the name of the era (up to 30 characters)
the internal ID that uniquely identifies this era within a DMB database. This ID is automatically assigned by DMB and cannot be changed.
the from year and to year for the statistics and rates in this era. These values are not directly used for anything in DMB, but because most eras are based on real-life seasons or a collection of real-life seasons, they give you a handy way to remind yourself where the statistics and rates come from. In fact, you can think of these values as an extension of the era's name.

Example: If, for example, you create an era based on the 1936 season, you could enter 1936 as the from year and leave the to year as zero. If you create an era that reflects the average of all seasons from 1920 to 1929, you could enter 1920 for the from year and 1929 for the to year.

whether or not the DH (designated hitter) was used in the real-life season(s) from which the statistics. This is very important, because DMB hitters and pitchers are evaluated based on how they performed when compared to the averages for their era.

NOTE: Pitchers are generally very poor hitters, so their batting statistics drag down the era averages. The same group of players might produce a batting average of .260 if designated hitters are used and an average of .253 if pitchers bat for themselves. Without adjusting for the effect of the designated hitter rule, a shortstop who hits .257 would appear to be a little below average in the first situation and a little above average in the second. So DMB needs to know whether the DH was used so it can make the necessary adjustments so our .257 hitter is rated the same way in either situation.

the statistics for this era. In most cases, these statistics will be for a single season of a real-life league. If you wish to create an era for a group of seasons, we recommend that you average those season so the values you enter are about the right size for a single season.

NOTE: These statistics determine the basic rates of singles, doubles, triples, homeruns, walks, strikeouts, and hit batsmen for games played in this era. When players are created, their statistics are compared with these rates, and the players are rated for how much higher or lower their personal rates were than the norms for the era. When you play DMB games, these rates establish a starting point from which DMB makes adjustments -- to reflect the ballpark, the ratings for the batter and pitcher, the tactics employed on the play, and many other factors -- that help it determine whether a particular pitch results in a single, a double, and so on.

DMB generates the result of every pitch (hit batsman, called ball, called strike, swinging strike, foul ball, ball hit into play). Walks and strikeouts result from a progression of these pitch results. So the process of creating an era isn't complete when you enter the statistics on this page. You must also visit the Rates page of the era window to ask DMB to generate a set of pitch-by-pitch rates that are based on the walks, strikeouts and other statistics you entered on the General page.

As far as we know, it's either extremely difficult or impossible to find league totals for intentional walks and hit batsmen. None of the leading baseball encyclopedias include this information, and we're not aware of any online sources, either. So we've added buttons that allow you to ask DMB to estimate these figures for you. DMB's formula uses the year, the DH rule, atbats, and walks to make these estimates, so make sure you've already set these values before clicking on the estimate buttons.

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