DMB includes a file of historical player information that includes everyone who has ever appeared in the big leagues. It also includes some players who have yet to make the big leagues but who have appeared on a recent DMB Projection Disk.

This historical information was provided under license by Pete Palmer, who compiled most of the information in the Total Baseball encyclopedia. We do not, however, own the right to publish the statistics for those players, so our historical file contains biographical information only. Nevertheless, it's a very useful way to load the names, batting and throwing hands, birthdays and universal IDs for real-life players.

When you click on the Import from historical database button, the following list of historical players appears:

This list shows each player by name, with his primary role (B for batters, P for pitchers), whether he bats right, left or switch hits, whether he throws right or left-handed, and what years he played in the big leagues. The last column is blank if the player has not yet reached the big leagues.

2. Select the player you want to import and click OK. The player's general information is then displayed on the player form.

Importing from the Active Database

You are much less like to use this feature, but you can also import general player information from the active database. This may come in handy if you are creating players for a real life season and wish to create multiple records for a player who appeared on more than one team that season.

General Player Attributes

Each player has a First name, Last name, and Short name. The short name is used on the game window, in the play-by-play commentary, and in boxscores and scoresheets. It is a very useful way to distinguish players with similar last names. For example, if your team includes a player named Robert Jones and another named Randy Jones, you might enter short names of Jones,Ro and Jones,Ra respectively. That way, when you look back at boxscores, you'll know which Jones was in the game.

The player's Nickname is optional. If a nickname has been entered, it will be referenced in the play-by-play color commentary.

The Year represents the season on which the player's statistics and ratings are based.

Each player is assigned a Role of batter, pitcher or dual. This is used to categorize players in various lists and reports. For example, the batting and pitching register reports use these roles to decide where a player should appear (with dual-role players appearing in both lists).

In addition to providing useful information about the player's role on his real-life team, a player's Primary position is used for categorizing players on reports. You can, for example, indicate that you wish to see a free agent list that includes only players whose primary position was shortstop. This designation doesn't affect performance. Player performance is determined by the ratings assigned to each player.

The Bats attribute indicates whether the player bats right-handed, left-handed, or switch hits. In DMB, a switch hitter always bats left-handed against right-handed pitchers and right-handed against left-handed pitchers.

The Throws attribute indicates whether the player throws left- or right-handed.

A player's Birthday is used to display his age on various windows and reports. This can be useful information when trying to decide whether to draft a player -- all other things being equal, you will often want to choose the younger player because he may have more good years ahead of him.

NOTE: Birthdates are useful, but they are not required. Some 19th century players in the DMB historical player file do not have birthdates because baseball researchers have been unable to track them down.

Each player has a unique ID. When you place a player on a team roster, DMB uses this ID to record that relationship. If a database contains more than one record for the same player, this is how DMB knows which of those records belongs to that team. You can think of this value as uniquely identifying a set of player statistics and ratings.

Each player can also have a UID, or Universal ID. You can think of the UID as uniquely identifying a person. If a database contains more than one record for the same player, the UID makes it clear that they all belong to the same person. DMB's migration feature uses these UIDs to match player records in different DMB databases.

NOTE: We added UIDs to our player records beginning in 1997. If you purchased a Season Disk before then, your UID values will not be valid. This causes no problems if you do not use tools (like migration and the DMB Encyclopedia) that require UIDs. All DMB Season Disks now have UIDs for every player. If you wish to upgrade older Season Disks, contact us for upgrade eligibility and pricing.

Upgrading your Season Disks solely for the purpose of obtaining valid UIDs is not necessary because DMB now provides tools to help you assign valid UIDs. When you convert a database to the latest version of DMB, the program checks player UIDs to make sure they are present in the converted database. If they are not present, DMB tries to assign the appropriate UID based on an internal historical player database. If you are converting a database comprised of real big-league players, this process usually results in all but a handful of players having valid UIDs.

For those players that are not assigned UIDs during conversion (a default UID of -1 is usually assigned), DMB includes a UID search command that allows you to quickly assign one. Click on the Search button to the right of UID input box. A listing of historical players appears. DMB attempts to match the player based on his name and allows you to locate the player if the initial search does not turn up an exact match. Once you've located the player and clicked on him to highlight his record, click Ok to use that UID.

Each player is also assigned a GStatsID, or game statistics identifier. This is for internal DMB use only, so you should never need to change this value. There is one exception, however. If you copy a player for any reason -- to create a clone of that player or to use that player as a starting point for creating a different player -- you'll need to change the GStatsID to a number unique to the entire player pool. If you do not do this, DMB will treat players with the same GStatsID as one and their simulated stats will be combined on all reports. You can click on the Next Avail button to ask DMB to assign the next available GStatsID to a player.

NOTE: If a season is in progress, the GStatsID field and the Next Avail button will be disabled because you cannot change a GStatsID after a player has appeared in a game. If you later restart the season, you can change the GStatsID at that time.

The Image type indicates whether this player record represents the only record for a player who appeared on only one team that season (Single team), one of the team-specific records for a player who was Traded (or released) that season, or the overall (Composite) performance of a player who appeared on more than one team that season. The Delete team-specific records command uses these values to determine which records to remove from a free agent list as part of your preparation for a draft.

The Current affiliation box shows which team, league and organization this player record currently belongs to. You cannot change these values, but DMB automatically updates them as you use other tools to move players around.

Some DMB leagues use financial systems (auctions, salary caps) to help ensure that a few teams cannot stockpile all of the best players. Different leagues use different financial systems, so DMB does not try to enforce any particular system. You can enter any values you want for the salary and expiration year, and DMB will display these values and carry them forward when you migrate your league from one season to another.

NOTE: Diamond Mind began including real-life salaries with the 1999 Season Disk.

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