Never the Padres

With OOTP's board down for the count this AM, I'd like to highlight an interesting little dynasty called Brooklyn Dodgers: An Alternate History .

It's not a stat-heavy dynasty at all -- you probably won't figure out what Jackie Robinson hit -- and it doesn't really change the history of the MLB that much as it starts in 1947 and not in, say, 1958. What makes it a charming read is the heavy use of period-specific photos, old stadiums, kids looking through knothole fences, etc.

What I've noticed is that the author is apparently a long time between updates. His last update was July 2nd of this year, but twice the dynasty has been "bumped" to the top by people chiming in to say how much they loved the dynasty. For some reason, the dynasty has a lot of fans.

My theory is that the reason the dynasty is so popular is because it's about Dem Bums, which hold a special place in the heart of every baseball fan. When you mention Brooklyn and the Dodgers, you're talking about a much more innocent era, when baseball owners didn't hold extort cities in exchange for material improvements to stadiums. It was an era when love of the game held sway and it was believed that love of the game could conquer all.

Brooklyn dynasties seem to be popular. The Philadelphia Athletics have some love on the Baseball Mogul boards, and I've seen more than one Montreal Expos dynasty. The St. Louis Browns still have a following in some quarters of baseball, with probably more people belonging to the historical societies devoted to the Brownies than ever actually attended a Browns game. (Oddly enough, the Boston or Milwaukee Braves don't seem to draw that sort of following.)

If you're doing a historical dynasty, I think the team you choose actually has some effect on the popularity of your dynasty, no matter how good the writing or creation of the dynasty. A long time ago, I did a survey of BM dynasties, trying to figure out which were the most popular and least popular teams. I've lost the papers that had my polling results, but I don't think anyone had done a San Diego Padres dynasty at Baseball Mogul.

For some reason, the Padres just don't evoke any nostalgia. They don't seem to represent anything special, despite almost forty years as a major league baseball team and despite never winning a World Series. When most people try to put "Padres" and "nostalgia" together in a single thought, the most common topic of discussion is "remember those awful Taco Bell uniforms of the 1970s?" I tell you -- if you want a really challenging dynasty to write, the Padres is the way to go.

Some quick Google searching:

"love of the Yankees": 76,300 hits
"love of the Cardinals": 30,300 hits
"love of the Dodgers": 19,400 hits
"love of the Braves": 16,100 hits
...

"love of the Padres": 7 hits

Egad. Then again, "love of the Expos" gets zero hits. Maybe I need to rethink my theory.