Crying in blaseball is [censored]
July 27, 2020 3:58 PM   Subscribe

The first ever season of Internet league blaseball ended with a blang yesterday when the fans, given the power to vote new decrees into the sport, chose to open the Forbidden Book (despite intern-turned-commissioner Parker asking them please not to).

This resulted in a cataclysmic event which ushered in the Discipline Era, precipitated a week-long solar eclipse, opened a hellmouth under Moab (causing the Moab Sunbeams to rename themselves the Hellmouth Sunbeams), turned the umpires' eyes white, and fatally incinerated star player Jaylen Hotdogfingers (rest in peace).

In short, it was another day in blaseball, blaby!
posted by taquito sunrise (55 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
So—Calvinball with bats? That'll end well.
posted by tspae at 4:30 PM on July 27, 2020 [2 favorites]


I am fond of Robert Coover's novel The Universal Baseball Association which seems to presage a lot of things like this.
posted by solarion at 4:42 PM on July 27, 2020 [6 favorites]


So they finally jazzed up blernsball?
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:10 PM on July 27, 2020 [4 favorites]


Maybe more like Mornington Crescent with bats? Honestly, if we’re going to actually talk about this, someone’s going to have to actually tell us what it is that we’re actually talking about.
posted by Naberius at 6:05 PM on July 27, 2020 [3 favorites]


Maybe more like Mornington Crescent with bats? Honestly, if we’re going to actually talk about this, someone’s going to have to actually tell us what it is that we’re actually talking about.

The first link in the post is the link to the actual thing & the second link is a link to an article describing the thing; here is a second article describing the thing.
posted by taquito sunrise at 6:17 PM on July 27, 2020 [2 favorites]


It's more like a made-up baseball league with funny names being run through a continuous simulation, one season per week. You can bet on games with in-game money. If you run out of in-game money you just ask for more. And there is the voting thing that I haven't opened up yet. That's what I've figured out since signing up.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 6:17 PM on July 27, 2020 [7 favorites]


I think my favorite thing about blaseball is that there are no walk-off runs. The game just goes into "shame" time and the winning team gets to try to run up the score. You have to be bored enough to watch the score update to notice this, which fortunately we all are.
posted by zachlipton at 6:26 PM on July 27, 2020 [7 favorites]


This is such a loving satire of baseball, it's transcendent. The star rankings of the players. Shame time. The heavily redacted Book. All the voting. It recreates a warped version of the fan experience so vividly that you can drop into the narrative like it's always been there. So good.

For non-baseball people, think if this as one third xkcd:Sports, one third Prozd card game parodies, and one third Welcome to Nightvale and one third stratomatic baseball that's four thirds IT'S THAT GOOD
posted by q*ben at 7:40 PM on July 27, 2020 [11 favorites]


HIOTI, the voting is key, if I was going to describe it I'd say it's a baseball simulation with betting where you use your winnings to change the rules for the next season, and the commissioner has no real power save twitter pleas.
posted by q*ben at 7:56 PM on July 27, 2020 [4 favorites]


Blaseball? Is that a splort?
posted by suetanvil at 10:38 PM on July 27, 2020 [4 favorites]


Watching the Seattle Garages do so much better then the Mariners is just hilarious, but I think I should have favorited the Baltimore Crabs honestly. If you want to vote, it uses the same coins you use to bet, go to the store and buy a a vote. You can also use coins to increase your maximum bet and how much you win when your team wins.
posted by drinkyclown at 11:46 PM on July 27, 2020


I know it's accidental, but I'm delighted by the way their privacy policy reads like it was written by an old: "To learn more about the Facebook and how they collect and use your information ... To learn more about the Google and how they collect and use your information..."
posted by nickmark at 7:01 AM on July 28, 2020


At one time, people picked up their gloves and balls and dreamed of being their favorite player.

Then came fantasy leagues, where people stopped dreaming about being an athlete, and instead dreamed about being the manager of the team.

Then came the dalísports...
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 7:19 AM on July 28, 2020 [3 favorites]


The first link in the post is the link to the actual thing & the second link is a link to an article describing the thing

And yet I was able to read them both and come away with no idea what the thing actually was beyond "some kind of very tongue in cheek...something...that seems in some way to resemble a whimsical alternate universe version of baseball."

The Vice article you linked is more helpful. Thank you!
posted by Naberius at 1:18 PM on July 28, 2020 [5 favorites]


@Naberius — It was all very “Inside Blaseball”.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 2:48 PM on July 28, 2020 [5 favorites]


I am late to this but I am delighted by it and, one game day in, a lifelong Charleston Shoe Thieves fan. Baseball definitely needed some Nomic in it.
posted by cortex at 4:48 PM on July 29, 2020 [1 favorite]


I am now a supporter of the Canada Moist Talkers, long may they spray! This is a baseball league I can get into!
posted by nubs at 8:50 PM on July 29, 2020 [4 favorites]


I would crawl through broken glass into a hellmouth for Jessica Telephone. go Pies!
posted by Old Kentucky Shark at 10:03 AM on July 30, 2020 [3 favorites]


I want to know how it is that my beloved Shoe Thieves can both have a winning record (and it's gotten slightly better since yesterday) while also losing every single game I actually watch.
posted by cortex at 10:17 AM on July 30, 2020 [1 favorite]


Cortex, yet another reason this is just like baseball! But with more incineration.

Also want to admit that I'm so slow that I've been playing this all week and only now realized that the logos are just straight up emoji on a colored circle. You can literally copy paste them right out of the logos on the website. 🍬 go Boyfriend Monreal.
posted by q*ben at 4:24 PM on July 30, 2020 [3 favorites]


Someone in the Chicago Firefighters discord made a wonderful fan site!
posted by theodolite at 4:38 PM on July 30, 2020 [3 favorites]


The discord scraped the site and discovered what stats the game is using.
posted by gc at 4:57 PM on July 30, 2020 [1 favorite]


THE NEWS TICKER IS NOW SENTIENT
THE COMMISSIONER IS DOING A GREAT JOB
WE ARE ALL LOVE BLASEBALL
posted by taquito sunrise at 9:31 AM on July 31, 2020 [3 favorites]


I can't help but feel this is relevant.
posted by nickmark at 10:29 AM on July 31, 2020 [1 favorite]


I am enjoying listening to and chatting along with Blaseball Radio, an unofficial twitch splorts stream hosted by Radio Host.

Also the Shoe Thieves are in the post season yessssss
posted by cortex at 2:19 PM on July 31, 2020


Too many siestas! The Game Band is looking for help.
posted by q*ben at 4:08 PM on July 31, 2020


Oh, what are the postseason qualifications rules? Am I missing something on the website?
posted by mollweide at 4:30 PM on July 31, 2020


Top four teams from each league (I think two each from the Lawful/Chaotic x Good/Evil conferences) go into the finals. There was a ruling that the Magic were out of even possible contention for a post-season slot a couple games out from the end of the regular season because even if they tied it up with the Shoes (which naturally they did not in any case) The Book had uttered a tiebreaker ruling from among the hidden and forbidden words.

My dearest Shoe Thieves are now going to the semifinals after reversing a sweep with 0-2 in the quarterfinals best of five to shut down the steaks. I am making fan art.
posted by cortex at 10:53 AM on August 1, 2020 [2 favorites]


Those Shoe Thieves are getting it done
posted by nubs at 1:27 PM on August 1, 2020 [1 favorite]


i shed a tear for my beloved hades tigers, but then never look back on this season. must... not... look... back...
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 3:00 PM on August 1, 2020 [1 favorite]


as a Fridays fan I just wish my team's players would stop getting incinerated & replaced by players with better stats, because it's emotionally very confusing
posted by taquito sunrise at 3:03 PM on August 1, 2020 [2 favorites]


on the one hand with the tigers out i don't really want to root for their hated divisional rivals the phillie pies, but on the other hand i guess i kind of have a crush on jessica telephone? blaseball is weird.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 3:26 PM on August 1, 2020 [3 favorites]


Election results are in! I'd anticipated the plague of peanuts but was expecting evolution instead of The Fourth Strike. You can currently purchase 0 peanuts in the shop for free; this is possibly a bug but it's impossible to tell.

The Hades Tigers stole the best hitter in the league, Jessica Telephone, from the Philly Pies. They sent back Nolanestophia Patterson.

Congratulations Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon!
posted by taquito sunrise at 2:15 PM on August 2, 2020 [2 favorites]


I am fond of Robert Coover's novel The Universal Baseball Association which seems to presage a lot of things like this.

Fantastic book, very strange and not very well known but there is a lot of foresight in the book that makes it worth reading beyond just being a weird and interesting story.
posted by chaz at 3:05 PM on August 2, 2020 [1 favorite]


relatedly, I would encourage anyone who likes this but has not read Jon Bois' 17776 to... do that.
posted by rifflesby at 6:10 PM on August 2, 2020 [1 favorite]


So, did everything break at the end of the season?
posted by nubs at 2:15 PM on August 3, 2020


Apparently some peanut criminals took advantage of the API to give themselves infinite coins & peanuts; they have not atoned & the Blaseball Gods are not happy
posted by taquito sunrise at 3:20 PM on August 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


That is a problem. My concern for the moment is that the Moist Talkers logo is now just a white circle; that seems really weird for a team in the Chaotic Evil division.
posted by nubs at 3:50 PM on August 3, 2020


I'm all in on the Seattle Garages.

I also look forward to buying a Canada Moist Talkers t-shirt, as soon as someone manages to open a cafepress with the amazing logo.
posted by kaibutsu at 7:38 PM on August 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


Rough day for the Shoes; we had three players incinerated!

This morning, Sebastian Townsend got zapped by the umps, and was replaced by Atlas Jonbois who was then in turn incinerated two games later and replaced by...Sebastian Woodman. Who we have decided is a wooden effigy of Townsend that Esme Ramsey carved with their teeth as an act of grief and memoriam. Woodman is a reasonably solid ballplayer for a wooden golem, and says hilarious jokes like "help, it's me, Sebastian Townsend" and "release me, Sebastian Townsend, from this wooden prison so my soul can rest".

And then this afternoon our best pitcher, Matteo "The" Prestige, got a peanut down the throat and had an allergic reaction and immediately lost a star off his rating. But he pulled out an epipen and finished the game and pulled off a comeback to beat the Breath Mints in the bottom of the 11th. And what does he get for his trouble? Incineration in the fourth inning of day 57, to be immediately replaced by Gunther O'Brian, a literal penguin we've decided, whose O in his name stands for "zero" which is how many stars he has. He proceeded to finish that debut game by giving up 21 runs to the Breath Mints.

Gunther's an adorable penguin but we're having a lot of feelings tonight in the Shoe Thieves clubhouse.
posted by cortex at 10:11 PM on August 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


let's go tigers *clap clap* let's go tigers *clap clap*

ring ring who's calling it's jessica telephone with another home run welcome to shametown moist talkers
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 6:28 AM on August 7, 2020 [6 favorites]


The Tigers must be stopped. This is intolerable. It's one thing to have taken our lead, but they currently stand at 64-26, up with which I cannot put.

PIE OR DIE.
posted by desuetude at 8:34 AM on August 7, 2020 [2 favorites]


So, apparently the garages have a Band camp page with all the blunge songs people have been writing for them.

Here's my favorite, Mike Townsend is a Disappointment.
posted by kaibutsu at 8:38 AM on August 7, 2020 [4 favorites]




i mean we got the win but landry violence got incinerated so it’s complicated.

oh well. in death as well as in life landry proved that sometimes violence is the answer.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 2:07 AM on August 9, 2020 [4 favorites]


Looks like the league is on Siesta for a bit?
posted by nubs at 12:01 PM on August 9, 2020


kaibutsu: “Here's my favorite, Mike Townsend is a Disappointment.”
I've got a lot going on and spotty Internet so I've stayed away from Blaseball because I just didn't have the Hit Points. Y'all seem to have been having fun with it, so I'm having fun vicariously. But I gotta say that this song takes it to another level. Reminds me of the days when I had an insulting nickname for every player on my favorite baseball team who spent much of the '80s being a pack of losers.
posted by ob1quixote at 5:32 PM on August 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


also “[pitcher name] is a disappointment” like really captures the feel of supporting a seattle baseball team.

the tigers are going to be incredible next season. perfect blessings — got bloodlust, got to keep jessica telephone, even got rid of alyssa “the rally killer” harrell. i’ve never been a fan of a league’s yankees before so it’s kind of weird, but also the passive income is nice.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:23 PM on August 9, 2020 [2 favorites]


The Shoe Thieves didn't get any blessings at all, so all my postseason enjoyment has been spite. Trying to fob your worst pitcher off on us, Pies? Well, here's one in exchange, with exactly the same stats. Grabbing that Pitcher Randomizer we so desperately needed, Tacos? Congrats on dropping Wyatt Mason from half a star to zero stars, and nothing else.

In better news though, I did come upon some weird old Blaseball memorabilia.
posted by rifflesby at 10:15 PM on August 9, 2020 [3 favorites]


Pie or Die. I love that their lore is mostly lightly embellished fact.
posted by whuppy at 10:21 AM on August 10, 2020 [2 favorites]




Between that and the Workman Gloom swap yesterday, Blaseball is getting lots of drama in the Feedback era
posted by nubs at 9:11 AM on August 26, 2020 [1 favorite]


when tame the tigers came up i considered fair weather fluting over to whatever team jessica telephone ended up on, but now that it's actually happened i'm sticking with the tigers. #neverlookback

i mean shoot we've still got hot fish summer, we've still got yazmin mason, we're great
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 12:12 PM on August 26, 2020


Posted this over on the FanFare chat, but do we want to open a FF thread for blaseball seasons? Not sure how to categorize...
posted by q*ben at 9:25 PM on August 26, 2020


FanFare post for Season 4, and I figure we can just keep doing 'em weekly.
posted by cortex at 8:35 AM on August 27, 2020 [2 favorites]


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