In one form or another, Nostalgia Sim Baseball has been around for ten years now, so I thought I'd reflect a bit on our game's past and share some thoughts about it's present state.

The early days were full of excitement as we pioneered a new concept for sim baseball. They were hard days, too. As commissioner, I took forms submitted by my colleagues and recorded their changes for the week. I say "for the week" because in those days we had only one league. It ran on Friday afternoons in my office, where 10-12 people crowded into my office to watch the simulator run games in real time. We joked. We ate. We watched the agony of crucial losses and the ecstasy of timely wins. It was a great community-building experience. I can truly say that the game brought together people who otherwise may never have shared an experience together, students and professors, professors and administrators.

In 2005, my colleague Barth Campbell, an original owner in our game, died of melanoma cancer. I started thinking how I might honor his memory and decided to name the original league after him. That led to the idea of different leagues, each with its own identity, Campbell, Cooperstown, Doubleday . . . and on it went. New leagues were introduced slowly, mostly because NSB was a hobby for me and I didn't have money to advertise. Several of our current owners will remember "Dr. Campbell" and the personal touch he brought to our interactions with him. He owned a team named the "Superbas," and though he loved to watch games in my office, he frequently missed them because he was devoting himself sacrificially to his students.   

Barth taught me that the personal touch should always be present in NSB. In many ways things have changed. Our owners come from all over the world. Still we are not many. What happens from here I can't say. Perhaps we'll grow considerably, perhaps not. What I do know is that I will always like to think of us as the NB family. Baseball, after all, is a family game. When I was fourteen, the awkwardness of my adolescence combined with what seemed to me the awkwardness of my father's parenting. We had differences and I often withdrew. But I never hesitated to ask him to "throw some" in the backyard. That experience was a healing one between father and son.

In a similar way, NSB brings family together today--husbands and wives, fathers and sons, brothers to brothers. I hope it is always so. In notable ways the web promotes distance and seclusion from each other even while it invites openness and relationships. I trust that we will continue to use our common love of the game for good, for better community. 

Recently, we have benefited from the expertise of Kevin (Wolf) Kuhlemeier, who has helped us toward the aim of a vital online community by working to bring us this new website. If you have the chance, please thank Kevin for the excellent and important work he is doing. His investment gives NSB the chance to garner a wider user-base. We have more work to do, but I am confident that we'll have a more robust web presence in days to come as the site evolves. As always, you the owner play a leading role in bringing new features to the game. So, feel free to contact us with your ideas. I will do my best to grow our owner base, and I ask you to partner with me to help keep our 'personal touch'.   

Craig Slane, NSB Commissioner