Some of the most common questions about the Compton Crips.
What are the Compton Crips?
The Compton Crips are a team that plays in a historical computer simulation league called the Hall of Fame League.
What is the Hall of Fame League (HOFL)?
A computer simulation baseball league using Diamond Mind Baseball software and historical seasons of real Major League players. Created in 1995 by Corky Shealy, it has grown to become the coolest sim league on the web. Check the HOFL site for more information.
Who are you?
My name is Jeff. I've been running the Compton Crips since I joined the HOFL way back in 1995.
Why is the team named the "Compton Crips"?
In 1995, I was a undergraduate student at USC. I named my team after the surrounding neighborhood.
Where is Compton?
Just southeast of downtown Los Angeles. Click here for a map.
What is a Crip?
The Crips are a primarily, but not exclusively, African-American gang. They were founded in Los Angeles, California in 1969 mainly by Raymond Washington and Stanley Williams. What was once a single alliance between two autonomous gangs is now a loosely connected network of individual sets, often engaged in open warfare with one another.
The Crips are one of the largest and most violent associations of street gangs in the United States, with an estimated 30,000 to 35,000 members. The gang is known to be involved in murders, robberies, and drug dealing, among many other criminal pursuits. The gang is known for its gang members' use of the color blue in their clothing. However, this practice has waned due to police crackdowns on gang members.
The original name for the alliance was "Cribs," a name narrowed down from a list of many options. Cribs was chosen to reflect the young age of the majority of the gang members. The name "Cribs" generated into the name "Crips" when gang members began carrying around canes to display their "pimp" status. People in the neighborhood then began calling them cripples, or "Crips" for short.
By the early 1980s the gang was heavily involved with drug trade. The huge profits resulting from crack cocaine distribution induced many Crips members to establish new markets in other cities and states. In addition, many young men in other states adopted the Crips name and lifestyle. As a result of these two factors, Crips membership increased throughout the 1980s, making it one of the largest street gang associations in the country.
In 1999, there were at least 600 Crips sets with more than 30,000 members transporting drugs in the United States.
Who are these people leaving messages on the site?
I have no idea who they are or what the messages mean, but they're real.
Crip literacy practices include substitutions and deletions of particular letters of the alphabet. Due to their intense and bitter rivalry with the Bloods, the letter "B" will be replaced, quite often with the number "6". The letters "CK", which stand for "Crip killer", will be avoided and substituted with a double "cc".
Yo! How do I represent?
Are you a gangster?
No. If you met me, you'd laugh that I was the owner of this team.
Are you a geek?
Yes. Anyone who gets sucked into the world of computer baseball simulation, spends countless hours staring at statistics of dead baseball players, and makes a web site for their team of virtual players is an unequivocal geek.