For those wanting some fun Memorial Weekend reading, the Transcontinental Baseball League has just released its 2019 TBL Annual publication.
Subtitled “The Rebuild“, the Annual can be read at the TBL website here. As usual, Walter Hunt, Robert Jordan and Mark Bloom have done a great job with this. It is professionally done in the style of the baseball magazines such as I used to read.
The TBL is 142 pages chock-full of team-by-team analysis not without a little humor.
Personally, I found the section on TBL’s Hall of Fame. This year’s TBL enshrinees are Derek Jeter and Ivan Rodriguez. Those eligible for this year’s vote are Chipper Jones, Todd Helton, Gary Sheffield and Alex Rodriguez.
I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising but these six players had HOF-worthy careers in the Illowa APBA League as well.
Also, I highly recommend Richard Meyer’s article called “Spontaneous Unbuilding” around page 20. Richard includes nuggets of wisdom like this:
Many poor deals are the product of an inadequate marketing effort. If you have decided to put someone on the block, put them on the block to every potentially interested party in TBL, not just the first guy you email. Take the time to solicit multiple offers. More than that, when you determine which offer is currently best, check back with your runner-ups to make sure they aren’t willing to spice up the pot to reverse your decision before you close.
Richard pulls no punches in this piece which I recommend to all league managers.
As always, great job by the TBL staff!
It should be noted that there are a whole bunch of people on the ballot coming up; I just highlighted the four most prominent candidates for enshrinement.
We also have managers in our Hall of Fame; I was elected a few years ago, much to my surprise.
Thanks for the nice words, Thomas.