DMBL History Lesson, Part 1

Most of you weren't around in the infancy of the DMBL - referred to as the MicroLeague back in the beginning. Here's a little trip way back in time to the beginning...

Always big fans of baseball, the founders of the DMBL played a lot of video games and simulations, including Hardball and Earl Weaver on the computer, Pete Rose Baseball on the Atari, and whatever was popular in the arcades (RBI maybe?). Mike "Stump" Matiash introduced the game MicroLeague to Yaro and Steve Zajac. Soon the newer MicroLeague II came out and Steve Zajac came up with the idea to compete against each other. Steve went out and bought a roto magazine and soon we were out recruiting for a new league. Yaro signed up Paul Barbosa and Brian Dissler and Steve recruited his buddy, Eugene Mullin. Ryan and Mark DeRonde were also signed up, but bowed out before draft day. With five of the original owners waiting for the draft to start and Paul running late - really, really late, we went ahead and started the draft, awarding Paul a player that he had originally talked about drafting in the first round, Will Clark. After the draft was completed, Paul finally arrived but it was too late. The Newark Crimewave were off to a poor start, but after Barbosa cooled off, he sat down and picked up the rest of his roster.

Now at the time, the rules were quite different. There was no pre-season and no five-man reserve roster. The season was only 150 games long. Rules for qualifications were different (400 at bats, 35 games for relievers). There were no injuries. With only six teams, there was only one division and it was decided that only the top two would meet in the championship. With only one division, the All-Star game featured the MicroLeague All-Stars against the Major League All-Stars in a two game match - one against the NL stars and one against the AL stars. Very few trades were made in that inaugural season. Arkansas traded Kelly Gruber to Vancouver for Mark Grace. Columbia traded Cecil Fielder to Arkansas for a package of players.

Eugene Mullin lost interest about 2/3 or the way through the season and Ryan DeRonde, originally slated as an original eight owner, took over. The Austin Outlaws took the division, but lost to the Vancouver Iron Fist in the first World Series. Bud Black was named the first series MVP - well-earned, as Black dominated the Outlaws in his two starts. Bobby Bonilla was named MVP and Ben McDonald earned the first "Cy Young" award in a controversial vote.

We'll take a look at some more history soon...