2002 Season Disk Changes

Last updated: December 16, 2002

On December 13th, we updated our master copy of the 2002 Season Disk to change the weather information for two ballparks. On December 16th, we updated it again to correct some of the salary information.

If your copy of the season disk was shipped on or after December 16th, you already have the corrections and you don't need to do anything. If you received either of the previous versions, please read the following so you can decide what action, if any, you wish to take.

Ballpark temperature settings

The weather this year was unusually cool in two parks, Pacific Bell Park in San Francisco and Network Associates Coliseum in Oakland. As a result, we assigned these parks an average temperature of Cool.

This setting has been supported by the game for many years and does not cause any problems. But it can lead to a serious problem if you happen to follow the steps described in the next paragraph.

The Modify Park window has a pull-down list of available temperature settings, and the Cool option is not one of the options on that list. As a result, if you (a) choose to Modify one of these parks, (b) click on the weather tab, (c) leave the average temperature setting blank, and (d) click on OK, an invalid temperature setting will be stored. If this happens, you'll see ridiculously high scores for any future games played in that park.

If you are sure that you will never go through those four steps, no action needs to be taken. While testing the season disk prior to shipment, we ran well over a hundred simulated seasons with excellent results for the teams and players in those parks.

However, if you're worried that you might accidentally follow that sequence at some point, take a moment to modify those two parks so they are assigned the Comfortable setting. (As of December 13th, we have updated our master copy of the 2002 Season Disk in this fashion.)

Changing the setting from Cool to Comfortable will not have an impact on your simulation results. Both parks were right on the boundary between these two settings and we could just as easily have coded them as Comfortable in the first place.

The Cool setting has been supported within the Diamond Mind game engine for many years even though it doesn't appear on the Modify Parks window and has almost never been used. (Prior to this year, the only other park given this setting was Candlestick Park in 1999.) We will add the Cool setting to the Modify Parks window for version 9.

Salary information

Some of the players who changed teams during the year have incorrect salary information. Salary information is not used by the game in any way, so this would affect you only if you play in a league that uses some type of financial system based on the salary information included in the season disk. (Some leagues have financial systems based on salaries set by the league through an auction or some other method, and many leagues have no financial system at all).

If you need the updated salary information and haven't already started a major project using the season disk, you can request a free replacement. (See below.)

Another option is to make the changes yourself using the Modify Player option in the Organizer window. This is the best approach if you have already drafted rosters or carried out any other actions that you would prefer not to repeat.

The error affects some but not all of the players who changed teams during the 2002 season. Here are the corrected values:

  Player               Salary
  -------------------- ------

  Hiram Bocachica         225
  Russell Branyan         251
  Brian Buchanan          225
  Homer Bush             3375
  Bruce Chen              300
  Bartolo Colon          4925
  Wil Cordero            4167
  Ryan Dempster          2475
  Alan Embree             500
  Cliff Floyd            6500
  Jeremy Giambi          1065
  Wilton Guerrero         850
  Mike Holtz              825
  Tyler Houston          1625
  Ted Lilly               237
  Graeme Lloyd           3000
  Luis Lopez              700
  John Mabry              500
  Robert Machado          278
  Gary Matthews           238
  Dave McCarty            850
  Brian Moehler          2400
  Raul Mondesi          11000
  Mike Mordecai           500
  Scott Rolen            8600
  Paul Shuey             3250
  Scott Strickland        355
  Chris Truby             270

Free updates available on request

To request a free update, call us at 800-400-4803 (9am-5pm Pacific time, Mon-Fri) or send email to info@diamond-mind.com.

We apologize for these errors and for the inconvenience.