Meet Oscar Madrid, The Kennesaw Mountain of Legends
compiled by Jonathan Wallach
Oscar Madrid is the commissioner and founder of the Legends of Baseball League. We at LBD (Legends Baseball Digest) sat him down for an interview to find out why LBL isn't in trouble like the MLB.
LBD: First, tell us about yourself - your life, education, upbringing.
OM: I was born in Springfield, Oregon on July 12th, 1977. My father is from Central America, Honduras to be precise. My mother is a St. Louis native, the two were visiting friends in the Northwest when they met. I've lived in the St. Louis area for over 20 years now and have grown very fond of this city. It's a peaceful place and an incredible sports town and that suits me just fine. I graduated from Lindenwood University last spring with a degree in Theatre and a minor in Communications. Lindenwood was the college of choice for St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Blues announcer Dan McLaughlin and former KMOX turned KTRS broadcaster Randy Karraker, who spoke at my graduation.
LBD: What inspired you to start LBL?
OM: My inspiration to start the LBL stems from a very young age. I can remember as early as the age of eight, cutting out boxscores and statistics from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, categorizing baseball cards, compiling fantasy rosters, drafting, all that good stuff. I used the original Nintendo baseball as my sim of choice up until the age of 12. Unfortunately or fortunately the only owners in the league were myself and my grandfather. We eventually started playing Micro League Baseball together, the ancestor of our current simulation, Pro League Baseball. I used to visit my grandfather after school in the evenings and we'd play a game or two ... the computer would flash text messages during a big hit or exciting play ... "that ball has eyes!" So, flash forward 10 years later and I'm searching through the bargain bins for a perfect baseball sim and I run across Pro League. The interface was confusing, it was out of print, with absolutely no technical support, and a bare bones users guide. So I set it down for a while. I continued to test other simulations, Front Page Sports Baseball, High Heat, Triple Play, Baseball Mogul, Out of the Park, etc. But I ended up going back to the Pro League game. It prints most files to text rather easily and is unlike any other sim, as it favors pitching. I ran a few test leagues and decided to give it a go online, wasn't sure how it would pan out ... but still, I remained optimistic.
LBD: What do you think so far? What's the best aspect of LBL?
OM: I'm extremely pleased with the progress of the LBL to this point. I pride myself on running a tight ship and I think that we have a tremendous group of owners in this league. I also find it very important to continue to archive all past statistics and results. That is something that makes the LBL stand out from the other leagues on the net, but believe me when I say we have some stiff competition out there.
LBD: If you could have done anything differently, what would it have been?
OM: One thing that I wish I could have done differently was the inaugural draft. We had a mail draft rather than a live draft. But in all honestly it would have been extremely difficult to bring twelve owners together to draft 32 rounds all online. It could have taken as long as 10-12 hours, virtually impossible. So in the end I feel that things worked out well as we moved four rounds at a time via e-mail, with players listed in order of preference and position. I felt it was important to allow owners to make notes and instructions on how they wanted to select their club. One blunder saw me overlooking Bobby Avila on Andrew Clarke's draft list in the early rounds, luckily he was still available and I was able to replace him with the player I selected by mistake. Bobby subsequently led the Tigers to two Central division titles in their first two seasons.
LBD: As Commissioner, you have no team - something very rare both in real life and in web life. Tell me about this.
OM: I think that it was important that I devote myself to the league completely. Owning a team while serving as a commissioner creates a myriad of problems, conflict of interests. This was not an ego driven thing for me, which is often the case with founders of simulation leagues. I just enjoy the sport and running the LBL gives me a chance to pour through statistics of players past and present while entertaining 14 other baseball fans in the process. I find that in some leagues the commissioner owns a team that mysteriously wins the league or finishes first quite often. With access to the sim and its statistics it wouldn't be fair to the others in the LBL to have that doubt lingering. Besides, I enjoy being the commish. It's fun to discuss potential trades and be privy to managerial strategies and what not, and it also allows me time to work on the web site and concentrate on ways to improve the league.
-LBD.
MOVERS & SHAKERS
by Jack Silver (Josh Spirlock)
The LBL has been very busy the last week with teams like the Yankees, Mets, and Cubs all in the hunt to either win now or grow for the future. The Cubs and Yankees have already shown that they will not sit tight and watch as they fall behind their division leaders and as the Mets fall farther behind they have shown that they will do anything to win for the future.
The Mets gave up alot of good talent to get Joe DiMaggio and are now shopping him for pitching and first round draft picks. Owner/GM Jonathan Wallach has stated that he would like to draft have players like Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr and Johnny Pesky in the draft after this season. Wallach has also expressed interest in moving almost anyone to aquire draft picks and players that will help him in the future. The Mets and Cubs have been discussing a possible Larry Doby and Art Houtteman to NY for Monster Willie McCovey. Doby and Houtteman are both unhappy in Chicago because they aren't getting the playing time they both believe they should have. McCovey is unhappy because he is playing in one of the worst hitting parks in the league. Agents for all players have spoken with the LBL Weekly and expressed that their players would be happy with this move. Time will tell on how these two teams come out and how the Mets come out in the end after giving up great talent to get a star CF and then trading him the next season. Only time will tell ...
Now onto the Cubs and Yankees. New Yankee Owner/GM Colin DeWaay and Owner/GM of the Cubs Josh Spirlock worked out a deal this week where the Cubs acquired a power bat the so desperately needed and the Yankees got bullpen help and speed. The Cubs got RF Roger Maris who was unhappy because he was in the large shadow of the Sultan of Swat Babe Ruth. The Yankees get OF Sam "Wahoo" Crawford and RP Dennis Eckersley, both Eck and Crawford had been disappointments in Chi-Town and both expressed wishes to be traded. When Spirlock put a call into the Yankee front office that he had interest in Maris, he was quickly called back by DeWaay and they hammered out a deal after about 2 days of playing phone tag. Both GM's were very happy and Spirlock was happy to be the involved in DeWaay's first trade as Owner/GM of the Storied Yankee Franchise.
Will all these deals help these teams, once again only time will tell, but it sure is good for the league to have good active members.