Gordon Edes, columnist for the Boston Globe, has won the 2000 Baseball Predicts by 13 points over Tony Chase and Scott Van Camp. Gordon was 18th at the All-Star Break and waited until the day after Labor Day to climb into the lead. He and Tony Chase (2) traded the lead until mid-September and then Gordon began to pull away from the pack. His 13 point lead at the end was the biggest lead that any player held all season.

There were eleven different leaders this year, the same as 1999, and 30 lead changes. Bob Thomas (44) was the leader when the standings were first completed in mid-April. Gary Shinabarger (123), Peter Gammons (17t) and Spring Training BB Yearbook (16) were among the early leaders. Gerry Hamilton (9) was the leader at the ASB and held the lead until the Giants finally got rolling in late August. Dan Schlossberg (11t), Tony Chase, Mel Antonen (11t), Darin Slocum (7) and Gene Scearce (4) also held or shared the lead during the Summer. The standings were run 83 times this season. Gerry Hamilton led 24 times, Tony Chase led twelve times and Gordon Edes led ten times. There were twelve other players that also appeared on the leader board (top 3), most of them during the early going.

Division Leaders: Below is a list of the top picks in each division. There were 46 correct division scores this season, 43 in the AL East, down from 125 correct division picks last year. No one had more than one division correct. Thirteen players made the list twice.

AL East			AL Central			AL West			NL East			HR Central			NL West
GORDON EDES	0		WILL SIDES	0		Scott Van Camp	1		Bill Perry	4		Brian Ronholm	8		BRIAN RONHOLM	0
TONY CHASE	0		Tim Carvalho	4		Gene Scearce	1		Brian Peters	4		Tony Chase	16		NANCY MICHAEL	0
DARIN SLOCUM	0		Spr Trng Res	4		Gerry Hamilton	1		Stephen Sears	4		Gene Scearce	16		Gordon Edes	2
GERRY HAMILTON	0		Dan Demangos	4		Street & Smith	18		Gary Shinabarger	25		Darin Slocum	16		Sean McAdam	2
ATHLON SPORTS	0					Brit Harvey	19		Larry Palomino	27		David Dial	16		Athlon Sports	2
DAVID DIAL	0											Jim A. Slagle	16		Dan Schlossberg	2
TIM CARVALHO	0		29 players @	10		20 players tied @	22		83 players tied @	29		Gerry Fraley	16		Gerry Fraley	2
HARRY CAULKINS	0								youcouldlookthisuptoo			Ken Daley	16		Randy Lang	2
JAMES ROVER	0											David Cusiter	16		Tony DeMarco	2
BRIAN PETERS	0											Harry Caulkins	16		Hal Berger	2
												Bob Thomas	16		Jack Hauck	2
and 33 more players @	0														David Flowers	2
youcouldlookitup															James Rover	2
															Jackie Dawson	2

Tie breaker: The TB represents the points accumulated by each player's six projected division winners. Brian Ronholm (10) and Anthony Chase (88) had the best TB- 5.0 points, missing on only the Indians in the AL Central. Five others had a TB of 5.5 points, missing on the Indians and the Mariners. The TB served us very well this year, breaking 92% of our ties and leaving us with just four ties involving nine players.

Keys: The following is a list of the keys (10 pts or more) to our individual performance this year. Caps indicate positive or good keys, while lower case indicate negative of bad keys. The approximate value is the amount of points saved on or added to our scores. To determine the importance and value of of each key, look at the final standings (above) and find the significant gaps, for example, in the AL East, Toronto finished nine games ahead of Baltimore. Then compare the keys to the consensus.

Most of the keys were worth about twenty points this year while some of the bigger values like the White Sox, and the Marlins were not factors. Philadelphia and Detroit were factors in the early going but not at the end. Two other teams, the Cubs and Devil Rays were a factor but contributed less that ten points each.


Cum Stats: Dudley Michael (122) of Brea, CA, continues to be the top Cum predictor with an eight year cum average of 21.7% and a narrow 0.36% lead over Darin Slocum of Chino, CA. This is the first bad year that Dudley has had since he started predicting in 1993. Darin Slocum is the new top veteran (ten years or more) player with a ten year average of 22.08%, taking over from Gerry Hamilton (9) who has led the veteran players since 1995. Gerry has improved on his cum avg% for nine straight years including this year but it wasn't good enough to hold off Darin.

Top 10- three years or more					Top 10- ten years or more
Top 10	Location	Yrs	Cum%		Top ten	Location	Yrs	Cum%	Rank
Dudley Michael	Brea, CA	8	21.72		Darin Slocum	Chino, CA	10	22.08	2
Darin Slocum	Chino, CA	10	22.08		Gerry Hamilton	Baywood Park, CA	23	24.57	4
Orange County Register		5	24.54		Player Consensus		36	33.84	11
Gerry Hamilton	Baywood Park, CA	23	24.57		Harry Caulkins	La Mirada, CA	21	34.88	14
Ken Daley	Dallas Morn News	5	26.82		Nelson Slagle	Westminster, CA	41	35.56	16
Spring Traiming Annual		8	27.42		LA Times		20	36.00	17
USA Today BB Wkly		6	27.64		John Baker	Upper Arlington, OH	27	36.75	19
Glantz & Culver	odds	3	27.66		John Kehrbaum	Pasadena, CA	13	36.88	20
David Dial	Brea, CA	3	29.38		TSN Annual		23	37.55	21
Tim Moore	Long Beach, CA	6	33.83		Bill Mazeroski Ann		16	37.78	22

Credits/Kudos: I'd like to offer my thanks to those who contributed to this year's game. Randy Lang was the top contributor submitting 16 picks. Anthony Chase submitted this year's winning pick along with two others from the Boston Globe. Too bad he didn't think to put his own name on it. I would also like to thank Nelson, Gary S., Brock, Warren and Mike K for their special consideration. The following are some of the others who also contributed:

And finally, a few closing thoughts. Over the past several years, our game has experienced only small and very subtle changes, and until this year it has looked and functioned pretty much as it has since it was first mechanized in 1986. That all changed in the year 2000 though, as the game went on-line and this year it was played on the internet for the first time. By April my baseball e-mail list swelled to over 80 names and about 100 players soon had access to weekly standings. Then on August 11th, the Web site finally came on-line and soon after, even a few pictures became available. If fact, to the best of my knowledge, only twelve regular players did not have access to the internet and on-line game status.

From this end it has been a struggle at times, as many of you must have realized. I have had to learn a new and sometimes balky computer as well as several new applications. Things work much differently now, and not always better, than they did when I acquired my first computer, nearly 15 years ago. I'm still learning, even as I work on this document, and hopefully, I will get a little better at this by the next time around. I'd like to especially thank those who took the time to offer their support and suggestions via e-mail. In all, I have heard from over 60 players and about 30 have taken the time to comment in the Web site. I've even made contact with a couple of professional folks, including the President of a company that designs baseball games for the computer. I'd like to think that I made a few new friends this year.

Sadly, I also lost one as Tony Chase passed away at his home on August 13th. Tony won our game in 1986 and was a loyal supporter of the game for the last 17 years. He was responsible for bringing several new players into the game, including his son, Anthony, of Boston. During the summer, Tony and I had a continuing, sometimes daily exchange of e-mail messages. It was always about baseball and it was a pleasure to hear from him. I shall miss Tony very much.

Until next spring,

ggh oct7