IBC

Hey guys,

You may recall that in the past I've posted about the Home Run Pool, a long-time annual contest where you pick one player from 4 pre-established lists and three "at-large" players not on any of the lists, hoping to have the highest HR total at the end of the year.

Long story short: two years ago, one of the main founders of this 30+ year-old pool died. He was the guy who used some program to tabulate totals/upload to the website. None of his friends (guys in their 60s) know anything about how to replicate his work via technology. So, the website lapsed, entries dipped to about 100 and they charged $25 an entry instead of $5 an entry, but still managed a $1,000 top prize. It's now circulated via email and totals calculated by a guy who runs it on paper and sends maybe twice a year updates.

So, two things. One, if you are interested in entering, I can email you the list, so let me know. Two, I'm working with the great Shawn Walsh on returning the HR Pool to an online home in hopes of boosting it back to what it was. If you've entered before, you know it's fun to check to see how well you're doing, especially if you're in it at the end. Jake Levine has won it; JB and I have both had top 5 finishes.

I'm in if you guys get it online. I didn't even know it still happened last year.

Tigers wrote:Hey guys,

You may recall that in the past I've posted about the Home Run Pool, a long-time annual contest where you pick one player from 4 pre-established lists and three "at-large" players not on any of the lists, hoping to have the highest HR total at the end of the year.

Long story short: two years ago, one of the main founders of this 30+ year-old pool died. He was the guy who used some program to tabulate totals/upload to the website. None of his friends (guys in their 60s) know anything about how to replicate his work via technology. So, the website lapsed, entries dipped to about 100 and they charged $25 an entry instead of $5 an entry, but still managed a $1,000 top prize. It's now circulated via email and totals calculated by a guy who runs it on paper and sends maybe twice a year updates.

So, two things. One, if you are interested in entering, I can email you the list, so let me know. Two, I'm working with the great Shawn Walsh on returning the HR Pool to an online home in hopes of boosting it back to what it was. If you've entered before, you know it's fun to check to see how well you're doing, especially if you're in it at the end. Jake Levine has won it; JB and I have both had top 5 finishes.

Awesome, I had a lot of fun doing it the one year I did. It would be really cool to restore it to its former glory. Can you send me the list?

Phillies wrote:I'm in if you guys get it online. I didn't even know it still happened last year.

Yeah, they were kind of rushing to get it done without a website and I didn't do it, so didn't bother to promote it. They were honestly frazzled to set it up and it seemed pretty shaky. They still did it and had an ok turnout.

Rockies wrote:

Tigers wrote:Hey guys,

You may recall that in the past I've posted about the Home Run Pool, a long-time annual contest where you pick one player from 4 pre-established lists and three "at-large" players not on any of the lists, hoping to have the highest HR total at the end of the year.

Long story short: two years ago, one of the main founders of this 30+ year-old pool died. He was the guy who used some program to tabulate totals/upload to the website. None of his friends (guys in their 60s) know anything about how to replicate his work via technology. So, the website lapsed, entries dipped to about 100 and they charged $25 an entry instead of $5 an entry, but still managed a $1,000 top prize. It's now circulated via email and totals calculated by a guy who runs it on paper and sends maybe twice a year updates.

So, two things. One, if you are interested in entering, I can email you the list, so let me know. Two, I'm working with the great Shawn Walsh on returning the HR Pool to an online home in hopes of boosting it back to what it was. If you've entered before, you know it's fun to check to see how well you're doing, especially if you're in it at the end. Jake Levine has won it; JB and I have both had top 5 finishes.

Awesome, I had a lot of fun doing it the one year I did. It would be really cool to restore it to its former glory. Can you send me the list?

Sent

I'll check it out.

Phillies wrote:I'm in if you guys get it online. I didn't even know it still happened last year.

Same.

I'm down, I've kept meaning to enter over the years

Hey guys,

With the help of our great IBC Webmaster Shawn, it appears we will have the HR Pool online again this year. I have set up a basic blog:

https://thehomerunpool.wordpress.com

Once people submit their sheets via snail mail to the Commish, he can get them to me and with some help from Shawn, we'll have the leader board set up to pull HR totals daily. We already have the spreadsheet set up for players on lists A through D. I'll just need to add the at-larges once lists are entered.

Hoping that by next year sheets can be submitted directly online (and perhaps entry fee directly online). Depends on the comfort level of the commish. The site is basic, but it will do for now. If you were worried about participating without the benefit of a site, I think we've solved that. We should have it up not long into the start of the season.

Okay, so where is the download to the list of choices?

Added to the homepage

Just wanted to take a moment to give a shout out to Shawn, for putting in after-hours work to assist with the HR Pool site. The leaderboard, which was having issues loading with different methods we were trying to pull data, is now almost instant. Shawn had the good idea to pull data from a table created on fangraphs.

https://thehomerunpool.wordpress.com/leaderboard/

Sadly, JB and I are the only IBCers, but I hope more of you show up next year.

Kinda slipped my mind, sadly. I'll be back next year.