King of the Hill

BoxScores and Diamond Locations

Moncayo — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 19:43:00 GMT

Here we grow again. The RHMRBL WebSite has taken the next step forward. We now offer box scores for games as well as venue locations on a Google Map. Both of these are possible by utilizing a niftly little window control called prettyPhoto (http://www.no-margin-for-errors.com/projects/prettyphoto-jquery-lightbox-clone/), it's versatile, really easy to use and we will be expanding our gallery with it very shortly.

Implementation of the Location Window: We have entered every venue location (lat / long) into our ever growing database and we can show the players the diamonds or venue for the event. This will become more important as the league grows and we need to examine newer venues for games. From there I am using the Google Maps API to create a map, show the marker as well as display a window showing what it is. I was able to get this up and running in about 1 hour with the help of SvennerBlog's Google API Basics (aptly named) (http://www.svennerberg.com/2009/06/google-maps-api-3-the-basics/).

Implementation of the Box Score Window: We have individual game data going back from 2005 onward. From there we extract the hitting / pitching information and display it. This is really great because we also support deeplinking which means the ability to link directly to a certain game through this interface, so you can see Dan Colatosti's 6 hit game in the 2005 Season Opener (http://rhmrbl.com/teams/8.aspx#!prettyPhoto/0/) or Kerny's 10K Complete game (http://rhmrbl.com/teams/10.aspx#!prettyPhoto/31/) or even Waylen's 14K shutout in the Astros 2010 season opener (http://rhmrbl.com/teams/103.aspx#!prettyPhoto/3/). This new interface gives us the membership a great record of games past.

Upcoming 2011 Season

Moncayo — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 15:47:00 GMT

With a little over a week until the 2011 RHMRBL draft, there are has been a lot of work already completed for this upcoming season. We have launched the new site, we have launched a store. Next on my list of "nice things for the members" is an iPhone / Android friendly mobile site using a framework called Sencha Touch. Ryan has been very busy making sure that this league will grow by expanding events and giving more to it's members in ways we haven't been able to do before.

We've secured many sponsors this year and have our teams ready:

Blue Jays - DAGR
Brewers - Industralite
Pirates - Blue Star Painting
Athletics - Tom & Jerry's Bar
Reds - Superior Tire
Orioles - Home Run Sports
League - Nuance Group
Events - Abruzzo Pizza (I know - Abruzzo Pizza! Way to go Marv)
Events - Wild Wing
Events - Amsterdam Beer

Thanks to Marv, Jordan and Ryan for all their hard work securing these sponsors.

Next up - Rookie night!

Holy hitless Batman!

Moncayo — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 15:30:00 GMT

In this very young season, we've seen the domination of pitchers carry teams to victory. The league average is at an all time low .360. (see league stats here) The 6 captains are coming out and doing what they do, pitching their teams to wins. This IS what they wanted. Hoepfully as the summer heats up so will the bats. I mean, it's a hitters league, isn't it?

RHMRBL v3.0 coming soon to a screen near you....

Moncayo — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:27:00 GMT

During the off season, I've been very busy working on a new theme as well as upgrading some processes. We now have a "SERIOUS" online registration form, as well as our rookie form. Registration can now be handled almost all through the system, as well as having the ability to contact our members (and future members via the rookie form). I very much like where we are headed in terms of a paperless system. The new theme is more community oriented, logged in users will be able to see their items on the home page: Current Average - Next Game - Previous Game...we may even incorporate some more "live stat" features, these will need to be evaluated.

Here is the current view of the new site as of Feb 16th:

I should have the theme and functionality ready in time for Draft day.

We'll need to match up your username to your user profile, so you can use the contact us page and we can do that for you.

Cheers,

RHMRBL Mobile-O-Rama

Moncayo — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:22:00 GMT

If you haven't checked it out, we have a mobile site.

http://m.rhmrbl.com

This site is optimized for use on wireless devices (blackberry / iphone). It's got what I think are features that you need when you're on the go. Standings, Schedule and Latest Article on the main page, link to a full schedule as well as a link to the team pages so you can have a look at stats, all with very light page weight.

What this site also provides is a function I created called mobile score reporting. The way it works right now, each team will receive a pin in which they can send a score update. Once submitted, an email gets sent to a couple of executive members who have the option of confirming this score which updates the standings as well as the information entered. This has been neat updating games at the park so we are able to have near instant updates.

Are there any other things you'd like to see in this mobile site or the main RHMRBL site for that matter. I'm always about evolving the site and making it better, if you haven't seen the pitching stats check them out we now have 18 pitching stats categories. A good site gives back to its members by providing value in functionality (stats / schedule) and in content (forums / blogs), as well as attracting new members. I think most of our rookies over the past year were click throughs to the site, meaning that all the work is paying off.

So enjoy everyone.

Cheers,

New for 2009 Commemorative Logo

Moncayo — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:10:00 GMT

I'm currently working on getting us a super stylized logo for 2009. This is part of the many exciting things I'll be bringing to the RHMRBL Website this year. In my first blog post I said "This year I've decided to launch League Super Site v2.0 for RHMRBL. It does a lot of things the old site does: manage games / players / stats / scheduler / emailer / etc. Mostly this is a cosmetic update. But some new features will be emerging. I promise."

Things in the back of the house which are making the lives of everyone on the executive easier are these:

ability to add attachments to league emails
rookie list / email form
registration page (see which users are registered)
sponsorship page
content editing page (dynamically create pages like about us / hall of fame)
widget administrator (ability to add / remove home page widgets)

I delivered on my promise, but really the only additions which were noticeable for the users are these:

images for front page article
images for players
images for teams on team page
online rookie form
Event Day Calendar Widget (Opening Season Day Counter)
Events Widget (Separate from games for upcoming events)
updated front page layout

That being said, are there still any outstanding issues or items you'd like to see on our website? Drop me a line by using the contact form on our webpage.

Up Next - Open Registration. See you there.

Cheers,

Do You Measure Up?

Moncayo — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:29:00 GMT

Like most of us, I'm curious to see how I stack up against the big boys in various offensive categories. The Records page is nice because it shows the top ten players at the categories, but it doesn't show everyone. Well, now you can. The Career Hitting Page is up. Go have a look, some of the numbers the big boys have accumulated are staggering. Dan Colatosti will hit the 1100 Plate Appearances Mark this year. Leitch could hit the 40 HR club, he hit his first last night. Maybe he can come up with 3 more and do it. Jordan Levy could reach the 100 hit club. And there are a whack of players who will reach the 200 game mark this year.

Definitely an interesting page, and you can double the fun by checking out the league hitting statistics page. This is an idea Berridge came up with a while ago, and I have finally put it into action. It shows the totals from all the years so you can see it, in a grid. I'm sure we'll have some charts showing this real soon. League Stats

Toight Like A Toiger

Moncayo — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:42:00 GMT

Has anyone seen the standings recently? Second through Fifth is separated by 1 points. This is very tight. As tight as I've seen in a while. I believe 2 years ago, there would have been a three way tie second through fourth. But it never ended up happening. I said it earlier, and I hate to say I told you so...so I wont. I'm just enjoying the parity that exists.

Things Are Starting To Heat Up

Moncayo — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:53:00 GMT

Well, we're in the first week of July and our first stats update is in. Round of applause to Rick for getting on that early. Please keep the sheets coming in so we can update as frequently as possible.

As the summer has finally started to kick in, the nights have been getting hotter and so has the play of the league. I'm very impressed as the teams seem to be really balanced, most games have playoff atmosphere in them, because they are really tight, with most of the games being separated by 4 runs or less. This is the best baseball being played in this league since my first year in 2003. (And I'm not just saying that because I picked one of the teams) I don't remember the pitching being better or more spread out as it is this year. Every team has at least two great arms they can throw at you at any given time, which makes weekends that much harder as a hitter. Excellent example: we played the Padres last weekend in a back to back Thurs/Fri. Waylen pitched a hell of a game Thursday in a win and Miranda held us to 1 run before pulling his hamstring and having to come out of the game in the 5th inning. Both games were decided by 4 runs or less.

So as we approach the mid point of the season what are your opinions of the baseball being played? Do you think it will get tighter as we move down into the home stretch? If the baseball is this good now, what will the playoffs be like?

Stay tuned, I believe the best is still yet to come.

Here We GROW Again

Moncayo — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:09:00 GMT

Over the last few months, the rhmrbl site has seen some major changes. We've added a new domain name (myrhmrbl.com), new look and a new interface through the Community Server 2007 product. Well Telligent has officially released their new CS 2008 product and I migrated most of the changes over the last weekend. Because the interface is a totally new one from the previous version lots of work needed to be done to get it back to what it was previously. Still more changes are coming. Personally I like upgrading software / hardware. Being from an IT background I have become very used to this process. But you know what they say "Mo' Upgrades, Mo' Problems". So if there are any outages I apologize, I'm doing my best to get this all ready for the season opener.

Cheers and I hope you guys enjoy it.

Moncayo.

Let the Madness Begin

Moncayo — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:06:00 GMT

Really, is there a better time of year than late March? You have Baseball ramping up, NHL and NBA have playoff races starting, and you might possibly have the best yearly tournament in the world NCAA Division I Men's Basketball National Championship or March Madness. Before I get lambasted by people saying UEFA Champions League is the best tournament in the world, one thing that sets them apart. Champions League takes place over 4 months, and it is Professional Teams / Players, which personally sets it apart from March Madness because you have 63 games played within 1 month and these are AMATEURS!

There is something about NCAA Basketball which appeals to me and that is the purity of the game. The majority of the players will not make it to the NBA (they will be accountants, ad execs, farmers - I don't know what they study at those schools in the heartland) and the ones who will make it know that this is the stage for them to get paid. Over the last couple of years, I've seen some of these players make the transition, and the way they handle the pressure of the tournament usually says what kind of player they are, and if they will be able to effectively make that jump. Perfect example: Chris Paul. His final year at Wake Forest in 2005 was something to behold. He was fast and a good distributor, definitely above the rest of the players, with his help, he was able to take them to the Sweet Sixteen that year.

Teams without the big stars like Paul play great team basketball. We all know about Cinderella, and this is the ball. We had a chance to witness a great storyline two years ago when George Mason #11 seed shocked everyone by making it to the Final Four first by taking out my boys Michigan St. #6, North Carolina #3 and Wichita #7 (who in their own right upset Tennesee #2) then finally taking UConn #1 in a barn burner 66-64 in OT. There really is something for everyone.

The first two weekends make for some long nights, a bunch of my friends we all get together and watch those first 4 days (Thursday thru Sunday) non stop. Who will be this year's Cinderella? Will the power rankings prove correct when they seed the teams? It all starts Sunday March 16 2008, when the brackets are announced and continues on into Easter weekend, which means a lot of time at home to watch all those games Friday.

So who will it be this year? A big perennial power house (UCLA / FLORIDA / CONN), Cinderella? How many will shine so bright they end up in the draft this summer? We'll find out all these questions in 6 days. Basketball fans, Let the Madness Begin!

The Rotation: The Real One!!

Moncayo — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:04:00 GMT

Oh boy, where do I begin? I was very nervous going into Saturday morning's draft. I had crammed for this draft for two days, like it was a mid-term examination. Others in the room could tell I was nervous, I'm sure of it. But as things started to roll I became more relaxed as what I was preparing for was actually coming through. There would be nothing worse than not knowing who to pick because all of your "guys" are gone. That being said, it was a wonderful experience and I hope that one day I can do it again. To the other 5 captains, good luck on your season.

To my 14 other guys: The Rotation is already on. Cam has informed me that we're in for it this year. Early over / under complete rotations is 5.5, talk to Castro for more details. This is by no means a representation of a high number, I remember doing 6 in my rookie year with Reep's Cards in 2003. This summer will be fun, fun, fun.

Cheers,

NEW RHMRBL SITE UP

Moncayo — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:02:00 GMT

I would say for the most part, it is fully functional. Everything which could be done in the old site is now available, with the addition of whatever Community Server brought along. Let me tell yo, it was a painful process migrating everything over, but well worth it!!

Enjoy everyone!!

So...you wanna be a Webmaster?

Moncayo — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 08:30:00 GMT

I'm Chris Moncayo, Secretary / Webmaster for the RHMRBL. Let me tell you, being webmaster isn't an easy job. Most of the time it's all roses, but during the off season, that's when the fun starts to happen. As you can see we're trying out a new forum / gallery / blogger called Community Server. This software really is nice, and not just because the company who makes it (Telligent) is very close with the company I work for. Haven't had a chance to play around with the whole thing, but it seems really robust, which should beat the pants off of that old forums software we were using. But enough about that, back to the website.

This year I've decided to launch League Super Site v2.0 for RHMRBL. It does a lot of things the old site does: manage games / players / stats / scheduler / emailer / etc. Mostly this is a cosmetic update. But some new features will be emerging. I promise. If there are some things which you would like to see let me know. I'm always looking to make things better, and the more suggestions which come in, the easier it will be to give you what you're looking for.

Cheers,

Chris Moncayo
Your Webmaster
RHMRBL