Ok, I'll start first with a little background and some context for everything. I've been playing Out of the Park Baseball for *many* years and other general baseball simulations, both of the digital and board-game variety for many more. Baseball was my first love, well, besides maybe cookies.
Both on the real and virtual field, I've loved this game since I was just a little nothing. But Out of the Park Baseball was when the management simulation aspect of this great game really hit a peak for me, and I've been obsessed with it ever since my first experience. I've long had the idea of building my own baseball league where I created all my own teams and structure for the organization so I could retreat further into my own head while living out my own fantasies. OOTP allows for great flexibility in building "your own baseball universe" as they call it. And I have dreamed of really diving into this potential even while playing regular big league seasons. Over the years I've gradually accumulated various ideas and team names, but I eventually settled on the concept of having a single league that encompasses every state within the United States. In my head cannon, baseball was and will always be the passion of this country, surpassing all other forms of entertainment. In my fictional world, The United States Baseball League is a culmination of this passion being expressed in a more coherent and universal form. I imagined a world in the past where baseball has been THE cultural passion, but has existed in predominantly regional pockets and leagues. In this alternate world, after Hawaii was admitted into the union in 1959, some brilliant entrepreneurs who had their finger on the pulse of the nation realized that this burning fire that existed all across the nation was missing a larger organizational structure and scale, and now having an even 50 states, saw an opportunity to bring together all the regional passions into a more expansive and unifying league that would see the best of the best playing in and representing the top team in every state in a form that would capture the entire country. I settled on 1961 as the beginning year of this league for a couple of reasons. It is the year in real-world baseball known as the "expansion era" - a kind of turning point in the overall state of the game. And, as mentioned, it's right after Hawaii was admitted as the final state, coincidentally enough. My intent is to play this league for centuries into the future. I will be using entirely fictional players to avoid any messy expectations and "blending" of real-world baseball with this little universe. I'm generally keeping the 162 game schedule in order to have fun comparisons with real-world records, but the league structure is a combination of two 25 team leagues. Their is the Revolution League and The Liberty Bell League, and there are five 5-team divisions in each league. All division winners qualify for the post-season as well as a single wild-card from each league. In all 12 teams or 24% qualify for post season play, a set of 7-game series in all rounds where the #1 and #2 records have byes in the first round. So, in this thread, I'd like to share aspects of this league, why I names teams what I did and some of the art-work and uniform aspects driving the sense of identity for each of the 50 squads. If you are wondering how I made all of this, it was a combination of AI image generation and/or finding elements I liked online that already existed as well as my own photo editing labors. So, without further ado:
This is the primary logo for the league. After making this logo and considering the general concept of a unification of local passions into a more expansive national thing, I decided to make a similar round (baseball appropriate) badge for each team. While the badges are the primary identifier for each team, they are not always exactly the same as the uniforms. Furthermore, as much as I love MLB, the visually creative aspects and identifiers are generally just fancy lettering, with a few exceptions, and I wanted to be more in tune with a playful (think minor league) aesthetic that captured the "this is a boys game" spirit, even though the fandom is incredibly *SERIOUS*. I love that contrast and it allowed me to have fun with the visual creation of things. I'll share a new team every now and then so that I don't feel overwhelmed.
Here are the League Badges:
I chose the 13-stars flag (or the Betsy Ross flag) as a reference to the founding of this nation and the first national flag of 1777, and it seemed appropriately weighty for one of the two primary leagues, League Revolution.
For the other league, League Liberty Bell, I chose the corresponding visual which also seemed significant enough to carry the weight of an entire league.
The first division I created is called simply "1776" (I haven't created badges for any of the divisions, although I may do so at one point. Out of the Park Baseball only supports the primary league logo, so even the two sub-league badges are not incorporated within the game itself.)
The first team I am sharing is called The Pennsylvania Fireflies. In addition to the more playful visuals, I also wanted to have a variety of ideas incorporated into naming conventions. So, I attempted to get a mix of serious and playful, pulling from a wide range of concepts to give the league an interesting, varied, and richly textured flavor. I always started with inspiration from actual state influences and sometimes they morphed into their own thing. In the case of the team in Pennsylvania, the firefly has been the state insect since 1974, and I just thought it was a cool and unique concept for a team. As a side note, I will say that my imagination sits at the background of all these teams, and I often have these (waking) dreams of aspects of each team's culture. I'll share some of those while talking about each team. For the Fireflies, I imagine the crowds gathering and all the lights are dimmed for a minute or so before the first pitch of each home game, and all of the fans illuminate their own light-source to embody a "swarm" of fireflies. I also imagine the regional kids capturing these bugs in jars and collectively releasing them during this pre-game scene. I also liked the name Fireflies because in addition to the reference to the state insect it embodies the idea of lots of "fiery" balls flying out of the yard. That's why the team badge includes the motto "Launch Fireflies". I will also mention that in addition to the primary logos and art I will share, there are often secondary logos that I may consider incorporating at times for any visual variety occasionally.
So, I introduce to you - The Pennsylvania Fireflies
Team badge:
The cap is simply the playful bug:
And the jersey is :
Sorry for the low res pic, but it's a small portion of the screen which I blew up in this case.
Here's an alternative theme that I played with which I may incorporate for some variety or special occasions:
So, one down, 49 to go.
