Joe Lemire on Strat-O-Matic

Nice SI.com article on the legendary tabletop baseball game, which celebrates its 50th anniversary today:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/joe_lemire/02/10/strat.o.matic/index.html

Any Strat-O-Matic devotees out there? I never played it, though I did play Sports Illustrated's knock-off version, Statis Pro Baseball, for a lot of my junior high and high school years in the 1980s. The annual release of the player card set was one of my favorite days of the year.

In college in the early 1990s, I got into the computer version of Pursue the Pennant, which is now Diamond Mind. I played that until about two or three years ago, when they stopped making the preseason projection disk.

 

I never really played Strat-O-Matic, but like you I had Statis Pro Baseball and Football. I played many a seasons on that.

I had the board game version of Pursue the Pennant (complete with different outfield walls depending what park you were at).

Computer-wise, I had Earl Weaver Baseball. I currently play Baseball Mogul, although rather sparsely of late.

 

Played Strat for many years. It was one of the joys of my newspaper days, as a few of us would have leagues which we played well into the wee hours many nights after we put the paper to bed.

That was more than 15 years ago. After leaving that environment I turned to Strat online. That was short-lived until I discovered Diamond Mind. I've been playing that ever since. (And if you want a preseason disk, the guys behind ZIPS have been making them for years.)

But I'll forever fondly remember Strat. One of my favorite leagues was when there were only four of us, so I said instead of just drafting All-Star teams, let's divide up the cards by position, throw each position's cards into a box, and randomly select players out of each box. You could throw back three players. What resulted was a mix of stiffs and studs, with Carl Willis as my closer. I went 20-10.

I'll always be in love with Frank Thomas' 1995 card, which was just loaded with bold ink. Seemed he never made an out. I played football, too, and if I ever play again will never ever ever ever use another special teams card with a blocked punt on it. Once I rolled four 12s against a guy, resulting in four blocked punts. Amazing!

 

Here's my Strat story:

I never cared for the game because I thought it was too unrealistic. My high school baseball coach had given me a Status Pro table-top game, and I fell in love with it.

With Status Pro, I could write a computer program where I could input any player, any year and make player cards. It was awesome.

Anyway, my brother-in-law was a big Strat fan and moved down to SoCal. In an attempt to become his friend (he's an asshole), I tried playing the game with him.

We drafted teams and began playing a season. While I was telling him how much more realistic Status Pro was over Strat, because home runs are more determined by the batter than the pitcher, my Ozzie Smith came up and smacked two home runs in one game.

He got mad and threw the game pieces and all our stats and went home. All because Ozzie Smith hit two home runs and proved my theory.

 

I've played a ton of Strat-O-Matic and love it.

As for the realism, I've done a few full seasons (on computer) and it's pretty darn close. Not perfect, but close. To me, there was just enough variation to keep things interesting. You'd have a few guys who hit 8 or 9 homers in a season jump up to get 15 or 16 (or vice versa), and there would certainly be some crazy one-game performances, but if you played Ozzie Smith a full season he wouldn't hit 35 homers.

 

Anyone know of a good computer game where you can input player stats and create leagues?

I grew up a Royals fan and created a 12-team league using only players who played at least one game for Kansas City (I know). I took what I feel was the best year of each player's career. I would like to play the season on the computer, and would prefer to create teams in new cities, with new stadiums.

I did a four-team season on Statis Pro using all Royals (and made myself a 70-home run, 100-stolen base shortstop). Bret Saberhagen threw a perfect game during the season. It was awesome.

I used to play EWBB, too, but computer technology overcame Weaver in the same way it made Microsoft Football obsolete.

Funny MS FB story: My friend and I played a season and I was determined I was going to get Jerry Rice a rushing touchdown. So on first-and-goal from the 1, everyone knew what was coming. The defense stopped him. Second-and-goal, same thing, but this time, he was completely in the clear, when he stopped short of the end zone and just ran in place forever. We had to crash the computer and start over.

 

Check out Baseball Mogul or Out Of The Park Baseball.

Both are on the computer. That's the only two I know of.

I know you can start a season from any season in the past. I'm not sure if you can do fictional teams or not though.

 

My brother & I played every baseball game out there in the late '70s and early '80s (dice, computer, you name it), but we stuck with APBA. Discovered Replay baseball a few years ago and that might be the best of the bunch. But currently only play Diamond Mind on the computer.

 

My brother and I played Strat-o-Matic in the 70s. A few years ago, a reporter worked for me who brought in an old Tigers broadcast, and I stunned him by naming not only the Minnesota Twins lineup, but the reserves and most of the pitchers, because I had played that season's Strat-o-Matic cards. We had endless fun with it. But then life got in the way and I haven't played it in years.

 

Played it regularly for about a decade. One of the more fun moments of my life was the 1983 Atlee Hammaker card getting a perfect game against a mixed team that had several all-stars.

 

I've had two no-hitters in Strat. One by Nolan Ryan ('75 Angels) and one by Sid Fernandez ('85 Mets).

 

I was also a Baseball Mogul (and Baseball Mogul Online, while it existed) guy. It has a nice balance of fun and simulation, whereas when I tried Out of the Park, it was just too complex and required way too much management. ("What do you mean by A-ball pitcher is hurt again???")