WHY limit the pre 1900 players to 2nd tier?

1911 is the introduction of the "Lively Ball." It wasn't until the 19-teens that major league baseball was consistently played in stadiums.

1992 or 1993 were the last years before the offensive explosion of the '90s, which I would consider the post-modern era of major league baseball.

Further, journeyman players who had crazy stats in partial seasons (Gates Brown, Don Padgett, *cough, cough*) should be available in the the "Unleashed" set, but not part of the core game. Thus you would have a true "All-Time Greats" game with option to bring in recent players, pre-deadball players, and some wacked out partial season cards.

So Jeter, Rivera, Alomar, Griffey Jr., Pedro, etc., etc., belong in an "unleashed" set?????

1920 is actually the beginning of the so-called lively ball era.

Well Clifton, apparently not in Riggo Shill World. That world is characterized by baseless, self-serving, inarguable proclamations. In this world, the lively ball was introduced whenever His Lordship deems it to have been introduced, and contrary information or perspectives are dismissed out of hand.

I wonder if anyone has been able to get an ecplanation from Strat as to why they took pre-1900 players out of the default set? If you want to change their mind...kind of makes a difference as to why they did it so you can pinpoint your arguments to them.

Freeman--that's exactly right.
The rest of the wrangling over era legitimacy doesn't matter. All cards can be fun.

Point is the default should be all, and then you trim down from there. The BS tourney may help push this in the right direction.

I wonder if anyone has been able to get an ecplanation from Strat as to why they took pre-1900 players out of the default set? If you want to change their mind...kind of makes a difference as to why they did it so you can pinpoint your arguments to them.

Joe the Jet who did much of the repricing work did not want them in, believes they do not belong, made that opinion known and it carried the day. Seems his opinions were carrying a lot of weight, don't think it was ever a decision, just a programming point and they went with his opinion

I wonder if anyone has been able to get an ecplanation from Strat as to why they took pre-1900 players out of the default set? If you want to change their mind...kind of makes a difference as to why they did it so you can pinpoint your arguments to them.

Joe the Jet who did much of the repricing work did not want them in, believes they do not belong, made that opinion known and it carried the day. Seems his opinions were carrying a lot of weight, don't think it was ever a decision, just a programming point and they went with his opinion

Is this true?
He seems to be claiming here that SoM made the decisions and that he 'merely understands' their position.
That would be beyond angering if true.

I wonder if anyone has been able to get an ecplanation from Strat as to why they took pre-1900 players out of the default set? If you want to change their mind...kind of makes a difference as to why they did it so you can pinpoint your arguments to them.

Joe the Jet who did much of the repricing work did not want them in, believes they do not belong, made that opinion known and it carried the day. Seems his opinions were carrying a lot of weight, don't think it was ever a decision, just a programming point and they went with his opinion

Do you have any proof of that? I thought Mike something or other did most of the repricing?

Various Rules Changes to Baseball in latter half of 19th Century:

1867-1887 Batter could request a High or Low ball from the Pitcher (Ross Barnes, Pete Browning, Tip O'Neil, King Kelly, Dan Brouthers cards all come from this era)

1877 The Fair-Foul hit (bunt) was outlawed. Ross Barnes batting average dropped from .429 in 1876 to .272 in 1877. To those who say he was ill in 1877, he also played full seasons in 1879 and 1881 at ages 29 and 31, batting .266 and .271, respectively.

1880 8 balls constituted a Base on Balls, no wonder pitchers from that era had few walks

1884 6 balls constituted a Base on Balls

1884 The Ban on Overhand Pitching was lifted (Tommy Bond, George Bradley, Guy Hecker, Will White, Larry Corcoran, Candy Cummings, Frank Hankinson, and John F. Coleman cards in ATG all pitched underhanded) And that underhand pitching was a toss, not a fast-pitch softball windup. Until 1884, they were playing slow pitch softball...............

1885-1893 One side of the Bat was allowed to be flat

1887 5 balls constituted a Base on Balls

1887 Walks were counted as HITS---11 hitters batted over .400 that year (Tip O’Neil and Pete Browning in ATG)

1889 4 balls constituted a Base on Balls

1893 Pitching distance increased from 50 feet to 60’6”


The game has made minor changes to the rules since then, but for the most part the rules have been fairly consistent.

Again, an Unleashed Set (incorporating these earlier cards, other outlier cards) to go along with an MLB set beginning 1893-1894 would make both sides happy here.

My personal preference, which, like above quote from a past thread, I've mentioned numerous times on the boards, would be for the ATG Default Set to include cards from 1894 to the present, including NeL cards, while excluding a few outliers like poster boys Don Padgett, Gates Brown, Ken Smith, etc.

Baseball rules kind of congealed into something like modern baseball in 1894.

So there would be ATG9: 1894-present & NeL cards
ATG9 UNLEASHED would be ATG9 (1894-present/NeL) PLUS pre-1894 cards and outliers like Padgett. If you want to add Sadaharu Oh, Bob "Hurricane" Hazel, or a player from 1880, they would go in the ATG9 Unleashed.
ATG9 Unleashed could be the Wild West; add whatever card you want. But it would be a Subset to ATG9 (1894-present, NeLers, and no outliers).
Again, that's just my preference.

Also, the fact that the community voted in Don Padgett doesn't mean he is not an outlier.

The rest of the wrangling over era legitimacy doesn't matter. All cards can be fun.

Point is the default should be all, and then you trim down from there. The BS tourney may help push this in the right direction.

To underscore the very reasonable FrankieT, we all have our preferences, opinions and sensibilities. They vary widely. Making the default all eras allows a nice broad base, and any of us can choose to refine it with the custom options.