be up for the Pies in the second half of the season, until Seyyid Goodhart ate a Peanut and went from one of the worst pitchers in the ILB to the absolute worst in franchise history across all dimensions, proving that you don’t need to be Superallegic to ruin your pitching career.

Although Kid Darling had been sent to party early in hopes the additional training would prime them for Charging the Microphone at season’s end, by the time it was clear the Pies’ playoff hopes were dashed, it became equally clear that Kid’s performance was a disappointment, failing to meet any expectations whatsoever. Seeing this underwhelming lateseason play, the Pies elected to send grizzled power hitter, Ariana Beard in their place.

The Pies have been thoroughly undercooked in the last few circuits; they can only hope the long siesta will give them enough time in the oven to emerge crisp, hot, fresh, and ready by the time Blaseball returns.

-Ads (wilcxck#8979 on Discord)

Seattle Garages

At the start of this Circuit, the Garages were bad. The team was cursed with the highest Patheticism in the League by a mile, such that even making contact with the ball was a miracle. No player exemplified this like Dimi Wobbler, who generated as the worst of the worst, a dismal 0.6 stars. Seeing the writing on the wall, the Garages sighed, laughed (because you have to laugh) and awaited the Party Time they knew was coming.

Then, on Day 3, Dimi Wobbler hit a solo home run to shame the Breath Mints, who would go on to win the Championship. It was their first hit.

Dimi “Warbler” Wobbler, a tiny bird with incredible vibes and very little skill, was on a quest to prove that a positive attitude can overcome any statistical shortcomings. On Day 42, the Garages experienced a full-team Reverb. Instead of the worst batting in the League, they now had the worst pitching. Dimi moved four spots higher in the Lineup. They continued to be bad at Blaseball.

As the Garages’ Guest of Honor, Dimi partied three times and got better. Then Dimi partied again during a game. Suddenly, the silly little bird with excellent vibes had three batting stars. Dimi’s name started to pop up in scoring events more… and more… and more. Despite spending the first half of the season struggling to get on base, they ended with the second-most hits and stolen bases.

All season, the other Garages suffered under the Weather. Reverb decimated the rotation. Their best batter got incinerated; two more Feedbacked away. An already-terrible pitcher had an allergic reaction right after their final game. Dimi just hit the ball some more.

That’s the power of a positive attitude.

– crab

Tokyo Lift

The pitchers were idols, the hitters were yuru-chara mascots and the fans were feeling an unfamiliar tingle of… hope?

Tokyo rolled a strong team. Almost from the start the Lift were chasing a Playoff spot. They couldn’t keep pace with the Ballad-leading Wild Wings, that was clear early on, but the batting of Pop Tomorrah and some creditable pitching meant a winning record at Midseason and third place in Downtempo. Precisely none of this was thanks to Herb Swamp.

Idol performer Art Dembélé was a strikeout machine with Ruthlessness the way a sea has wet. Baffled cruise-ship tourist Seth Bitters was a sexagenarian workhorse with decent ERA but never the wins to show for it. Even Omar “Give Us” Nothing had fans. Herb Swamp, meanwhile, was a firebombed storefront of a player with one-third of a pitching star, Forbidden Knowledge that was painful to read, and not even a tragic backstory to lean on.

But the Tokyo Lift are all about gains. Rather than build an already solid performer into a titan the fans hailed Swamp as their Guest of Honour. Three parties revealed a promising hitter, if still a pitcher for whom mediocrity was but a distant dream.

A Yummy reaction late in the season changed that. Post-Peanut Herb was a monster in every department, bar their day job, and perfectly serviceable there. It wasn’t enough to save the campaign, the Lift having lost all momentum after back-to-back sweeps by the Shoe Thieves and Wings, but joyful fans now coalesced around Swamp as the little kappa that could. And, in some universe, she still might.

Wait, is that hope again?

-elmonstro (elmonstro#6813)

And a final note – BNN relies on reports from readers like you to fill out articles! If you’d like to contribute something in the future, head on over to our discord!

The post The Last Dance: Short Circuit 3 Downtempo Recap appeared first on Blaseball News Network.

Philadelphia. The name comes from the Greek: philos, meaning “filling”, and delphos, meaning “dough” or “pastry”. It’s a city of Pie.

The Philly Pies were early champions in the long-ago first seasons of modern Blaseball, but have spent the past 22 seasons as perennial also-rans, contenders never quite able to capture the crown for that third magical time. A team beloved of and beloved by birds, we have soared to great heights and boasted absolute monster rosters, but in the way of all Philly splorts, we have likewise often been our own worst enemy.

Now we have the opportunity to conduct a thought experiment: with a history filled with fantastic players, what would a team of our best and most-loved look like? Could they stand among the titans of the sport? We must, like the other teams participating, adhere to the following rules:

1. There will be the standard 9 Lineup Players and 5 Pitching Players. Players cannot Elsewhere or Shelled.
2. The Selection must represent a single season on that team in their role.
3. The player must have played at least one full season with that team.
4. A player can only be used once in the 14 positions.
5. No Replicas are allowed.

Got it? Good.

If there’s one thing we love in Philly, it’s democracy, so to choose our team we engaged in the most hallowed of Pies traditions: filling out Google Forms. Here now are the results of those elections: Your Philly Pies, Dream Team Edition.

LINEUP

EDUARDO WOODMAN (Season 19) – BA .342, OPS 1.066
Ed’s been the Pies’ captain since they joined in Season 3, and has been on a long and depressing quest to finally bring them that third ring. Existential exhaustion notwithstanding, Woodman has been a consistently strong player, and after a nice little infusion helped them catch up to the inflated stats of the league’s later seasons, they put in a fantastic performance in a monster season for the Pies (upside-down rankings notwithstanding). A terrific leadoff.

BEASLEY DAY (Season 21) – BA .288, OPS .922
Our three-headed Goodest Boy is a fan favorite, and while they don’t always put up the biggest numbers, Beas reliably gets on base and is known to have a love of going walkies. Perfect for helping load the bases for our bigger hitters.

RUSLAN GREATNESS (Season 19) – BA .275, OPS .947
Formerly one of our worst pitchers, Ruslan’s “NO HIT, ONLY THROW” mantra prevented them from joining the Lineup for many seasons. After it was agreed they could take the plate by throwing the bat at the incoming pitch, their tremendous muscularity made him a valuable hitter who gets on base when they’re not hitting dingers. Our Large Son also loves to skate, at times filling more than one slot in the top 10 highest-scoring tricks for a season. In Season 19, their love of skate crime led to a very respectable 51 steals.

JAXON BUCKLEY (Season 22) – BA .371, OPS 1.266
#1 all-time favorite Pie and cowpoke poet, Jaxon’s cybernetic arms are the epitome of Pies power-hitting. Season 22 saw them put up 125.3 RBIs, as Jaxon loves to hit doubles and dingers. An ideal fourth spot on the Lineup, who reminds us to be rootin’, be tootin’, and by god be shootin’, but most of all: be kind.

LANG RICHARDSON (Season 9) – BA .343, OPS .980
Lang’s flair for the dramatic paired well with Jaxon’s power, and many an inning saw Lang follow our cowpoke with a well-timed hit to send Jaxon home, should Jaxon have merely gotten on base. This duo gives us the beloved “Tootin’ On Broadway!” chant echoing proudly in the stands of Tastycake Stadium.

PEANUT HOLLOWAY (Season 9) – BA .385, OPS 1.034
Our resident mad scientist and invisible person, Peanut spent many seasons as one of the backbones of the Pies lineup before being stolen by the Shelled One. Peanut was a consistent all-rounder, and his knack for getting on base helps keep the back half of our Dream Team Lineup producing.

JESSICA TELEPHONE (Season 6) – BA .340, OPS 1.245
It was, perhaps, inevitable that JT (as we know them) would make our All-Star team. Despite all the discourse, they were our earliest star and is beloved by many of the Pies to this day. Season 6 Jessica put up some of their best numbers, and their ridiculous OPS that season pairs well with Holloway to set things up for our number 8 slot.

HUBER FRUMPLE (Season 21) – BA .280, OPS 1.057
Our beloved woerms, Huber and Frumple might boast a softer batting average than much of our Lineup, but they always swung for the fences. “Never Bunt, Hit Dingers” was their motto, and despite some inconsistency, they regularly were at or near the top for home runs on the team. Hube gains to be made, and Frumple don’t crumple. A good at-bat here sends anyone left on base to score, and a miss still leaves:

JODE PRESTON (Season 12) – BA .368, OPS 1.005
Though they may have been a collective hallucination caused by spores from a stadium-infesting fungus, Sicko Jode spent a number of seasons anchoring the back half of our Lineup, a role they fill well here. Jode could be relied upon to put up some numbers, and her 92 RBIs in Season 12 makes them well-suited to both clean up anything left from the previous at-bats as well as set up the top of the order quite nicely.

ROTATION

TIANA TAKAHASHI (Season 21) – ERA 2.05, W-L .73
They are the meta. It took four seasons to pull Tiana from the Shadows, and when we finally did she quickly became invaluable. A great performer in the tough later seasons of blaseball, TT is a fan favorite. In Season 21, they T-posed on ‘em to a whopping 9 shutouts.

HENRY MARSHALLOW (Season 18) – ERA 1.92, W-L .88
Stay-Buft Hank has had ups and downs on the Pies, but always gave it their all— never more so than in Season 18, where they put up these ridiculous stats, helping us reach an all-time Wins record of 79. Marsh now rests in our Shadows, but here they shine their brightest for our Dream Team.

ELVIS FIGUEROA (Season 18) –  ERA 1.58, W-L .84
Converting Elvis from a Lineup player to a pitcher was one of the earliest and best roster moves the Pies ever made, and it paid dividends. The seven gnomes (eight on a good day) have been the rock upon which all good Pies pitching has been built, and while these insane numbers came in an era of inflated pitching stats, they aren’t terribly different from his performance even as far back as Season 9. The quintessential good Pies pitcher.

BETSY TROMBONE (Season 6) – ERA 3.59, W-L .70
After the above three, the dropoff in Pies pitching talent is pretty stark, and the Brass Lass makes the fourth spot less on the basis of their record and more for being a beloved Pie from the early days. Despite their middling statistics, Betsy was a decent part of our Rotation before her departure to our friends the Garages, and it warms many a Pie’s heart to see them here one more time.

BRIGHT ZIMMERMAN (Season 5) – ERA 3.0, W-L .65
It’s almost physically painful to see them here. Bright Zimmerman might be the single-most decorated player in Blaseball, with four championships to their name, but they’re a historically a terrible pitcher and the Pies spent many, many seasons hoping to be rid of them. But the Pies have always Needed to Fix Our Pitching, our Rotation being a major factor holding us back, and when we look over the players eligible for this Dream Team, this one season example of Bright is, unfortunately, the best option we have to fill the fifth slot. We have always hated them, we still hate them, and we hate them even more for giving us no choice here.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

NERD PACHECO: It’s against the rules, but many, many Pies wanted to replace Bright Zimmerman with Pacheco, who spent several seasons on the Pies trapped in a peanut shell. The pitcher-doubling effect of Shelled Pacheco was at times a curse upon us (when a bad pitcher had to pitch twice), but at others formed a key part of our pitching strategy (when they made Elvis pitch twice as often). We are respecting the letter of the law, but in our hearts, the immobilized Nerd makes the Dream Team.

DOC ANICE: Doc was a near-miss contender for both the Lineup and Rotation, just barely being edged out by Lang Richardson in the former case and Bright Zimmerman in the latter. Of special note is Doc’s Season 23 in the Lineup, where they almost single-handedly countered the effect of Jaxon Buckley being a Subtractor with a huge 120 RBIs.

And that’s it. The Philly Pies All-Star Dream Team. We’ve been at the top, we’ve been at the bottom. We won the first Championship and we caused the Apocalypse. We still want that third title. 

Never estimate the Pies.

This article is part of the Dream Team Series, in which our writers look back on the Discipline and Expansion Eras to create the strongest version of our beloved teams. Read the first in the series here. 

The post Gonna Pie Now: The Philly Pies All-Star Dream Team appeared first on Blaseball News Network.

On Day 52 of Season 21, Philly Pies player Ruslan Greatness caused reverberations amongst the fanbase when he stole and pocketed the Legendary Super Roamin’ Fifth Base from The Oven during a game against the Dallas Steaks.

As many fans know, the Legendary Super Roamin’ Fifth Base was introduced to the League in the Season 19 Postseason Elections. Given to Jesus Koch of the Canada Moist Talkers, the item, touted as undroppable and unbreakable, provided a minor boost to Baserunning. More importantly, it granted the Super Roamin’ mod; a mod which makes its holder move teams every nine games.

Moist Talkers fans were sad to see Koch go, but excited for their neverending journey across the league. That is, until that neverending journey suddenly ended.

On Day 38 of Season 20, the Yellowstone Magic (the team that Koch had most recently roamed to) found themselves facing the Pies in their home stadium, The Oven. Near the end of the game, Koch was on base and preparing to steal home, when they did the unexpected.

They dropped the undroppable.

The Fifth Base was placed in the Oven, permanently adding a fifth base to the bases that a player would need to run to reach home.

That, we thought, was the end of the story, until Game 17 of Season 21. The Pies were hosting the Charleston Shoe Thieves, and legendary base-stealer Richardson Games did what they do best: they stole a base.

Games picked the Fifth Base right up, gaining its benefits and flaws alike.

Players were shocked. The common thought was that the Fifth Base was out of play, but it had been brought right back into play, threatening to take the Thieves original from them. Games, however, did not want to leave, and later in that very game, they placed the base right back in The Oven.

So it was with fear that the Pies watched their strong boy pick that base up. Philadelphia did not want to lose Greatness, an original Pie who had grown under their tutelage.

A plan was concocted. If Ruslan did not drop the Fifth Base by the sixth inning of game 54— the final game of the week, and the game that would see them leave if they did not do so— then the money cannons would be fired. Votes would be bought in excess and poured into the Move Will. As fans know, Wills are enacted as written. The Move Will would move Ruslan to the Lineup, and although its intent is to move a player on your team to a different position, previous situations had proven that Moving a player who was no longer on your team via fast action would indeed pull them back, free of charge.

At the end of the sixth inning, the base was still in Greatness’s possession, and the cannons were fired. Tons of votes were spent between Pies fans to ensure that they would pull their strong boy back onto the roster.

An impressive act of unity by the Pies fans; not the first time that they had banded together so strongly, and likely not the last.

And all would have been well and good in Philadelphia.

Of course, Blaseball is Blaseball, and the unthinkable can and will happen.

In the eighth inning of the game, Ruslan Greatness, finally listening to the frantic begging of the crowd, dropped the Fifth Base.

Votes upon votes down the drain, poured into moving a player on the Lineup right back to the Lineup.

When questioned about it, Greatness simply had one thing to say: “Please forgiving Ruslan.”

The post THE CONSHOHOCKEN HEIST appeared first on Blaseball News Network.

Now, before we talk about the Season 10 Philly Pies, we have to talk about the Season 9 Election. And before we talk about the Season 9 Election, we have to talk about Targeted Shame and the Shame Bubble. And before we talk about Targeted Shame and the Shame Bubble, we have to, as a consequence of opening the Forbidden Book, observe Blaseball’s Rule 5.i:

    “i. Shame Phase: If the home team scores the winning run in the bottom of the final inning, the away team must complete the game in shame, despite being mathematically eliminated.”

    This rule has been a part of Blaseball since the beginning, and in the Season 4 Election, the Decree that passed was Targeted Shame, resulting in the top 4 Season 4 teams starting a game with Unruns (or negative Runs) if they had been Shamed in a previous game, equal their Shame (the runs they were Shamed by).

    In the Season 9 Election, there were two Bubble Blessings that put several teams on this list. The Boston Flowers received the Shame Bubble Blessing, applying Targeted Shame to every Division outside the Wild Low, and the Baltimore Crabs received the Fifth Base Bubble Blessing, forcing every team outside the Wild High to round a fourth base before coming home. Every Mild League team was affected by both of these blessings, and of the 4 teams that League would send to the Postseason that year, 3 of them are on this list. But for the Pies, I want to talk about the Shame Bubble in particular. 

    In total, teams would be shamed 83 times in Season 10, including the Teams in the Wild Low Division, and 60 times for the teams affected by Targeted Shame. In those 60 games where a team was Shamed, the winning teams generated a total of 91 Shame. When that Shame manifested as Unruns, the Shamed teams succeeded in reclaiming 75 of those 91 runs, resulting in just 16 runs manifesting as negative final scores across 14 games. Of those games, the most out of all 14, 3 were games where the Pies ended the game unable to recover from the Unruns given to them by their Shame Donors. 

    Now we’re ready to talk about the Season 10 Philly Pies.

#7 – Season 10 Philly Pies

414 Runs, 54 Wins.

Mild League, 4th Seed. (Day 99, 4th to Clinch in their League, Eliminated in the Wild Card Round)

    Now, some readers might already be raising a concern about this Season for the Pies being on the list. If Targeted Shame is granting them Unruns, that means that any tally of Runs over the season would have to account for the runs the Pies made to get out of their Shame, right? Well, yes. The Season 10 Pies successfully scored Runs while their Score was negative 6 times – bringing their alleged Run total to 420, above the Season 6 San Fransisco Lovers, which we talked about last time on Running Low. And they ended 3 games with a final score that was negative, which would also reduce their final running score, again allegedly bringing their total to 423, or tied with the Season 3 Canada Moist Talkers, who were #9 on this list.

    But those readers are forgetting two things. Firstly, Runs and Unruns are objects that cancel each other out, as easily as they can be collected by Sun 2 and Black Holes – the Unruns donated to the Pies truly did reduce their seasonal score. And secondly, this list is for the Lowest Scoring Postseason Eligible Seasons. All that truly matters is their scores. So let’s check those out, shall we?

Here’s the Pies’ running Runs over the season, plotted against the Season 10 Champs the Baltimore Crabs, the Pies’ in-League rival, the Hades Tigers, and the overall League average. As you can see, the Tigers and the Pies were essentially entwined until around Day 70, where the Pies pulled ahead and stayed ahead. 

I feel like in this list it’s important to note how close those two are – despite spending 20 days making progress at about the same rate, the Tigers ended their Season with 1 fewer win but 13 fewer Runs. They missed the 4th seed by two Wins, as a tie would have given the Seed to the Pies on Divine Favor. A simple reminder that sometimes the difference between playing as efficiently as possible and not quite playing well enough is a razor thin line. 

    The Crabs absolutely dominated in their Pre-Ascension season in terms of raw Runs per Game. The Pies were not really noteworthy with either statistic, coming in above average in Runs per Game overall and running a little ahead of the pack in Runs per Win. It is interesting to note that they still scored more Runs per Game with 5 bases than all 5 members of the Wild Low. The Wild Low division still scored fewer runs in the games they did win, with the exception of the Hellmouth Sunbeams, who went above and beyond. 

    In this series, I’m assigning each game a Wasted Run count. Essentially, this is runs that don’t directly contribute to a win. Anything over the necessary margin of victory is wasted, and any runs scored in a loss are wasted. If you’re curious about my reasoning, please check out Part 1 of this series. 

    Now, let’s check out those Wasted Runs. It’s important to note: when calculating Wasted Runs, if a team scores in a game that they lose, that’s a Wasted Run. As a result of this, if a team possesses Unruns at the time of a loss – they are considered to have Unwasted that Run when considering their Season as a whole.

    Is it fair of me to calculate it like this? Is Blaseball fair?

The Pies also came in just over the middle of the League in terms of Wasted Runs – 227 of their Runs that Season were wasted. What do those look like over time?

    And that’s what we’re really here for, isn’t it? Those three little dips. Other teams were Shamed more frequently. The Baltimore Jazz Hands had the same number of Unruns left on the final scoreboard. But the Pies stand alone with three separate games this Season showing Unruns, and they almost occurred in the same 9-day week. Let’s see how they came about. 

    On Day 51, the Pies were closing out a series at the Kansas City FreshDome against the Breath Mints. They had won the first two games handily, and you can see by the line just before the dip below zero that both of those games were Optimal Wins. Unfortunately, in the third game of the series, the Breath Mints came back in the last inning and Stew Briggs drove in a 2-Run Home Run, donating an Unrun the Pies would take with them to Dallas on Day 52. 

    On Day 56, after a blowout win while visiting the Charleston Shoe Thieves at Choux Stadium, the Shoe Thieves came back and Shamed the Pies in Game 2. The Pies were unable to recover the ground on Day 57, and took home an Unrun at the end of the series.

    Finally, on Day 62, the Pies took a crushing loss while visiting the Seattle Garages, ending Game 2 of their series 6 to 10. They tried to make up the ground in Game three, but despite 2 Home Runs by Eduardo Woodman and a Home Steal by Lang Richardson, the Pies would take home their third Unrun. 

    Now, if you’re a Pies fan, you’re likely quite mad at me. Here’s an article series celebrating some of the most efficient Postseason runs in ILB history, and these Pies overcame two league-wide obstacles for a shot at the title, and I just spent the tail end of it focusing on three Losses. 

    But here’s the thing – they did make it. They pulled ahead of the Tigers late in the season and held onto the lead by more than their Divine Favor required. That’s something to be celebrated for sure. The journey there is an important part of that, and I think there’s something to be learned, and also celebrated, in each step and stumble along the way. 

This article was made possible with the wonderful tools created and maintained by the folks at the Society for Internet Blaseball Research – check out:

    -Chronicler API – https://docs.sibr.dev/docs/apis/reference/Chronicler.v1.yaml

    -Reblase – reblase.sibr.dev (Thanks @AReblase!)

    -Blaseball Line Score Tool – linescore.sibr.dev

    -Blaseball Reference – blaseball.reference.com

    And of course, the Blaseball Wiki – blaseball.wiki

RUNNING LOW

-PART 1: THE SEASON 7 MEXICO CITY WILD WINGS

-PART 2: THE SEASON 3 CANADA MOIST TALKERS

-PART 3: THE SEASON 6 SAN FRANCISCO LOVERS

-PART 4: THE SEASON 7 PHILLY PIES

-PART 5: COMING SOON

-PART 6: COMING SOON

-PART 7: COMING SOON

-PART 8: COMING SOON

-PART 9: COMING SOON

-PART 10: COMING SOON

The post Running Low: Part 4 – The Season 10 Philly Pies appeared first on Blaseball News Network.

Author: Jack Hall

This is not an endorsement of plagiarism.

Before we begin, I feel like I should make a few things clear. There’s this documentary. It’s called “The History of the Seattle Mariners”. It tells the story of a real life sports team, highlighting the goofy, heartbreaking, and intensely human stories of the people in and around it. Throughout the film, Jon Bois makes one thing very clear: this is not a story about winning or losing. This is not a story with a clean, happy ending. This is a story about people, real people, and the unrelenting assertion of their own identities. Bois’ work has been a huge influence on my own, as fans of him can probably tell.

But I don’t have real people. I don’t have a story about players with grudges, arsonists, or Jello pranks. What I do have is a website that spits out game scores and threatens me with a giant Peanut. I have a list of funny names and the numbers attached to them. I have experience with spreadsheets and charts, and I have a lot of free time.

So the story I’m about to tell isn’t going to be some high-concept exploration of the nature of humanity. It’s about a made up team with a frankly unsettling mascot. It’s about reaching for the stars and falling into perpetual limbo. This is the story of the Philadelphia Pies.

Part One: The Dark Age

The first season of Blaseball is difficult to talk about. Blaseball had just announced itself to the world, and none of the tools we have now existed yet. That means we don’t have access to most of the stats from back then. We did manage to salvage a few things, though. Here’s what we know.

This is how the pies did in their first season of existence. Here, you can see their total amount of wins minus their total amount of losses for each day. Not a bad start. 

Among these 99 games is one that stands out. On day 74, we scored 21 runs against the Sunbeams, who scored 0. This is the highest scoring game in the entire first season. The Pies wouldn’t break this record for another 11 seasons. How did it happen? We don’t know. We probably never will. Before the rise of the Blaseball historians, we only had our memories to look back on. This game, along with the other 990 played in season one, is lost to time. But we do have one relic, one definitive piece of evidence for this historic event. I think it belongs in a museum.

By the end of the season, we had won 53 out of the 99 games played. This secured us a spot in the playoffs, third in the Evil division alongside the Houston Spies. We weren’t by any means the worst in the league, but the Tigers and Magic were miles above the rest at 63 wins each. When the playoffs started, they were expected to dominate like they did the rest of the season. Instead, they both lost in round 1. And the Pies? We won every single game.

In the regular season, we won 53.5% of our games. This gives us roughly a 50-50 shot to win each game we played. To grossly oversimplify, the Pies sweeping the playoffs would be equivalent to flipping a coin 9 times and landing on heads every time. That was a 1 in 512 chance of destroying the best teams in the league. And we did it.

After the opening of the Forbidden Book in the season 1 elections, our players became vulnerable to Incineration. On day 93 of season 2, we lost Cedric Gonzales to a Rogue Ump. We don’t have a lot of data on Cedric. We don’t even have the full play-by-play for the day they died. Cedric’s name was the last to be added to the Hall of Flame in season 2, along with 16 others.

Their replacement was Dan Holloway, who would become Peanut Holloway when The Shelled One arrived. Holloway would go on to be one of our most valuable batters, placing third overall in average OPS for the Pies. Whoever Cedric was, their sacrifice was worth it.

Our second season started off rough. By day 50, our record was 23 and 27. We probably weren’t going to make it to the playoffs at this rate. After an explosive run in the first postseason, we returned to mediocrity. But on day 56, we won 9 games in a row. And we kept winning.

Below we have the runs scored, runs allowed, and run differential for the Pies’ second season. Around the same time as the 9 win streak, we carved out a sizable gap in runs which held out for the rest of the season. By the end of day 99, we scored 101 more runs than we allowed. 

What happened here? Why did we make a 50 game run to stand tall alongside the Hades Tigers? Why did we only lose one game when we went to the playoffs? I have no idea. There is no clear statistical data I can draw on, no graph I can make, no ham-fisted coin analogy that can explain this. It just happened. We ended the postseason as back-to-back champions, having lost 1 out of the 19 games we played in those two playoff runs. That legacy would be carried with us for the next 9 seasons. Just one more season, one more championship win, and we would be the first to Go Up. The Pies were destined to Ascend, whatever that meant. Then, in Season 3, everything fell apart.

On day 5, Juan Rangel hit a double. Overall, they were pretty average in terms of OPS. But they had been with us for three seasons. Then an umpire caught their eye. In an instant, Juan Rangel was gone. And Eduardo Woodman stood in their place.

Ed Wood is one of the Pies’ most beloved batters. Just three days after Woodman’s arrival, they ate a stray peanut that would improve their rating to four stars. They now take second place in average runs per season, standing alongside Peanut Holloway as our two star players born of fire and brimstone. 

Rangel and Gonzales won’t be the last to be incinerated. That’s just how blaseball is. You lose two good players, and you get two great ones. You win two championships, and… well, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves.

The incineration of Juan Rangel kicked off a losing record that would recover a third of the way through the season. We ended the season with just 53 wins, but it was enough to make the playoffs. Already, we knew something was different. There were no sweeps this time. We had a hard-fought 5 game series against the Moist Talkers. In the seventh inning of game 5, Ed Wood drew a walk that would load the bases for Beasley Day, who batted in 2 runs to clinch the lead. Right after that, Spears Taylor hit a single on their first pitch, securing our spot in the second round.

The second round was against the 70 win Hades Tigers, who were top ranked in the division for the third time in a row. In season 1, we swept them. Now, the script was different. An Elvis Figueroa home run won us the first game by a run. The next three games we fought hard, keeping the Tigers to a 1 run gap in each game. But we still lost. The Pies clawed their way to the top twice in a row, and then we lost our grip.

Sisyphus is most famous for his punishment, tasked with rolling a boulder up a hill just to watch it fall back to the start over and over again. The lesser told story is the one about how he got there. Sisyphus, blessed with cunning, managed to cheat death twice in a row. He had two moments of glorious, improbable victory before time caught up with him, and death had the last laugh.

As the Pies continue roll their boulder for the tenth time, I am forced to consider how to continue this story. This is no longer the story of the team that came out of nowhere to seize victory twice in a row. This is the story of what happened after that. For ten seasons, we watched as everyone else rose above us. By the end, we stood at the bottom as the crustaceans took what could have been ours. But Blaseball isn’t all about being the best, or Going Up, or Killing Gods. Blaseball can be about the smaller things too. The lost friends. The underdog favorites. The updog team. That story starts with Part Two.

“The History of the Philadelphia Pies” was made possible by the help of the SIBR and the Blaseball Wiki. Emotional support was provided by the Pies fanbase and the IBLWA.

The post The History of the Philly Pies (Part One) appeared first on Blaseball News Network.