Season Finish in the Major League

 While Baltimore and Hawaii had the top spots in the league wrapped up long ago, there was some drama for the last few wild card spots. Bay Area was locked into third place in the west, but had a chance to claim a wild card spot over east contenders New York and Toronto. The schedule makers obliged, and their final 7 games came against New York and Toronto.

They won the first but dropped the next 2 to New York in extra innings. The 4th game of the series was a matchup of aces Anthony Henderson and Carson Olsen. New York took the lead with back to back homers in the 4th by Joe Thomas Jr and Roberto Vargas and held on for a 3-1 win.

The win ended Bay Area’s playoff run as they could finish at best one game behind Toronto and tie New York, but NY held the tiebreaker. This season will end the run of one of OOTP’s greatest competitors, Miguel Cruz. His career began 23 years ago as a teenage shortstop. His first manager was Brad, now the owner of the team on the other side of the field. Brad and Miguel embraced before the final game, with Brad calling him “one of the finest ballplayers I’ve ever managed or played against. People will remember the homers and RBI. I will always remember how he took his cannon arm from shortstop and turned into a weapon at first base.”

Playing a meaningless game against Toronto on the final day of the season, Cruz was 0 for 3 in his first 3 trips to the plate. In the 5th inning he came up with 2 outs and the bases loaded. He lined a single to right, driving in two runs. He then left the game for a pinch runner and walked off the field to a standing ovation. Over the last 15 years, Cruz became the face of Bay Area baseball and led his team to championships in 2015 and 2023.