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August 5, 2006 The Dream Season With the league taking a two-week break to
celebrate the commissioner's nuptials, let's entertain ourselves with
an amusing diversion: The DMBL Dream Season! We selected the
best year of each franchise's best players to assemble a 30-man roster,
then
we'll play out the season. We selected the batters and pitchers based
on each player's real-life and DMBL stats, favoring "franchise" players
over one-year wonders, though there's some of those mixed in as well.
We also made sure each team had a back-up at each position. To level the playing field between
the
franchises -- and to avoid the, um, unusual numbers produced during the
Microleague Era -- we picked each team's best players from the DMB Era
-- 1997 to present. (That translates to MLB '96 to '05) Perfecting time travel was the easy part.
The challenge? Picking the players! Some choices were obvious, others
were gruelling. Some fans will howl about who was left off, while
others will scoff at who was included. But that's part of the fun. A player who played for more than one
franchise was allowed on each team, as long as it was in different
seasons. In cases where multiple teams could claim the same player in
the same year, we went with the franchise that had him at the start of
the season. Thirty-nine players are on two teams, including three who
were "three-peats": Moises
Alou (Louisiana, Rabbis and Vancouver), Gary
Sheffield (Louisiana, Harrison and Rabbis) and Alfonso
Soriano (Rabbis, Harrison and Columbia).
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Golden Falcons owner Mike "Stump"
Matiash
has led his team to a DMBL-record 13-straight post-season appearances,
earning five league championships, four Commissioner's Cups and seven
Morris Division
titles. It's no surprise the Falcs' all-time roster is
stacked from top to bottom with great players. The 
joined the league in the '97 expansion and
were competitive the very next season, missing the playoffs by just 4
games. They would reach the promised land in '99, '01, '03 and '04, and
this year are threatening to win the Morris Division. Owner Chris Pucci has an eye for pitching talent, and
his all-time staff is one of the deepest of any franchise. The 
(renamed the Columbia
Rattlesnakes prior to the 2002 season); and Jamie
Landsman's D.C. Bushslappers, who inherited Columbia's roster
prior to this season. With just one Bushslapper year to work with, the
roster are mostly Dissler-era players, though there are several players
who overlap the two owners. Though the Crusaders/Rattlesnakes never had
a winning season, and '06 hasn't been a banner year for the
Bushslappers either, this roster is surprisingly talented. The top 
they've
already set a new franchise record in wins, beating the 78 wins they
put up in their inaugural '01 season for a 7th-place finish. This squad
takes the best players assembled by owner Eric
Wickstrom since he joined the league that spring, taking over the Austin Outlaws. Since they're having their best
season this year, it's not a surprise they have more players (9) from
the current season than any other franchise. But the best of the 
Rising from the ashes of the scandal
that brought down the Arizona Rattlers
and Hawaii Volcanoes, the Cutters reached the
post-season in just their second year of existence, just missed last
year, and this year are poised to make a return trip. In between the
team has had some rough times, but they've never had a 90-loss
season. Mark Hrywna fields a team with a
loaded 
It took a few years, but Adam
Kozubal has steadily
built up the Sharks since its early years as the league's favorite
catch of the day, with five straight bottom-5 finishes from '97-'01.
The Sharks just missed the playffs in '02, then made it as the No. 5
seed for three consecutive seasons. Surprisingly, two-thirds of the
roster comes from the pre-playoff days, including a monster 2001 season
from Jason Giambi (.342, 1.137 OPS, 38 HR, 120
RBI) to lead the 
the Scranton
Sparrows. In 1997, his team -- renamed the Louisiana
Lightning -- won 109 games and captured the Hanover Division title.
The following season his team won 84 games and returned to the
post-season. Campbell then took a seven-year hiatus from the league,
returning in 2005 to take over the moribund Hillsborough franchise,
which he renamed the Hillsborough Hired Hitmen.
There are a number of terrific 
becoming the only team other than Arkansas, Newark or
Vancouver to win it all. Owner David Landsman
moved the team in 2001 and became Matthew's Mighty
Men of Stanhope, reaching the post-season in four of five seasons.
This year, they moved again, becoming Matthew's
Mighty Men of Marietta, and they're once in the thick of a playoff
battle. The potent 
founded in the 1996 dispersal draft, have reached the
playoffs in each of their 10 seasons. They've won the Hanover Division
title eight times, the Commissioner's Cup four times and the World
Series five times.
Suffice it to say, this is a loaded franchise, particularly when it
comes to the 
Founded in 1998, taking over the Lisbon
Diabos, this franchise was originally named the Philadelphia
Eaglewings, then became the Philadelphia
Endzone Animals. They found little success in their first seven
seasons, finishing no higher than 9th place -- a stretch that included
back-to-back-to-back 99+ loss campaigns. Finally, last year, Owner Anthony "Bocci" Pucci built a winner almost
entirely through the farm system, and this year is in the midst of what
could be the franchise's second-straight playoff season. The 
the second-worst record in league
history. (The worst team of all time were the 1993 Waikiki
Keys, who went 33-129. The following year the Keys improved to a
modest 76-86 -- not great, but an astounding 43 wins better, the best
one-year improvement in league history.) In their nine-year history,
the Dragons have never made the playoffs or even reached .500. In fact,
they've finished in the bottom 5 in every season but one -- 2001, when
they went 78-84 to join a four-way tie for 7th, 4 games out of the
playoffs. This season won't be a banner year either, as the Dragons
have already "clinched" another losing season and a lottery pick. But
this franchise does have some notable talent on 
folded during the 1995 strike, but in 1997, Barbosa
bought an expansion franchise and rejoined the league with the league's
first Portugal-based team, the Lisbon Diabos.
Barbosa later explained he put the team in Europe because of a
"misunderstanding" with the Internal Revenue Service; that
misunderstanding eventually led to a three-year prison sentence. When
he got out in spring 2000, he took over the Toledo
Mutthens, moved them south and renamed them the Kentucky
Hillbillies. Two years later, more trouble with the feds forced a
relocation further south, to Mexico, where the team played as the Tijuana Banditos from 2002-2005. This year, his
financial dealings with the government apparently straightened out,
Barbosa has returned to the states with the South
Boston Gang. Despite all the upheaval, Barbosa's teams have
generally been competitive, with post-season appearances in 2000, 2002
and 2004. This season may continue the trend as the 2006 squad is
battling for the final wildcard seed. Barbosa's All-Star squad is
well-balanced on offense and defense. The 
have won the World Series three times, the Commissioner's
Cup four times and the Morris Division five times. They've also reached
the post-season in 11 out of their 14 seasons, and this year it appears
they'll make it an even dozen and perhaps win their sixth division
title. It's no surprise that the Ironfist all-time roster has some of
the league's most talented players. Out of all the "dream season"
franchises, the Ironfist rank in the top 3 in almost every offensive
category -- including the most doubles, home runs and stolen bases --
and also rank at the top in most pitching categories, including 2nd in
team ERA and R/9. Their balanced