filed by Agent O
Congratulations to the Charleston Shoe Thieves for winning the Internet Series in a stunning upset over the Mexico City Wild Wings!
Locations
Team Shadows are now visible on the website – this verifies that players that have been Collided into are in the Shadows, possibly to nurse their bruises?
In Blaseball Beta, all players had their defense stats averaged together and smeared across the field. Now players appear to have fielding positions – specific places from which they tend to field and catch. This has made it possible for there to be defensive stars. The exact positions do exist in the code, though I will not discuss them for now; the Debriefings try not to get into deep FK.
Sorry, Squid
During the semifinals, the Atlantis Georgias couldn’t catch up to the Mexico City Wild Wings in the Evil League championships, taken by the Wings 3-1; the Charleston Shoe Thieves pulled it out over the Moab Hellmouth Sunbeams in another 3-1 game. I do hope that the Squid did not lose too much money on its bet on the Sunbeams.
Anyway – the Mexico City Wild Wings ended with a record of 78 to 12 – which might technically be edged out by the Philly Pies “losing” season 19 with -80 unwins, depending on if you think that season counts, but is for certain the best record in New Blaseball. They were the commanding favorites going into the finals.
1, 2, 3 Outs
Unsurprisingly, in the first game, the Charleston Shoe Thieves ran into a wall, ending in a 1-0 game for the Mexico City Wild Wings.
For the second game, Agent Alexandria Rosales pitched a shutout against the Wings’ Enid Slumps, with assistance from centerfielder Penelope Berkowitz’s incredibly fast legs on defense. I am happy to see that Alex’s still got it in them.
The third game was a Shoe Thieves victory – initially edged out by one run, though apparently they decided to play a victory lap in the bottom of the ninth just to rub it in and scored a couple more.
Getting Wet
During the last game the Wings’ Fletcher Peck got elbowdropped by Yusef Puddles.
This is notable because Fletcher Peck was the most valuable player in the entire Internet League. There is a statistical measurement from SIBR called “OPS+” which normalizes/scales OPS (on-base plus slugging) based on the rest of the league – which is to say, an average batter has 100 OPS+. On this scale, Fletcher Peck has 253. On the other hand, while we did not get enough at-bats to evaluate their performance statistically in any meaningful way, Yusef Puddles has 1.5 batting stars.
It is possible the Charleston Shoe Thieves could have won regardless, but the presence of Puddles definitely helped them clinch it.
Alas, the Blaseball main Discord no longer holds parade channels for the winners. Thus the Charleston Shoe Thieves have been rendered unable to win a parade; they are celebrating in other public channels instead.
Golden Record
The Thieves did, however, receive a very nice certificate from the Commissioner –
As ILB Commissioner and legal Notary, I hereby confer upon the Charleston Shoe Thieves the title of Season [1] Champion with a Golden Record of 65-25 and all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto!
(The Commissioner originally called it Season X but then immediately corrected himself.)
One might assume that the “Golden Record” in question is a reference to the ones on the Voyager space probes, but there is in fact another option:
In a certain type of recordkeeping, a “golden record” is the name for the master copy: which is to say, the single database that is assumed to hold the ultimate truth. While something like your average website might not care about such things, the existence of a golden record is necessary for things like business accounting or electronic health records, where the existence of two copies in disagreement is absolutely unacceptable.
Now here’s an interesting question. Why would the ILB need one of those?
Perhaps it has to do with how this season is being referred to as just “Season 1″… again. I think they might be trying to overwrite history.
Voting
The voting information from yesterday holds. However, I wish to draw your attention to Agent Deepest State’s visual version of the guide – his photoshop of the Spies Krispies box is immaculate.
I dearly hope that we do not receive too much splashback from whatever Decree passes. It is probably going to be the Book, because of the whole It Looks Like The Plot Button thing. Last time, opening the Book made player incineration a regular occurrence. This is probably going to happen again. We are probably going to cry.
I draw strength from knowing that we at least have solidarity with each other, even if nothing else is on our side.