*Will the real Jabs please stand up?

[Jabs]

Well, I seem to have found myself in another sim league. Over the past 3.5 IRL years, I’ve shifted back and forth from moods of “oh, PBE is really fun, I wonder if there’s anything else out there” to “this is a cool league and all but I don’t really care about [insert sport here]”. The question on everyone’s mind as Wae Traynes plays through his first dev league season with an eye towards the ISFL draft is which Jabs will show up in this league?

So let’s review my sim league involvement until this point.

March 2012, I join MLB Pro and take over my childhood favorite Chicago Cubs. This isn’t a true “sim league” but rather a traditional OOTP league that I have been in ever since. 10 seasons, 10 IRL years of lineups, trades, waiver claims, waiting out the offseason, and I have 1 postseason game to show for it.

January 2019, I sign up for the Pro Baseball Experience off the Oakland A’s subreddit. Within a few days I am drafted to the Florida Space Rangers and the rest is history. It’s a new concept for me and I’m hooked. I fall in love with the media section of the site, writing about my player and the league as a whole. My SP J.A. Jabs goes on to win 150 games and make the Hall of Fame although I never get to experience winning a championship. In advance of my recreate, in December 2020 I write a 33,750 word media origin story about Booze Gooser. Off the field, I become involved in minor league management, found the Brew City Bears, create and run weekly minor league games in the casino, and become a voting member of the Hall of Fame committee. The expansion team Seattle Sea Serpents win the World Series and the following year Booze Gooser becomes the all-time single-season leader in Strikeouts.

Wow, this Jabs guy seems like a pretty great pick, huh? Maybe not. Let’s continue the timelines.

September 2019, I am recruited to the Simulation Hockey League. I create Mike Hroch, a large man who plays goalie by covering the net with his enormous body. My build is part meme as I max out the Size rating to 99. I write some media to stay afloat, link some PBE affiliate tasks when I remember, and get some help from @hotdog on earning and navigating the forum. (It feels much different from Jcink.) Long before I win a PBE ring, Mike Hroch takes home the title with the junior league Carolina Kraken. I get to play as a backup under Hotdog on the New England Wolfpack and become an inaugural expansion draft member of the Atlanta Inferno. My goal is to become the best backup goalie the league has ever seen, but the index is such a far step down from PBE’s that I never truly get to know my stats. I’ve watched maybe 4-5 hockey games in my life (all in person - shoutout Milwaukee Admirals and San Jose Sharks!), and I fail to connect on a deeper level with the league. In August 2021, I retire from the league after Hotdog no longer needs me. Mike Hroch is in debt and I still don’t know my status amongst the greatest backup goalies in SHL history.

October 2020, I join the Super Casual Football Sim League which is run by a well-known member of the PBE community and my Crabs teammate, tlk. The league takes place in Discord but does utilize a spreadsheet for updating, which I really enjoy. I add some flourish to my section of the spreadsheet that gets props from the Commissioner. My player is Scooby Wright III, a linebacker who played in the XFL on the DC Defenders. A few close friends and I discovered the XFL many moons earlier during a bachelor party. We were enjoying some adult beverages and found ourselves at the sportsbook, pounding the under on this crazy new league that just broke out. We will return to Vegas in 2023 or 2024 or whenever The Rock gets the XFL back up and running. Anyway, part of your TPE earning is tied to a contract, and then there’s an activity check, and that’s pretty much it for the league. SCFSL is probably my second favorite league because the sim engine looks nice, the earning is easy, and it still brings the locker room camaraderie I enjoy. Football is slightly more interesting to me than hockey although I’m not truly a fan. I enjoy playing Madden (I won $300+ in a Madden tournament back in 2014), I’ll tune into the XFL whenever it returns, but I’ve only been to a preseason Packers-Raiders game and otherwise only watch in social settings. I enjoy my time in the league but in May 2021 the superteam I was a part of dissolves and I retire from the league.

November 2020, somewhere I see a post about Big Head Baseball. I am not able to provide any links in this part of the history books because there are no links - it is my second foray into a Discord-only league. I love playing Super Mega Baseball, which is the sim engine this league uses. It is more visually pleasing to watch the streams than SHL which intrigues me. In the PBE, I am finishing up a pitcher and getting ready to recreate as a pitcher, but I have always wanted to try a batter. I see BHB as a low-stakes opportunity to try and create as a batter. Thus: outfielder Reed Johnson is born. It is fun watching a few streams, but the earning/updating part through Discord seems clunky. The league feels relatively new and rules keep changing. They make an announcement allowing multiple players, which seemed like a fun idea, but then kind of broke it for me. At the same time they change the TPE update structure and I lose interest. I am out of BHB by December 2020.

August 2021, I keep hearing about this unique league from some of my PBE minors players and end up creating in the Virtual Hockey League. I decide to bring Mike Hroch over from the SHL and continue his story. There are some unique things about VHL that I wanted to check out, including a web tool for updating your player, the ability to opt-in to a particular minor league team, and Press Conference questions that prompt short writing replies for TPE. For whatever reason, it just doesn’t stick. I end up on a team where I don’t know anyone, and I’m in so many other servers that I don’t spend much time to get to know anyone, unfortunately. I am redrafted after waivers to a new team which I dislike and I am out of the VHL by September 2021.

February 2022, in the months prior I had heard about a new sim league on the block, but wanted to wait to join the World Simulation Basketball League until a little later. There are rumors that a new minor league will be introduced in a few months. I am super into the minors at the moment and think it would be fun to join a minor league from Day 1. I debate creating later, but decide to create Mark Brendanawicz the day after my 30th birthday. Basketball is my second favorite sport, although it is a distant second to baseball. I enjoy going to games - I used to get cheap tickets to the Milwaukee Bucks, and even became a Season Ticket Holder for a year back when Giannis was first coming up. My plan in WSBL is to learn the rope and earn a bit of cash with Brendanawicz, but not spend it, and ultimately retire and recreate with my true player Tropicana Hellmans as soon as the dev league is announced. I write some media, but get dinged for it, saying it’s too off topic and I won’t be paid in full for it. This puts a real bad taste in my mouth as writing and reading varied media is one of my favorite parts of sim leagues. Who knows, maybe I don’t know the culture of ISFL yet and will get similarly told to piss off by this league’s media grader. Anyway, I brush it off, and get drafted the the Philadelphia Lightning, which, oh look! It’s full of a bunch of my PBE friends. Which is cool, until you realize it’s not, because WSBL is everyone’s second priority. I really wanted to unbank my 123 TPE and contribute from the bench, but my friend Phillies and I were never able to connect on a build, and Marky B is currently a free agent after I go inactive in May 2022. I just posted on the site for the first time in a while to see if anyone needs a bench player, but we’ll see.

June 2022, I get that sim league itch again, and find myself joining the International Simulation Football League. A day later Wae Traynes is on the London Royals and starting my latest foray into a non-baseball sim league. I find a familiar face in Hotdog and @Gordon Bombay and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know @Seb, @Alikh, @Twenty6, and my other teammates. I have been up-front with everyone so far that this is my second priority, I am not sure how much I’ll engage in the locker room, but will try and help out and earn where I can. I don’t feel like I’m max earning right now but somehow after just a few weeks I’m already at 131 TPE. I enjoy the tiered rookie tasks, the predictions seem easy and fun although I question the short window we have for them, and popping into the Royals locker room once a day is a treat.



Now, all of this background and context leads back to that question first posed at the beginning of the article - which version of Jabs has joined the ISFL?

Is it the PBE version? The one who fully dives in, gets obsessed, applies for jobs, and considers the league one of his top hobbies? Probably not.

Is it the VHL version? The one who quickly goes inactive and never returns? I don’t think so, I know it’s only been a few weeks but I feel like I’ve crossed that bar already.

Is it the SHL version? The casual earner who helps when he is reminded, and perhaps becomes a solid bench player? Perhaps, but time will tell.

I look forward to the journey with all of you.

Code:

1,772 words. Plus, look at that dope chart! I hear cool graders give big bonuses to people who use charts.

[Jaywe88]

I play against him sometimes!

[Net]

Welcome Jabs! Didn’t know you were in so many leagues, thought you were a pbe only guy

[Twenty6]

Thrilled to have you on the team!

[C9Van]

I love you Jabs

[g2019]

Jabs goat

[Jabs]

Welcome Jabs! Didn’t know you were in so many leagues, thought you were a pbe only guy

I pretty much am, unfortunately I haven't been able to stick in many other leagues