Snedecor Baseball Mail League

History of the SBML

• How it all started
• Where the league and division names came from
• How the SBML has evolved over the years
• Franchise changes
• A look at the winners
• Top 20 season records
• Top 10 wildcard records
• Team records: 1978-2022

How the SBML Began

The origin of the idea that was to become the SBML came from the mind of Randy Carter in the early 1970s. While at San Diego State University, he, his wife and a friend made up a game where each of them would draft a team and then compare stats from the paper each morning to see who won. The formula that was used to compute runs scored was nothing fancy according to Randy. A couple of years later, Randy found himself sharing an office with Rick "Bird" Auer (one of the league's true founding fathers). Randy told Bird about his game and about his idea for modeling runs as a function of boxscore stats. Bird got really turned on by the idea and within a few weeks had computerized all the boxscore data from the previous summer and used it to develop a linear model that predicted runs scored given offensive game statistics that were readily available in published box scores. (The punch cards that contain the box score data used to develop the linear model still exist to this day!)

The result of all of this was the creation of the 10-team SBL (Snedecor Baseball League) which was started in the Iowa State University Statistics Department in 1976. Teams were drafted and a two month season was played using daily box scores to determine each team's score. The original draft sheet and schedule still exists and can be viewed here! Six of the nine original SBML owners participated in SBL in 1976. The other three came on board for the 1977 SBL season. All of this was prior to the onset of the "Fantasy" (or Rotisserie) Baseball craze of the 1980s. Unfortunately, as a group of Statistics majors, we didn't have the foresight to realize the market potential of the creation.

As 1978 was approaching, most members of the SBL were about to graduate but didn't want to give up the fun of playing in the SBL or lose touch with their SBL friends. They also thought that having team continuity from year to year with a restocking draft would be fun. (SBL involved a total redraft of players each year). Thus, the SBML (Snedecor Baseball Mail League) was born.

There were 9 owners interested in forming the league and Dick Dorsch volunteered (or was "drafted") to be commissioner. (An indication as to how strong the desire was to continue playing in a SBL-type of league is the fact that 7 of the 9 original owners are still with the league). A draft was held on January 28, 1978, rules were drawn up, and the league started play in April of 1978 with three 3-team divisions. Steve Johnson's Huxley Late Editions won the first SBML World Series over the league's top team during the regular season - Jeff David's Kodiak Bears - and became the first caretaker of the SBML championship trophy.

Where Did Those Names Come From?

The Snedecor Baseball Mail League was named after Snedecor Hall which houses the Iowa State University Statistics Department. Snedecor Hall was named after George Snedecor, a prominent statistician during the first half of the 20th century who founded the ISU Statistical Laboratory in 1933 (and later the Statistics Department).

The Eric Bondy Division was named after an Australian graduate student who was at Iowa State during the mid-to-late 1970s. Eric didn't know much (or care much) about baseball but we decided to "honor" him by naming one of our divisions after him.

The Neyman-Pearson Division was named after two prominent statisticians from the early 20th century who have an important statistical theorem named after them. How important is it? Let's just say that Statistical Hypothesis Testing would be much harder without it.

The R. A. Fisher Division was named after the father of modern classical statistics. His influence was extended at Iowa State by Oscar Kempthorne who studied under Yates who studied under Fisher. Almost no graduate student over a 40+ year period escaped Kempthorne's Design of Experiments course without having some understanding of what Fisher had in mind.

The SBML Over the Years

After the 1978 season, three teams were added to the SBML: The Mayo Neighs (managed by Mark Scott, who was also an original SBL owner), the Barry Team (managed by Barry Simon) and the Western Hemisphere (managed by Harold Ridpath). Both Mark and Barry soon left, but Harold and his Western Hemisphere made an immediate impact by winning the first of his eighteen division titles before losing in the World Series to Carolina.

The first five years (1978-1982) saw good competitive balance in the SBML with 11 of the 12 teams winning at least one division title and five different World Series winners. The most successful team of that era was the Bangor Bats with two division championships, two wild-card wins, two World Series appearences and one SBML title.

The next five years (1983-1987) were dominated by three teams although there, again, were five different World Series winners during that time. The Carolina Bluebirds won their first of a then-record 4 consecutive Fisher division championships in 1983 and also became the first two-time SBML champion. Western won 4 of 5 Bondy division shampionships during this time and beat Carolina in the 1984 World Series for their first SBML championship. Augusta won 3 Neyman-Pearson division titles plus had a wild card appearence. They finally won their first SBML title in 1987. The dominance of these three teams was interrupted by the first two wild card teams to win the SBML World series - Bangor in 1985 and Eugene in 1986.

The following five years (1988-1992) was dominated by one team - the Dundas Derilicts. Dundas won 4 of 5 Fisher division titles and made three World Series appearences, winning it all in 1989 and 1992. Bangor became the first team to win 3 SBML titles in 1991 by beating Western.

Since 1993, the Western Hemisphere has been the class of the league. Going into 2006 they had been in the playoffs 12 of 13 years with 10 division titles and 5 SBML championships. In 1999, they won a record 6th consecutive division title by topping the Bondy division. Western's dominance in recent years has been broken by the once-lowly Lake Charles Gumbo which achieved a feat not even Western was able to accomplish.  By winning the SBML championship in 2003, 2004 and 2005, Lake Charles became the only team to ever win three consecutive SBML championships and the only wild card team to win it twice.

Several small rule changes have been made over time. Originally, the only days that SBML games were scheduled were on days that all 26 (at the time) major league teams were scheduled to play. This rule plus the fact that an odd number of teams meant an off day for someone limited the league to a short 72 game schedule in 1978. The rule was changed after the 1980 season to allow for games to be scheduled as long as 24 of the 26 teams were scheduled. In 1991 the rule was changed again to allow games to be played as long as 24 of the 28 teams were playing. With expansion in 1998, games are scheduled if 26 of the 30 teams are playing. This has permitted the schedule to be expanded to its current 115-118 games.

In the early 1980s the owners decided to randomly reassign teams to divisions every 5 years. The divisions were realigned first after the 1982 season with subsequent realignments after 1987, 1992, 1997, 2002 and 2007. Starting with the 2013 season, there will be annual reassignments based on where teams finish in the division.

Another change in 1981 introduced the concept of extra innings which eliminated extremely close (within .25 runs) results.

Advancing technology allowed two very welcome changes during the 1990s.  The first was the introduction of e-mail to the SBML in the mid 1990s. This allowed Dick Dorsch to give updates after every 3 or 4 games in addition to his monthly mail updates and has almost totally eliminated the need for postal mail.  The second was the development of the SBML web site by Jeff David in 1998.  This has allowed for owners to view results and standings the morning after scheduled games and has provided a useful archive of league records.  One interesting thing to note is that since the introduction of the web site there has been no turnover in ownership.  This has been the longest the league has ever gone without a change in ownership.

©2011-2013 Jeffrey L. David

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Established 1978