Season 1 Summary

The first Stockton Showdown season had late season drama that would change the way future seasons would be played.  As the league was in its infancy, many players devised strategies that we would only see in that first season.  Strategy cards such as "quick pitch" were being used while others slugged their way through stacked +2's to the swing.  Our standings were kept in a notebook at the time, and many of the papers were lost, but our place in the standings are accurate in every season. 

 

Averey created a team that was lead by a solid starting staff, which would be a recurring them for most of his future seasons, but Ave's roster construction and in game managing were still rough around the edges.  Despite Jason Giambi and Jason Kendall in the lineup, and David Cone and Greg Maddux on the hill, Ave finished dead last in the first season.

 

Ben featured triple 5 controls out of his rotation, but they ultimately failed him, as he finished 4th in the standings despite the bat of Frank Thomas in his lineup.

AJ cruised through the season after sweeping Gus, a theme that would continue in future seasons (Gus maintains that AJ put a hex on him in that first season).  AJ finished in 1st place thanks to a balanced team and the effective use of "clutch hitter" to get leadoff man Rickey Henderson to cross the plate once he was on.  Robin Ventura and Derek Jeter helped knock in runs as well, while Mike Matheny shut down the run game.

Diego had the monster Pedro Martinez in his rotation, who was pretty much unbeatable, the rest of the rotation was solid enough to keep Diego at .500 until the end of the season, where everything got a little whacky.

As Gus' season neared a dissappointing end, a scheduling opportunity popped up.  Sitting at 5-8 on the year, he needed a sweep of Ave to finished tied with Diego, and force some sort of tiebreaker.  After the league vote was split on whether or not a 3 game, or 1 game series should be played in case of a tie, Diego found himself with the deciding vote, and Pedro looming for the decisive game.  For reasons unknown to most, Diego decided to play a 3 game series instead of the for sure 1 game Pedro start.  Many believe Diego partly believed it was unlikely Ave would get swept, and partly felt that the better team would win anyway.  So it went.  

Since Ave was busy at the moment, Gus and Diego decided to play their 3 game series first in the interest of saving time for the league.  If Diego won 2 of 3, Gus could just skip the series with Ave, and the Diego/AJ World Series could start.

---Wait! ----

Historical accuracy requires me to bring up the fact that Diego and AJ actually started their World Series before the season was over lol.  This would never happen again in future seasons.

  As luck would have it, Gus would win 2-1 over Diego (Pedro of course winning the 1 start he made), and then going on to sweep Ave thanks to John Olerudes walkoff heroics (the video of that final roll may be out there somewhere, a clip that likely still keeps Diego awake at night, "We going to the ship nigga!).  After winning 5 or 6 games, Gus continued his hot streak into the World Series where he defeated AJ 4 games to 2.

Gus was lead by the bats of John Olerud, Bobby Abreu, and Scott Rolen, and featured the first ever all  6 control starting rotation: Ramon Martinez, Curt Schilling, and John Smoltz.  The rotation was backed by perfect outfield and infield defense, and mike matheny's arm behind the dish. 

Regular Season 5000 pt/ 2000-2001 Combo	Wins	Losses	Pct.	Pts	Seasons
AJ				4	1
Gus	8-8		.500	3	1
Diego	8-8		.500	2	1
Ben				1	1
Averey				0	1

World Series	Wins	Losses	Pct.
Gus	4	2	.667
AJ	2	4	.333