Baseball!

[The Minsky Moment]

Going to review some baseball replay games here - mostly dice and card and some computer.  Roughly in chron order of when I played them in life.

Start with: Cadaco All Star Baseball

I first played this one ~ 1980.  There are a few cardboard parts that you assemble into a stadium; there are places to insert pegs for baserunners and cardboard sliders to track runs and outs.  The players are represented on circular cardboard discs that are placed into a spinner.  The discs are divided into different numbered wedges, each of which represents an event (single, ground out, home run, etc.)  The code for each numbered event is on the stadium scoreboard.  When it is a batter's turn, you slide the disc into the sleeve, spin the spinner, and read the result.



The batter discs represent real players and the wedges on the discs will reflect their real life stats, so that e.g. Rod Carew will have a bigger singles wedge than Reggie Jackson but Jackson will have a bigger homerun wedge.  There are pitcher discs but they just reflect the pitcher's hitting ability: neither pitching nor fielding is taken into account.  It is possible to steal bases, bunt etc but using a standard strategy disc that is the same for everyone - so e.g., Dave Kingman and Lou Brock will have the same chance to steal.  There is obviously no era adjustment, lefty-righty splits or any other fancy bells and whistles.

As a simulation All Star Baseball is pretty poor, but as a game it plays just fine. It is fast paced, easy to learn and the spinners give an interactivity and fun factor that dice can't match.  The game was targeted at kids and ideal for that purpose; the use of wedges on a 360 degree circle even provides some pedagogic value.

The game stopped publishing the late 1980s although there have been a few limited editions printed since.  The game was popular in its heyday and it is easy to find copies on ebay in decent condition.

[Syt]

Very nice and thanks for this. Love the Wrigley Field background.

I'll be following this thread with interest.

[The Minsky Moment]

Second on the list is APBA Baseball, first played c. 1981-2.

This writeup will be pretty short because I didn't play it that much.  APBA has been around for decades and still has a strong, loyal player base.  In APBA, each pitcher gets a letter grade (A,B,C etc ) each fielder gets a numerical grade, and each batter is represented by a card and a series of 36 numbers, each with a corresponding number to its right.  The 36 numbered entries represent matrix results on a pair of regular six sides dice; so that e.g. a roll of "4" and "3" represents  "43" and not "7".  The number to the right is a code for a play result. To find the play result, you need to consult a chart, which varies depending on the number of people on base, the pitcher grade and the total fielding "points" on defense.



I've never been a huge fan of ABPA. Because the results on the player card are codes you can't get a sense of the player's strength and weaknesses from looking at the card, and the system forces a lot of chart lookups for a relatively basic system.  The basic game loses some immersion and simulation value by treating all pitchers of the same "grade" as the same, although there is a rating to increase Ks for strikeout artists. There is a master edition - which admittedly I've never tried - which significantly improves the simulation aspect, but at the cost of a lot of additional rules overhead layered on a system that wasn't originally designed for that purpose.  It is also expensive - the basic edition for 4 teams is $30, but it is another $25 for master edition rules and charts, and another $75 for a full season set - making it $130 for a full master season game.

That said, this is still a popular game with a well established track record and strong partisans who I am sure would refute my critique.

[Barrister]

Reminds me of playing Computer Baseball by SSI on our Apple II (I had to look up the details).  Released in 1981 my dad kind of obsessed over it, going so far as to enter the stats of a bunch of different teams by hand in order to play with them.  Being a Royals fan, I played with the 1980 Royals team which of course had George Brett and his .390 batting average.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Baseball

Not as sophisticated as more modern games but it did account for a variety of different statistics in determining the outcome of every play.


Man... my dad would have been like 10 years younger than I am now when he was playing that game...

[The Minsky Moment]

Being a Royals fan, I played with the 1980 Royals team which of course had George Brett and his .390 batting average.

Brett was flirting with .400 for much of the year, you probably know that.

People often talk about the demise of the .400 hitter but Carew, Brett and Gwynn all took runs at it.
The reason why a .400 hitter is impossible now is that strikeout rates are too high.  To get to .400, in addition to being a great hitter, you need to put the ball in play a lot and get a good amount of luck on the bounces.  Even thought Brett had pop, he rarely struck out - once every 20 ABs or so, about the same rate as Williams in 1941.  Gwynn also had really low strikeout rates, often under 4 percent.

n 2019 the *lowest* batter strikeout rate was Hanser Alberto at 1 per 10 AB. 

[Barrister]

Being a Royals fan, I played with the 1980 Royals team which of course had George Brett and his .390 batting average.

Brett was flirting with .400 for much of the year, you probably know that.

Yup .390 was almost a disappointment by the time the season ended, even though it was still one of the greatest hitting averages of the last 70+ years (only bested, barely, by Gwynn in 1994).

[The Minsky Moment]

Shortly after playing APBA, I tried Strat-o-matic and became a quick convert.  I've played more strat than every other game I'll mention combined and by a big margin.



Strat is a "50/50" - half the results are read off a batters card, and half off a pitcher card.  You rule 3 six sided dice - the first die tells you what column to read from and the other 2 give you the row.  If the first die is a 1, 2 or 3, you read columns on the batter card; 4,5,6 goes to the pitcher card.  The play results can be read in plain English on the cards - "Single" "strikeout" etc.  About a quarter of the results on the pitcher cards are fielding checks based on the fielding rating of the indicated position.  Each batter is rated for fielding ability at positions they play, as well as running, base stealing, and more. Chart lookups in the basic game are mostly limited to movement of baserunners and fielding checks.

The game includes basic, advanced and "super-advanced" variants but it is all the same game.  The advanced versions add things like lefty-righty splits, more detailed fielding, baserunning and stealing systems, ballpark effects, strategy options etc.  To play the more advanced version just flip the card on the other side and pull out the advanced charts:



This 3-in-1 feature is nice because it allows you to play a faster-paced beer and pretzels version when you want or a more detailed simulationist game, all in the same package.  That said, although Strat did a very good job overall building the advanced features on the original basic game chassis, it doesn't handle some things like park effects as elegantly or effectively as later designs.

One of my favorite aspects of Strat is the clarity of the cards themselves.  While APBA cards look like a WW2 era cypher, Strat cards really evoke a player's skills.  You don't need to read Bryce Harper's 2015 stat line to see he is a monster, with a long line of walks in column 3 and the HR results at 4-6 in column 1.  Another example is Eric Gagne's card from hitter heavy 2003: he has a walk result at 1-5, the standard amount of fielder's chances and the rest of his card is all strikeouts.

The 50/50 system has its vociferous critics but for the most part it works very well in producing accurate results.  It does have problems reproducing unusual cases - for example, Nellie Fox used to strikeout less than 20 times a season in over 600AB and Strat cannot come close to reproducing that.  An even more problematic example is an extreme control pitcher like Carlos Silva, who walked 9 in 188 IP in 2005.  Strat will cause him to walk far more and be less effective because half the results get read off hitter's cards. 

But those extremes aside, Strat is pretty robust in generating realistic results. One advantage of the 50-50 is that because the probabilities on player cards are based on assuming the half the plate appearances will be league average results, the game automatically normalizes results by era, allowing relatively seamless cross-era play.  As an example, although Carl Yastrzemski hit "only" .301 in 1968, but his card is built on the assumption that he will be hitting at a .230 rate (the AL league average) for the half of his plate appearances that land on pitcher's card.  Thus, the hit probabilities on his card will be closer to 40%.  Put Carl's card in a 1930 NL league and he will hit somewhere in the .370s.  Don't need any special adjustments.

Strat is a pretty expensive ecosystem, although not quite as bad as APBA.  A game plus season set with 27 players per team goes for $58 but if you want full and complete rosters for the year; it's another $19.  Seasons without game parts are $15 less.  There are fairly regular sales and discounts but never over 20%.  One annoying aspect is that even though the company has been around since 1962, past seasons often go out of print.  On the flip side, they have a lot of special edition sets that are fun, like a swanky HoF player set and all-time teams including Negro League teams (NOTE APBA does this as well). 

My favorite special set is "rivals" set that consists of 3 sets of matched rival teams: Cardinals-Cubs, Yankees-Red Sox, Dodgers-Giants.  The player cards are based *only* on the performance of each player against the opposing rival team but it includes players from all eras.  So Ernie Banks can square off against Dizzy Dean, Ted Williams can try to hit Mariano's cutter, and Jackie Robinson can try to steal off Buster Posey.  Fun stuff.

Finally, you can send the company some personal info of your own ball playing process and they will create a personalized card for you.

[The Minsky Moment]

Pursue the Pennant/Dynasty League/Internet Baseball League

I first became aware of Pursue the Pennant when they advertised in baseball mags in the mid or late 80s.  I got the game and some teams and the company folded soon after.  I lost track of my old game sadly. PtP was basically Strat-0-matic on steroids.  Its a 50-50 game but instead of rolling ordinary 6 sided dice, you roll 3 percentile dice to get results from 0-999; with 0-499 being hitter card results and 500-999 pitcher call results.



The PtP system is the closest thing to a Monster Game in the world of dice and card baseball games - it includes detailed player ratings for just about anything - including clutch performance, a more elaborate fielding system than pretty much any other game, weather effects charts, and a detailed park effects system that includes calculating precise distances of fly balls and their trajectory and comparing them to park dimensions. Of course all this detail comes at a cost in terms of time, chart lookups, and potentially money.  The variant of the game I have now - Internet Baseball League - has 11 pages of charts filled with matrixes and results in tiny 8 point type.  For example, one partial listing for an error result (among about 2 dozen listings) reads:

STRAIGHT WIND - HOME TEAM IN THE FIELD: Roll two dice ...
(a) If number is 00-49, high fly is caught by gusting wind. If straight wind decreased the fence distances (wind blowing out), the ball is blown over outfielder's** head for a wind-blown 2B. Runners advance two bases. If straight wind increased the fence distances (wind blowing in), the ball falls in front of charging outfielder for a wind-blown 1B. Runners advance one base with none or one out, two bases with two out.
(b) If number is 50-99, outfielder** catches up to wind-blown high fly ball. Runners hold

The asterisks refer to more die rolls

Another possible play result:

(a) Day game in an open stadium— a freak weather front causes a rain delay for several hours. When play resumes both teams must replace their pitchers (no injury roll). Re-roll temperature and wind on WEATHER EFFECTS CHART.
(b) Night game in an open stadium— a transformer explodes on a bank of lights me is suspended and must be completed before the start of the next game.
(c) Game played in a park with a retractable roof— a freak weather front rolls in but the roof malfunctions. Re-roll weather using WEATHER EFFECTS CHART, assuming cloudy weather and rolling for precipitation. If rain, the game is postponed.
(d) Game played in a domed stadium— prior to the next home game, material from the roof structure falls onto the field, causing the game to be postponed

Pursue the Pennant went under in the 90s but there have been several successful efforts to reverse engineer the design, most notably Dynasty League, which still sells games using the design and generates new season sets each year along with collections of older seasons and special sets. A full seasons with park charts is $65 plus additional costs for the game rules and charts.  Then there is Internet Baseball League, an on-line league that created their own variant of the PtP system that is available in free-to-download PDF format.

Back in the day I thought Pursue the Pennant was the coolest thing but I had time finding anyone else willing to put up the effort to play it.  The game is still matchless in terms of detail but the question is whether the rules overhead and chart lookup burden is worth the return.  The core game engine is also showing some age compared to some of the more modern designs.

[celedhring]

My yank friends used to play a card game at the pub before baseball games. Didn't know there was such a big tradition of these things.

I wish I could remember or identify which one it was. Never played myself - can't say their attempts to get me into baseball were too successful.

[Syt]

PtP sounds amazing, but also like it's one of those concepts that would really benefit from computer support.

[The Minsky Moment]

PtP sounds amazing, but also like it's one of those concepts that would really benefit from computer support.

Dynasty League is mostly a for pay online league using computer support; they still sell the board game separately.

[The Minsky Moment]

Next dice and "card" design is the one I acquired most recently, Rostercard, a game that represents the opposite design philosophy from the PtP line of games.

I put card in quotes because Rostercard doesn't have any cards at all.  Instead each season consists of an Excel style sheet of on a PDF with players given one line - modern teams usually spill over onto two pages.  A typical batter line looks something like this (but with better formatting):

Age bats Lineup pos run EBH 1B W hbp K out LR HR 2B 3B SH h&r SBA SBS INJ 2B
32 R Jackie Robinson 2B F 9 22 30 31 31 56 59 32 88 100 5 A 33/4 76 1-2 A,1

After Robinson's position (2B) there is a baserunning grade (F for fast).  Then a series of numbers for percentile role results: 1-9 is an extra base hit, 10-22 a single, 23-20 a walk, 31 is a 50/50 chance of being a strikeout or HBP, 32-56 is an out with the last number usually indicating the position player who made the play, and 57-59 is a platoon range that will be a single vs left-handed pitching and an out against righties. There are ratings for bunting and hit and runs (Jackie has the best on both of course), for base stealing, and on defense for range, errors and throwing arm.  On an extra base hit there is a reroll on the XBH line to see if it is a double, triple, or HR.

Results from 60-89 go on the opposing pitcher's line, which has similar kinds of ratings and results.  90-91 are for wild pitch checks, 92 for passed balls, 93-99 are fielder checks and 00 is a wild play check.

There are only 3 pages of charts, almost of all which is for determining runner advancement on hits and outs.  Most results are resolved on a single roll.  The key virtue of the game is speed and ease of play, including virtually non-existent setup requirements and no footprint.  You can print out roster sheets as needed, or just read them off a tablet.  Despite that simplicity it is a surprisingly deep sim that takes account of fielding ability, pitcher ability to control the running game, pitcher endurance, etc.  It accounts for left-right differentials, albeit by giving all players a standard platoon shift.  Ballparks have a rating for HR propensity only (left and right).  There is even a crude era adjustment - that adjusts for different batting levels (but not power).  The fielding check system is a bit off in that it gives the same weight to every position, but that is easily fixed with a home rule.

To give a sense of how it plays, I'll give a short account of my last game pitting the 1920 Yankees vs the soon to be Black Sox:
The visiting Yankees had an inauspicious start: a deep drive by Ruth to RF could not clear the wall at Comiskey, and Peckinpaugh ended the 1st when Schalk nailed him trying to steal second with 2 outs. Eddie Collins led of the first with a line shot to center off Bob Shawkey, and then Shoeless Joe reached on an error by iron-gloved Del Pratt. Shawkey gave up singles to Weaver and Murphy and then walked Schalk with the bases loaded to bring in a second run. Shano Collins added another run with a sac fly to Ping Bodie in CF and by the time Shawkey retired pitcher Red Faber for the third out, it was already 3-0. That would be the Chisox high point, however: after Eddie Collins led off the second with a single and stolen base, Shawkey settled down and pitched shutout ball through the 6th.
Meanwhile the Yanks tied up the game in the 3rd. After inducing Muddy Ruel to fly weakly to left, Faber ran the count against opposing pitcher Shawkey (a pretty decent hitter). The ump called ball 4 on a close pitch that looked like a strike and only quick action by Schalk restraining his pitcher kept a furious Faber from being tossed. A rattled Faber then gave up consecutive singles to Pratt, Ruth, and Peckinpaugh, and Bob Meusel knocked another run in with a tough grounder to Risberg at SS. Wally Pipp drove in one more with yet another single.  The lively Yankee bats struck again in the 4th when Ruth drove in Ruel from 2nd on a single, and then again in the 7th when the (then) speedy Ruth walked and then race home on a double by Peckinpaugh.
On the White Sox side, Shano Collins and Risberg finally chased Shawkey in the 7th inning with 2 quick hits. Reliever George Mogridge came in, surrendered a walk to a pinch hitter, loading the bases with the dangerous Eddie Collins on deck and the even more dangerous Joe Jackson following.  But the unsung Mogridge got Collins to fly to center and then struck out Jackson, silencing the Black Sox bench. The Sox, trying to keep in the game, brought in World Series hero Dickie Kerr who mowed down the Yankees in the 8th but Kerr faltered in the top of the 9th, giving up hits to Pratt, Meusel and Pipp, raising the Yankee lead to 5. Mogridge, on the other hand cruised the rest of the way, and the game ended with a 8-3 score.

So ... pretty good for a game that used two sheets of paper, a couple charts, and some dice.

Rostercard isn't my favorite game but the ease of setup and use is likely to make it among my most played going forward.  It is comparatively inexpensive as well: seasons cost $5, with discounts for multiple seasons, culminating in an offer for all 120 available seasons from 1901-2020 - plus all seasons to be released in the future - for $99 (i.e. about the same as one season plus game parts would cost in ABPA or Dynasty League).

[Oexmelin]

Tim Raines 

[The Minsky Moment]

When I was a kid I used to make up my own card and dice games using baseball cards.
The same thing must have occurred to W.M. Akers, the designer behind Deadball - http://wmakers.net/deadball - a sort of hybrid between baseball dice games and RPGs. 

Deadball has no cards; instead lineups are generated however the player wishes.  You can take real MLB rosters from baseball reference, or teams from the KBL or Japanese leagues, or high school squads, or little league teams.  You can make up fictional teams of Lannisters vs Starks or Jane Austen characters or Optimates vs Populares or people in your office.  There is an RPG style "player generation system" to assist the process and  keep teams balanced.

You write in a lineup with the first 2 numbers of the player's batting average.  There are rules for adding +/- traits like power, speed and defense and pitchers are assigned dice modifiers depending on skill.  There is a simple rule system to play the games although there are more advanced optional rules and variants for more detail an realism. It also comes with an entire sample league with a back story and a bunch of novelty sample teams like:

BERLIN PHILOSOPHEN
Immanuel Kant, SS. 29S S+ D+
Friedrich Nietzsche, LF. 34L C+
Arthur Schopenhauer, 1B. 28L
CFriedrich Schlegel, CF. 26R D+
Gottfried Leibniz, C. 23R S+
Georg Hegel, 2B. 24R
Karl Jaspers, 3B. 21L
Martin Heidegger, RF. 20L
Karl Marx, P. 7R
3.23 ERA. d6

(I always suspected Heidegger was a lightweight. . .)

Deadball is really a different category of games than the replay-oriented card and dice games above, but it can be used for that purpose.  What it lacks in precise statistical accuracy it makes up in terms of ease of play and cost.  it probably works best for the era after which it is named - early seasons are not well covered in the C&D game systems and are hard to build because of limited available data.  I'm more likely to use Rostercard for that niche, but Deadball still has a place e.g. if you want to pit your kids little league team against the 27 Yankees.

[katmai]

Thanks for the memories Minsky. I had and played all those up to the rostercard one.