30 YEARS and COUNTING

ITS A 30-YEAR CELEBRATION

The Robert E. McCabe Baseball League Turns 30

Dallas, Texas (McC.com) – 30 years and counting, it has been an amazing and exciting 30 years in the Robert E. McCabe Baseball League. The great teams, the outstanding players, and the best group of owners I’ve ever been associated with since joining my first fantasy site in 1989, the Bill James Fantasy Baseball and Football Leagues. In those days you found fantasy leagues by looking in the advertise section of magazines like “The Sporting News, Street and Smith” and other simpler publications. Everything was handled by calling long distance and US mail. Looking back now really makes me think we were all insane, and for the newbies coming on board today, they’ll be saying the same exact thing about us 30 years from now.

How can we talk about the 30 years in Hard Ball Dynasty without recognizing the founder, the creator, the almighty, and all knowing, our beloved commissioner, Patrick McCabe aka pat007ohmss.  Scripture has it that on the first day Patrick had a vision to form a league in honor of his father, Robert E. McCabe who passed away in 1986. On the second day he formed the league, on the third day he contacted owners who were interested in his league, on the fourth day he decided to use major-league teams (stroke of genius), on the fifth day he issued the teams to the new owners, on the six-day the league was open for business, and on the seventh day he rested, and the website what if sports and HBD was changed forever, thanks Pat!

Season one could not have gotten underway without the Fantastic Four (4), which is the original owners. The next issue will focus on the players and teams, nevertheless this issue we wanted to look at all the owners that make this league possible. However, as a reminder if you would like to flash back to see the McCabe Magazines All-Decade teams of seasons 1-10, and 11-20 go to the Blog and checkout issues posted February 5, 2014, and February 8, 2014. 

The Original Four 

Owner	Team	Won	Lost	World Series Titles	Division Titles
jgarron	San Diego Padres	2869	1917	6	16
captain10a	Anaheim Angels	2557	2229	2	12
pat007ohmss	Boston Red Sox	2516	2270	3	8
wylie715	San Francisco Giants	2345	2441	0	8

The Twenty Year Veterans

Owner	Team	Seasons	Won	Lost	World Series
TenaciousTYT	Kansas City Royals	28	2353	2276	1
dimestoregin	Toronto Blue Jays	26	2428	1875	1
rsskfs23	Tampa Bay Rays	24	1809	2172	0
brentcnb	Milwaukee Brewers	21	1643	1850	0

And the Rest of the Owners

Owner	Team	Seasons	World Series Titles
axtell	Colorado Rockies	18	0
patrickkm	Detroit Tigers	17	2
yoker70	Arizona Diamondbacks	17	0
kgrffth	Chicago White Sox	17	0
Arte	Los Angeles Dodgers	17	0
basebalguru	New York Mets	13	1
lido9613	Florida Marlins	13	3
goldenbaer88	Texas Rangers	11	0
Fantasy Frea	Cleveland Indians	10	0
optistrat	Minnesota Twins	10	0
Saffron	Washington D.C. Nationals	10	1
cpintens	Cincinnati Reds	9	0
spintens	Richmond Virginians	8	0
mark3313	Seattle Mariners	7	0
slurie2001	St. Louis Cardinals	6	0
sportbanker	Pittsburgh Pirates	4	0
runnrun	Houston Astros	3	0
ajaxx88	Rochester Broncos	2	0
GuerillaZen1	Baltimore Orioles	2	0
daddiothree	Philadelphia Phillies	1	0
Jeter2020	New York Yankees	1	0
troutis	Oakland Athletics	1	0
bobkordecki	Chicago Cubs	0	0

McCabe Magazines New Feature

WHERE ARE THEY NOW

Earl Wingo none none Age: 39 B/T: R/R Born: Richmond, VA Position(s): 1B/DH View Hardball Dynasty Profile

Season 1 MVP Earl Wingo

Season 1 Most Valuable Player Earl Wingo (RF), Texas Rangers now 61 years-old lives in Aurora, Texas population 1,267. Wingo and wife Libby has been married for 42 years, they have one son and two grandchildren that live in Dallas. The couple moved to Aurora after Wingo’s retirement. In season 1 the right-handed outfielder had the best year of his major league career with 53 HR, 138 RBI, and a team leading 1.136 OPS. Season 1 was his finest season, appearing in his only All-Star Game, Silver Slugger Award, and a World Series winner, sweeping the Cincinnati Reds 4-0. He appeared in one other post-season series, getting beat by the Milwaukee Brewers 3-1 in the divisional round, and he never duplicated that season 1 statistical numbers again, and retired in season 8, playing his last professional game in season 7. Another interesting note about season 1 is future Hall of Framer Placido Ortiz was named Rookie of the Year that season collecting 40 Home Runs, 108 RBI, 370 BA, and a 1.138 OPS. In season 9 Wingo did some coaching in the Rangers organization and also managed the Corpus Christi Hooks of the Texas League for 2 ½ seasons before being relieved of his duties after Wingo sucker punched the teams PR director over a Earl Wingo bubblehead give away. Wingo became upset when the director labeled the bobble head promotion “Earl Wingo the One Hit Wonder.”   

Life in Aurora 

Earl and his wife wear a lot of hats in Aurora. He owns the only diner in town in which his wife Libby runs from 6 AM to 6 PM daily. They also run the post office, the Aurora Sports Museum, and the local radio station that features a nightly show from 6 to 10 called “The Earl Wingo Sports Talk Show.” The show takes nightly calls about the local high school sports scene, Texas League AA baseball, Dallas Cowboys, and the Rangers. All of the calls these days are about the Rangers last place position in the AL South which made the playoffs last season with a 96-66 record. However, when I visited the station 90% of the calls were complaining about Rangers season 30 All-Star second baseman Orlando Campos (29 HR, 321 BA, 1.040 OPS) not being invited to the Home Run Derby contest at this year’s All-Star game. Lifelong friend Glen Cornelius (1B) another former Ranger player and teammate of Wingo helps out at the radio station doing a morning farm report from 5 AM to 9AM. Cornelius also teams with Wingo doing Aurora high school football games, Earl handles the play by play with Cornelius playing the jock in the booth role. 

Wingo says life has been good since leaving baseball, you can find him nightly sitting on the front porch drinking sarsaparilla with Libby, Cornelius and  his season one MVP trophy at his side, telling stories about days gone by.