HMB’s Baseball America: Ron Arnst’s Aleron Baseball Congress

We had a lot of fun with our Baseball America "Hot Stove Show," I think it's probably the most in-depth we've ever gone in evaluating the BAL teams for the PLAAY crowd. All twelve clubs got a look-see, as well as the available free agents.

We usually put together a brief write-up for the new Baseball America card set for the website, detailing some of the ups and downs of the off-season. This year, I’m going to use a similar format to what we do for Football America now. I'm preparing a look-ahead that summarizes each team's 2021 outlook in a number of categories and assigns a letter grade for overall strength. We'll have that posted to the site in the next couple of days. If you don’t want to wait for the document, you can watch the show (linked above).

In the meantime, I thought I'd share some Baseball America vibes sent us by Ron Arnst, Winnipeg MB. Ron is now starting the sixth season of my History Maker Baseball universe, the Aleron Baseball Congress, which is powered by the Baseball America cards.

Ron writes, "The Congress is a 12-team, one division league that plays a 66 game season. There is no playoff, the regular season pennant winner is declared Congress Champion. The sixth season is being conducted with the 2018 Baseball America card set." Ron sent along some photos of his game set-up and the tools he uses. Ever modest, Ron says "There's nothing particularly unique or innovative about what I do," but you'd be surprised how many seemingly obvious ideas are lightbulb moments for many.

Ron uses a basic game layout. Scorecard is on the right and the game book on the left. "I chose not to use a game mat because the layout is too big for my process." Ron uses Al Wilson's FAC deck to identify infielders and outfielders making defensive plays, as well as to trigger stolen base attempts and extra base attempts.

"You will also recognize the third picture as one of my reminder flags. I want to draw attention to the alligator clip on the left end of the flag. I use the clip to make moving the flags on and off the board easier." We talked about the reminder flags in our Game Helps stream a few weeks ago--inspired by Ron's idea, we created a version that incorporates the game's fonts and colors. It's available as a free download, if you'd like to try it out yourself. The alligator clip is a great idea: not only does it make the reminder flag easier to pick up, it also gives it a little extra heft so that an errant breeze (or sleeve sweep) doesn't rustle it.

Like most Baseball America gamers, Ron has assigned cities and nicknames to his Aleron Baseball Congress franchises. For a bit of added "bling," he created logos for each team, printed them onto adhesive sheets, trimmed them to the appropriate size and adhered one to each card. You can see Vince Hairston’s card with a stick-on of his team’s logo in the bottom left corner.

Ron also sent along a couple photos of his organizational documents. He's developed a team roster sheet, batters listed first, in alphabetical order. Ron explains, "Their attributes are to the left of the player name and the player’s age is in brackets following the player’s name. The pencil notations are used to keep track of HOT and COLD batters from game to game." For pitchers, Ron tracks innings pitched so that he can manage pitcher rest appropriately. "Starters rest two days after pitching up to six innings, three days after six to nine innings, four days after ten innings, five days after eleven, and so on." (Wow! That's some serious pitching stamina, Ron!) Relievers can accumulate up to three innings before needing a rest. Every day a pitcher is not used takes one rest day (denoted by an "R" on the sheet) off their required rest. After the players and pitchers, the team info is listed. The bottom section is used to track the team’s won-lost record, home and away. This allows Ron to track streaks.

Ron also has a sheet to track "TFN" results and game-generated injuries. Each of the twelve teams has its own sheet.

Finally, here's a picture (at right) of Ron's HMB scoresheet presentation. "As you can see the lineups are filled out. The game is between the visiting Belcrest Generals and the home Malcolm Diamonds. Looking at the top left corner of the sheet we see the schedule date VI-6-5 (season six-day 6-game 5).

How do YOU set up your Baseball America? Let us know! Send photos!

Ron’s ABC uses Al Wilson’s “No-Dice Fast-Action” cards for base stealing and infielder and outfielder put-outs.

Adding an alligator clip to the reminder flag is a great idea: makes it easier to pick up, and adds enough heft that an errant breeze won’t move it.