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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.

(https://shlabotnikreport.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/cadaco-field-view.jpg)

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.

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

I'll be following this thread with interest. :)

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.

(https://www.ethanproductions.com/boardgames-newDB/images/nocode20171101101610852-back.jpg)

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.

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...

Quote from: Barrister on March 25, 2021, 02:03:57 PM
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. 

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on March 25, 2021, 03:20:30 PM

Quote from: Barrister on March 25, 2021, 02:03:57 PM
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).

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.

(https://fourpitchrandomwalk.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/scan0010.jpg)

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:

(https://austingisriel.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/1941-strat-cards0001.jpg)

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.

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.

(https://mlblogsdynastyleaguebaseball.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/2014abreu.jpg)

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:

QuoteSTRAIGHT 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:

Quote(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.

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.

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

Quote from: Syt on March 27, 2021, 01:21:09 PM
PtP sounds amazing, but also like it's one of those concepts that would really benefit from computer support. :D

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

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).

Tim Raines  :wub:

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.

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

Cool. I'm not into baseball but nice reading about different games. :)

As a kid in the early 1980s, my knowledge of the game of baseball came from watching and listening to Phil Rizzuto call the Yankee games on channel 11 and what managers would say the press.  I knew the pitching was 90% of baseball, that winning was about making productive outs and executing the little things like bunts and hit and runs.  Hitters should be aggressive and swing early the count. As for pitchers, well Bert Blyleven might strike out lots of guys but his won-loss records were crappy - the best pitchers might allow some runs here or there but they could figure out a way to win.  Pete Vuckovich was the best pitcher in 82 because he had the best won-loss record.  These things were self-evidently true and every astute baseball man knew them from long experience.

In 1982, Bill James Baseball Abstract was published to the mass market for the first time; the next year Pete Palmer published the Hidden Game of Baseball.  These books were not like any baseball book I had ever read. The numbers and methods they used were totally unfamiliar.  To be specific, they *had* methods.  They didn't seem to care about the authority of experienced "baseball men".  James in particular seemed perfectly content to state flatly that these conventional stories were wrong. 

(although Vuckovich remains the greatest Serbian-American pitcher, edging out Steve Sundra).

These two books started a trickle and then a flood of analytical work in baseball.  It took a while for there to be any effect on the game; for over a decade there was no effect at all.  Sadly progress often does happen one retirement (or death) at a time.  40 years later, however, the impact is huge.  MLB teams now spend tens of millions of dollars a year on "analytics" - and all that work traces back to James and Palmer.

The big dice and card games - APBA and Strat - were designed pre-analytics.  In many ways they were ahead of their times - in making such a game, you have to think analytically about how hitting, defense and pitching interact.  Strat cards didn't report on base percentages, but the cards themselves showed walks as a positive offensive event.  Strat also made some adjustments to the new analytical work when it came out, incorporating new generation fielding stats in their fielding ratings - a move that caused some waves when they downgraded the rating of Derek Jeter in one of his gold glove award years.

That said, newer game designs have been able to take more creative advantage of the analytics revolution.  Two aspects in particular have influenced game design:

1) Retrosheet - an open source project to record play-by-play accounts of every game in major league baseball history; started in the late 80s. There is now data for the majority of games going back to the late deadball era.  Retrosheet data allows more precise information about things like batted ball locations, defensive performance, pitcher ability to control runners, etc.  T Retrosheet supplies a lot of the source data for sites like baseball-reference or fangraphs.

2) Defensive Independent Pitching Statistics "DIPS" - arising out of articles by Voros McCracken around 1999-2002.  It is now accepted that most (though not all) pitchers have little influence on controlling what happens to batted balls into the field of play.  Statistically there is little or no correlation year-to-year on pitcher's ability to suppress base hits on balls put into play.  Thus for most pitchers, their success depends on controlling walks, strikeouts, and homeruns, and hoping they have a strong defense behind them and a good dose of "hit luck."

There are several new game designs that use these concepts.  I've played 3 of them and will discuss later.

My favorite card and dice game at the moment is Inside Pitch Baseball, which is based on the DIPS theory described in the post above.  Each play always starts with the pitcher card.  The card contains a 6-by-6 matrix and uses 2 six sided dice (i.e. like APBA but with the results plotted on a matrix).  The main results can be: "K" (chance for a strike out); "W" (chance for a walk), "HR" (chance for homerun), or a blank.  If there is a chance for an event, you roll a d20 check against the batter tendency for that event; each batter is rated 1-20 for each event depending on their tendency to strike out, walk, or hit homers, with 10 being the average.  Elite strikeout pitchers can get "K+" results that add 10 to the batter check - an automatic strikeout for most hitters. 

If the result is blank then the batter rolls on his 6x6 matrix which reflects the batters performance on balls put into play. Every hit and out is given a location based on the batter's tendency - this comes data comes from retrosheet.  In addition, most pitchers have a least one automatic out, to reflect their own out tendencies - e.g. groundball pitchers vs flyball.  Finally, each pitcher card has 6 out of 36 chances to generate a fielding play check and 3 chances for a ballpark check.  If it a ball park check then instead of going to a batter card you go to the unique card for that ballpark, which reflects its tendencies to affect different kinds of hits and outs.

Here's how it looks for 2 effective but very different pitchers:
(https://i.postimg.cc/XJBqddRp/koufax-hawkins.png)

Both pitchers had good years but Koufax's card is filled with more than a dozen strikeouts, and most of them are K+s.  Hawkins only has 5 "Ks" (plus one on righties) and none of them are pluses. Hawkins has far more blanks which means he will generate far more balls in play but with a good defense behind him an playing in a pitchers park he should be able to scatter small hits without much damage most games.

The system handles left-right platoon advantage elegantly - some cells on pitcher and batter cards have "/" results with the result on the left side for left handed opponents and on the right side for right handed opponents.  That makes it very easy to identify the impact of a player's left-right split.

More to come . . .

Inside Pitch, continued

Although it may seem odd at first, the elegance of the interaction between batter, pitcher and ballpark in Inside Pitch is really impressive.  As an example take these two cards from the 1977 American League:

(https://i.postimg.cc/fbLJW657/Rice-Zisk.png)

Red Sox fans are gritting their teeth looking at this one.  Rice, who hit 39 homers in the season has a homerun ("HR") rating of 19 against right-handers and only 9 against lefties.  Zisk, who hit 30 homeruns in real life, is even better than Rice  against right-handers (20) and much better against lefties.  What gives?  It doesn't seem to add up.

When you look at the real life season split data, however, it comes into focus.  First, Rice hit 34 homers against righties but only 5 against lefties (albeit in only 147 ABs).  Zisk OTOH had a strong home run rate against both sides.  More importantly for this example, Rice hit 27 homers at home in Fenway Park but only 12 away; whereas for Zisk it is reversed: 18 road HRs, 12 at home.  The way Inside Pitch handles this is that the Fenway Park card generates a ton of homerun chances for Rice to take advantage of in home games - 10 to be exact -  whereas the Comiskey Park card generates only 3 such chances for Zisk at home.  Play out a full season with both players at home for half their games and Rice should outpace Zisk despite Zisk's higher ratings.

For a concrete example of how the game handles park effects, here is this example from the 1962 season:

(https://i.postimg.cc/VNcCY7pD/ballparks.jpg)

The old Polo Grounds is a home run heaven, with 9+ HR chances, but 1962 Chavez Ravine is where power goes to die.  In addition to having no HR chances, the stadium modifies all batter homerun check rolls universally by -1.

One virtue of this system is that it effectively handles extreme tendencies that cause 50-50 systems like Strat-o-matic fits. Nellie Fox, for example, has strikeout ratings of 1/2 - on a "K" result he will only strike out 5/10% of the time. Even on a "K+" result, he will wriggle out almost half the time.  Similarly, ultra control pitchers will simply generate very few walk checks.

Another complaint often raised with 50/50 games like strat is the situation where a player brings in a shut down closer at a key moment, but then rolls 3 straight times on the batter card and gets hit hard. That may be "realistic" in the sense that even elite closers sometimes get lit up by elite hitters - think Ortiz vs Rivera or Bonds vs Gagne. But even if it passes the simulation test, it fails as a *game*: the scenario makes it seems like the player's decision had no in-game effect.

Inside Pitch doesn't have that problem: if you bring in your elite closer, he will get a roll on his card.  It doesn't guarantee a good outcome and the batter's check may counteract it, but perception of efficacy is present.

OK  - what are the cons:
1) There are usually at least 2 die rolls per play and sometimes more. On the other hand, the checks are usually pretty simple and can be found right on the cards; the use of outside chart checks is limited.
2) Although use of outside chart checks is limited, the exception is a rather convoluted set of baserunner advancement rules.
3) Although ballparks are meticulously rated for offensive and defensive events, they don't have left-right splits - an issue for parks like Fenway, Yankee Stadium or the old Polo Grounds with very distinctive differences between right and left dimensions.  Such splits are implicit in the ratings of home players - see the Rice example above - but that doesn't work for visiting players.
4) The game doesn't calculate left-right splits for players unless they had at least 40 plate appearances each side.  Although well-intentioned, that has the perverse effect of not accounting for the platoon splits of full dedicated platoon players like John Lowenstein, who would play full time against righties but never against lefties. In game, he will thus be allow to crush it from both sides.

These are mostly quibbles but a bigger issue is that the game isn't that compelling as a head-to-head experience.  The game system handles strategy events like base stealing and bunting in a fully automated fashion; although its possible to run manually, it doesn't have the same feel as other games more optimized for head-to-head play.  And although results are stated on card, the D8 results don't have the same visual impact as the DOUBLE (cf) in Strat.  From the developer's point of view, I suspect this shortcoming isn't a big issue; from the game forums it is clear that his target audience is heavily oriented towards season replayers who replay parts or entire past seasons solitaire. 

In that regard, the game is also available in computer form.  Unlike many other such ports, which i usually find less than inspiring, the Inside Pitch computer version genuinely re-creates the entire board game experience in electronic form: you have the game cards in front of you on screen, roll electronic dice on screen, and then you locate and click the result on the cards. You are interacting with all the board game parts in the same way as you would on paper.  The computer just takes care of the bookkeeping and the pesky runner advancement rules for you.  So paradoxically, even though I really like ISG as a board game design, I find myself playing it in computer format rather than with cards and dice.

I had a baseball game on the Sega Saturn that I loved.

I think I played whole seasons with the 96 (I think) red sox and giants. Clemens won like 25 games and struck out way over 300 batters. Bonds must have hit like 80 home runs.  :lol:

Those old console games could be a lot of fun, but precise statistical realism was not really the point.

Payoff Pitch

Payoff Pitch is like a lighter version of Inside Pitch.  Both are based on DiPS, both start with rolls on a pitcher card with results reflecting the pitcher's ability to generate strike outs, bases on balls, and homeruns.  But Payoff Pitch does it in a way that is simpler and more evocative.  In the place of the 6X6 matrix of Inside Pitch containing specific check results, Inside Pitch uses a 2d6 roll on a simple 2-12 table with descriptions of the "payoff pitch" that concludes the plate appearance.  TOUGH - corresponds to strikeout ability; PATIENCE - the pitcher's tendency to yield walks; WHEELHOUSE - tendency to allow homeruns; IN PLAY - tendency to yield balls is play.  In addition, there can be checks for fielders ("DEFENSE") and the ballpark's tendency to boost homerun power ("BALLPARK"). For example:

(https://i.postimg.cc/RVxCDb94/scott-lemon.png)

The row of "Tough" results in Mike Scott's miracle 1986 year reflects his very high strikeout rate that year,.  Bob Lemon, on the other hand, tended to yield a lot more balls hit into the field of play, but since those end up as outs about 70% of the time (and mostly singles the rest of time) and since he also didn't give up that many walks or homeruns, he should perform well despite the fewer punchouts.  Neither yields a lot of homeruns as shown by the fact that Lemon has only one low probability WHEELHOUSE result at 12 and Scott has none (Note that BALLPARK checks have some probability of ending up as a WHEELHOUSE).

Similar to Inside Pitch, play then proceeds to a check vs. the batter's card using percentile dice.  Each batter has a separate set of results for each category of the pitcher's payoff.  "TOUGH" checks against the batter tendency to strike out, but even if the K is avoided it very rarely results in a hit.  PATIENCE - checks against the batter tendency to walk; WHEELHOUSE - reflects the batter's home run power (but will often result in another kind of hit for a slap-style hitter); IN PLAY represents the hitter's batting average on balls hit in play.  For some seasons left-right splits are available:

(https://i.postimg.cc/rFGyXCFW/Reese-Lowenstein.png)

Here Reese's lack of power is evident by the fact that he has only a 19% chance to hit one out even on a Wheelhouse result.  On the other hand he draws lots of walks (more than 50% on a patience check), has a good average on balls in play (.320) and on a "Tough" result only strikes out 1/3 of the time and even has a 20% chance of eking out a hit.  Platoon slugger Lowenstein OTOH has nearly a 50-50 chance of a homerun on Wheelhouse vs righties and also walks a lot, but hits only .250 on balls in play and does a lot worse than Reese on TOUGH results (51% strikeout chance and only 9% chance of a hit).  The card also clearly shows his uselessness against left-handed pitching. Unlike Inside Pitch, which only shows platoon splits for players with at least 40 at bats from each side, Payoff Pitch does splits for all players for the seasons it does splits for, which is good for dealing with full platoon players like Lowenstein and teammate Pat Kelley.

Overall, Payoff Pitch doesn't have all the bells and whistles of Inside Pitch: it is less precise in terms of pitcher results, lacks the more accurate hit and out location data, deals with park effects more crudely, and simplifies fielding, among other things.  But it is accurate enough for most purposes and the tradeoff is a game that is usually more quick and easy to play live.  The baserunning rules are simpler then IP and (like Inside Pitch) outside chart lookups are minimized. For that reason and because I really like the look and feel of the pitcher cards, I find it usually more preferable for head-to-head play.

It is also well priced.  Payoff Pitch, like Inside Pitch and most of the newer generation games, sells player seasons in PDF as well as printed form and their PDF pricing for complete seasons is very competitive (usually $9 a season).  If you choose the printed option, you pay a lot more ($34-49) but you do get nice professional printed color cards on good quality stock.

Thanks again for this, Minsky. :)

I'm unlikely to try these games myself, but it made me buy a subscription to MLB.tv again, and I may dabble with OOTP again :lol:

I'm sure the Bucs won't let me down this year. :)

:cry:

Well it depends on what you expect the Bucs to do  :lol:

Quote from: Valmy on April 01, 2021, 10:09:47 AM
Well it depends on what you expect the Bucs to do  :lol:

As long as they do better than the O's :P

(ok, that was mean, I'm sorry. :hug: )

Quite a high bar there  :lol:

Quote from: Syt on April 01, 2021, 10:08:22 AM
I may dabble with OOTP again :lol:

I've got my "Perfect Team" up and running but I'm firmly in the second division ATM.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 01, 2021, 10:46:43 AM

Quote from: Syt on April 01, 2021, 10:08:22 AM
I may dabble with OOTP again :lol:

I've got my "Perfect Team" up and running but I'm firmly in the second division ATM.

I did that a bit when it was new, but I'm not a fan of blind pack based competitive games.

Quote from: Syt on April 01, 2021, 10:49:33 AM
I did that a bit when it was new, but I'm not a fan of blind pack based competitive games.

I've done it on and off, the key I think is not caring that much how you do but just having fun with it.  If I stink it up in the rookie leagues, who really cares?  Also the packs only matter at the very beginning; after that I just interact with the auction economy.

The real problem with PT is what's happening today - I have Bo Bichette Live on my perfect team but he is playing the Yankees in real life.

When I tried it two or so years ago, whenever they introduced it, I stuck with auctions myself. Progress  (earning PP) was very glacial, though, and eventually I just stopped.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on March 31, 2021, 10:24:38 AM
Those old console games could be a lot of fun, but precise statistical realism was not really the point.

Bonds disagreed

Of all team games; baseball is particularly amenable to dice and card style sims (or their computer counterparts).  Although 18 or more players are in a given game, the action is broken up into components consisting of separate batter-defense confrontations. On the batting side, although the batter sees different configurations of pitchers, fielders, and physical conditions during the seasons, those distinctions tend to even out over the course of a 162 game seasons.  So it is fairly straightforward to represent in card or electronic from a batter's hitting performance on average for each year.  All that needs to be done is figure out how to modify those results to take account of the particular defense being faced and the surrounding conditions (in particular the ballpark conditions).

Figuring out and decomposing the effect of pitchers and the 8 fielders is a bit more tricky than the straightforward task of replicating hitting performance.  Still, most batted balls usually only involve the pitcher and 1-3 fielders on each play, so it isn't as complicated as say the interactions between defensive (or offensive) players in American football. But it is a challenge. There is a rough consensus that approximately 1/3 of the overall responsibility on defense is allocable to fielders and 2/3 to the pitcher. But the specifics of how to allocate comparative responsibility for individual events and play results to individual fielders and pitchers is more contested and difficult.

Each game has to commit to some model for handling the defensive allocation model.  The games that use the DIPS framework give the pitcher full responsibility on defense for strikeouts, BBs and homeruns (perhaps with some park adjustment); the other games all give the pitcher some responsibility for hit prevention on balls on play.  Each game has a model of how to allocate "chances" to fielders - Strat uses a standard ratio that doesn't change year-to-year, I think Payoff Pitch uses a standard ratio that varies by year and batter handedness, Inside Pitch uses actual data for the hitters and pitchers, Rostercard spreads them out evenly to all fielders (IMO one of the big shortcomings of that sytem).

All the games give roughly the same importance to fielding but they do so in different ways.  The basic distinction is between games that have a higher frequency of checks but where the run impact of each check is comparatively lower, and those that do fewer checks but where the run impact of different grades of fielders is comparatively higher.  Either approach can work and be realistic. The advantage of fewer checks is less rolls in a session and slightly quicker time to play - not surprisingly, of  the games discussed above, the ones that do this are Payoff Pitch and Rostercard - games that emphasize speed and ease play.  Strat and Inside Pitch go for the former approach.  Although that does result in a little more burden, I think I do prefer that approach as it makes the decision of whether to substitute offense or defense in the lineup - or to make late game substitutions - seem more meaningful and less like Russian Roulette. But YMMV.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 02, 2021, 10:35:02 AM
Of all team games; baseball is particularly amenable to dice and card style sims (or their computer counterparts).  Although 18 or more players are in a given game, the action is broken up into components consisting of separate batter-defense confrontations. On the batting side, although the batter sees different configurations of pitchers, fielders, and physical conditions during the seasons, those distinctions tend to even out over the course of a 162 game seasons.

As my sig used to say: One strikeout is a tragedy, a million strikeouts is a statistic. :P

I've crawled over .500 in Perfect Team (opening season) and pulled into second in the division but am still 28 games back of the 1st place team, which is ridiculously stacked.

Some other baseball games I have some familiarity with but limited exposure:

Statis Pro Baseball: this was a major player back in the day, an Avalon Hill product I used to pass by all the time at Compleat Strategist.  As I recall, it played like a somewhat lighter version of Strat-o-matic, but with some interesting wrinkles.  The most interesting one anticipated the DIPs framework in some ways: instead of a set 50-50 split between batter and pitcher card, some elite pitchers would have a greater chance of rolling results on their card, e.g. on a 2-9 on a 2d6 roll.  This interesting mechanism has been adapted in the next new game I'll review after this post.  Statis Pro also pioneered the use of fast action cards (FAC) as a streamline alternative for dice; several other games use this innovation, including Payoff Pitch.  Statis Pro went out of print but there is a new "advanced" variant version sold through a Facebook page and you can probably find older copies on ebay and the like.

Replay Baseball: Another older game that went defunct for some time but was later revived and is doing pretty well now in both computer and board form.  This is a pretty nicely designed game based on 6x6 matrix cards kind of like Inside Pitch but in a more conventional way.  Every play result uses a batter card but modified by the pitcher card, so both cards always come into play.  It does require some chart lookups on each play however.  Replay has some very strong partisans and I quite liked it in my limited play but since I prefer Inside Pitch - which plays similarly - I can't find much play time for it.

National Pastime Next Generation: http://www.ntlpt.com/
I found out about this one very recently.  "National Pastime" was a game started in the 1930s that eventually evolved into APBA.  The people behind this project went back to the open source original and added lots of bells and whistles, making it a kissing cousin of APBA Master Edition.  For the same reasons I am not a huge fan of the APBA platform, I am not totally sold on this board game; however there are several critical features of this game that make it of serious interest"
1) It is completely free to download.
2) It has a respectable coverage of past seasons
3) Some genius came up with a program that runs the entire game in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, complete with real schedules and lineups and a dice roller.  The Excel sheet also does the chart lookups for you.  It basically takes away 90% of the downsides.  And yes, it is all still free.
This is one I might be coming back to in the future despite some reservations.

Last game is 4th Street Baseball

This is another new model game that uses the DIPS framework to a significant extent.  The emphasis here is on detail and an immersive experience for head-to-head play, but at the cost of longer playing time.  I like this design a lot but although it is possible to play it solo it really required another player to work and the level of detail is not for everyone. The company is known for its table top football game, which allows players to choose from over 100 diagrammed plays using multiple formations.  The baseball game is less complex than that, but it does revolve around the concept of "matchups", either between hitter and pitcher or hitter and fielder.

4th street is the only table top game I know of that begins by determining the count at the time the play is made. This is way of separating quality pitchers as the better pitchers will produce more pitcher friendly counts. Each side then selects "plays" which usually involves the pitcher either selecting fastball or breaking ball and the batter guessing which pitch.  When the plays are revealed , you then roll on the pitcher's card to determine the "matchup" for the at bat.  Again the pitcher quality drives these matchup results; dominant strikeout pitchers will tend to produce more batter-pitcher matchups and less plays for fielders to get involved.

(https://i.postimg.cc/MprkNqJp/RJ-Pavano.png)

The Count roll is at the far left; the matchup roll to the right of that; all rolls on a d100. Here RJ has a 32% chance to get an 0-1 or 0-2 count; Pavano only has 21% chance to get those counts.  Against lefties, Johnson only has 1% chance of a "power" matchup (he only allowed 1 HR against lefties that year) and a 50% chance of a batter-pitcher matchup; for Pavano, those chances against lefties are 6% and 41% although against righties the matchup probabilities are similar between the two.

About 45% of the time the matchup will be between the pitcher and hitter, with typical results being walks or strikeouts, although other results are possible depending the batter or pitcher tendencies towards ground vs fly outs etc.  There is a chance for a "Power" matchup depending on how often the pitcher yields homeruns - in that case the batter rolls on their power column which will be mostly homers for good power hitters but deep fly outs for weaker ones.  Like Inside Pitch or Payoff Pitch there is also a chance for a "ballpark" result although this plays quite differently in 4th Street.  Finally about 35% of matchups are between the batter and fielder.

On a pitcher matchup, the player that "wins" the matchup rolls the play result on their side's card.  The winner of the matchup is determined by comparing player "grades".  Each pitcher is graded for their fastball and breaking pitches against lefties and righties with grades ranging from 1 to 10. Each hitter is graded against left and hand pitching mostly based on their propensity to strike out or draw walks, but from 10 to 20. The pitcher grade is substracted from the hitter grade, with 2 added if the hitter guessed the pitch right, and 2 substracted for guessing wrong.  If one side has a clear edge in the count, that side also gets a bonus on the matchup roll.  The batter rolls a d20 - if it is under the difference, he wins the matchup; under he loses.

As an example:
(https://i.postimg.cc/8PKnP4Ky/Manny-johnny.png)

If Manny Ramirez is batting against Randy Johnson and RJ throws fastball, Manny's grade against portsider Johnson is 18 and Johnsons' grade is 9, for a difference of 9. If Manny guessed fastball he needs to roll 11 or less to win the matchup; if he guesses wrong he needs a 7 or less.  But if lefthander Johnny Damon is batting, RJ's grade rises to 10 against Damon's 16 for a difference of 6.  Against Carl Pavano, however, Damon's 18 grade against righthanded pitching is compared to Pavano's 2 vs lefties for a difference of 16 before adjusting for the pitch guess.  Pavano is going to lose a lot of matchups.

Note that "winning" a batter-pitcher matchup is not always a good thing; a hitter that strikes out a lot is likely to roll a strikeout on his card.  However, a batter with a decent propensity to draw a walk is going to have a decent chance of drawing a walk if the win the matchup, as can be seen by the many 44 results under the "P" column on Manny's card, signifying a walk.

The same matchup process works on a play to a fielder, except then the batter grade for infield or outfield is compared against a fielding grade, again from 1-10.  Here winning the matchup is usually pretty decisive; hitters with good averages will usually roll singles for infield plays on their card and doubles or better on outfield plays.  EG Johnny Damon - a quintessential singles hitters has all "10" results under the IF (infield) column on his card - that means an automatic single if he wins the matchup.   Whereas even historically awful fielders like Manny in LF will usually generate outs if they are lucky enough to beat the odds an win the matchup.   

Like APBA, 4th street uses coded results for play results, with the codes listed on another chart.  However, the chart is quite simple and anyone familiar with positional codes in baseball will have most of it in memory in minutes.  10 is a single, 20 a double, 30 a single, 40 a homerun; 47-49 are also home runs with the second number indicating to what field it went to (left, center right). 50 and above are all out with the second number indicating the primary fielder involved on the play.   43 is strikeout, 44 a walk; the rest are rare plays.

Lastly there are the ballpark plays.  Each ballpark has its own full page sized card in the game with correct dimensions dividing up the field into zones and indicating where the walls are. The defense can position fielders as they wish.  On a "Ballpark" matchup you roll to see what zone the ball land in, adjusting by the hitters pull tendency.  Strong HR hitters have an adjustment to add distance, which may result in the ball going over the ball.  If a ball lands where a fielder is positioned it is an out.  If it is a zone away, the fielder can attempt a play with success depending on fielding ability.

Conclusion

There is a lot going on in this game but it isn't too tough once you get the hang of it.  The virtue is that there are real things for both players to do throughout the game and the game makes it like every decision has consequences.  Eg. if the Red Sox play Manny in the field to get his bat in the lineup with Ortiz the price they pay is losing most matchups the other side rolls with the left-fielder, likely resulting in a hit.  Damon seems like a safe bet in CF with his above average "6" grade, but if he needs to make a throw his "+4" arm (plus is a bonus to the runner) is a liability. On defense you have to weigh the benefits of shifting fielder against pull hitters.  And so on. 

But the downside is there is a lot more rolling and longer play times then a simpler modelled game like Payoff Pitch.

Another downside is that the player cards are of lower quality than Payoff Pitch and are on the small side given how much info is jammed in.  Because each season comes with a full set of ballpark sheets, seasons are not cheap at about $50.  I would recommend going for PDF versions of  seasons but those are also comparatively pricy at $25-30 compared to around $15 for Inside Pitch and $6 for Payoff Pitch.   Still if you want a detailed competitive baseball tabletop game for head to head play and are willing to go over an hour of play time per game, this game would be a top recommendation.

Thanks for this. :) You have the makings of a blog here with these articles. Throw in a couple of game replays and you'd be all set. :)

Quote from: Syt on April 05, 2021, 04:01:48 AM
Throw in a couple of game replays

My intent was to post a few here after I introduced some of the game systems.

Before getting to that, a brief discussions of computer platforms.  There are and have been many baseball themed games on PC, console and mobile platforms but the focus here is on games that substitute for or are akin to tabletop games.  So for example, although The Show is a very fine game that includes real rosters, stats and performance, it is at its core a video game and not a replay sim. 

Many of the board games discussed have computer versions - mostly for PC.  I haven't played the ABPA or Dynasty League so really can't comment, although the fact that ABPA windows is still being sold though a CD-ROM doesn't suggest that it is super up-to-date.  Dynasty League looks pretty swank and is tempting given that having the computer take care of all the complex fidlly bits counteracts the main disadvantage of that system.  Also the Dynasty League online platform is the only one in this category I am aware of that presently has tablet apps.  The downside: Price.  It  is distributed as part of an online fantasy service by subscription at $15 per month.   

I played the Strat PC version years ago but left it.  My problem was and is they make you pay extra for the card images; but without those images there isn't much point in playing a board game port as opposed to a dedicated computer-based replay sim.

Probably the best computer version of a tabletop game I've played is Replay Baseball - a game I gave short shrift to (probably unfairly) above in its cardboard version.  Although Replay would not be my first choice to hit the tabletop their computer port is really well done and worth considering on its own.  The interface is very clean and well-designed and it has lots of season replay friendly features.  Like others in this category, a full season file comes with complete schedules, rosters and real-life lineups for the year to allow you to replay the full schedule as originally played.   In Replay Baseball however, if you play one scheduled game, the engine will (if you want it) auto-play the other scheduled games in real time.  If something interesting happens in another game from the one you are playing, you can jump  in and take over the action.  This kind of feature is not unusual for dedicated computer games but is a cut above the usual for tabletop ports.  If I wanted to replay an entire season - something that I find untenable to do with paper and real dice - I would give the PC Replay version serious consideration, despite my overall preference for the Inside Pitch system

I previously discussed Inside Pitch's PC version - it provides a very good replica of the board game experience with the record keeping and chart check conveniences of the computer.  Compared to the Replay PC version, however, the interface does not look as nice and it lacks some of the cool features and bell and whistles that Replay PC has. 

4th Street also has a PC version - I played their demo but didn't care much for the interface or gameplay feel - also playing on PC draws away from the person-to-person, head-to-head play where 4th street really shines.

Next up will be a discussion of some dedicated computer replay sim games: Diamond Mind, Action PC baseball, and OOTP - which in theory can used to do season or past game replays.

I've recently dabbled a bit with Digital Diamond Baseball (in its 9th iteration on Steam). It's very much a table top game in spirit, with player stats translated into (joined) probabilities for each at bat for which 3 ten sided dice are rolled to determine the outcome and generates a decent play by play analysis. It gives you access to all historical seasons, allowing you to play each game with "as played" rosters, but you can also set up "fantasy games".

I can't speak to its accuracy, though: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1536600/Digital_Diamond_Baseball_V9/

That's a new one to me . . .

I ran my usual test based on the 1977 season (chosen b/c it is "typical" on key statistical aggregates like RPG, HR per 9, K per 9, BB per 9; because even though typical in the aggregate there were some relative outlier individual performances like Carew, Foster, Ryan; and because I am relatively familiar with the players and teams of that era)

Right away I really liked the speed of running a full season replay on auto - took just a couple minutes to run through.  Switching sceens is laggy

The results  . . . it was only one run through so take it with a grain of salt  But there were some concerning things like:

+ the Texas Rangers won 109 games, which would be a historically dominant team performance for any team.  The 77 Rangers were a good team but not that good.  IRL they finished 6th in runs scored in a very good hitter's park; their best hitter was Mike Hargrove and their HR leader Toby Harrah.  It doesn't scream 1939 Yankees levels of dominance.  In the replay they scored 770 (vs 767 in IRL - very accurate) but allowed only 608 (vs 657).   The biggest outlier was Bert Blyleven who went 24-5 with a 2.09 ERA in the replay.  Love the Nasty Dutchman, but that doesn't seem that credible.

+ The Baltimore Orioles OTOH, who contended in 2nd place with a 97-64 record, fell to 78-83 in the replay.  I guess replacing Earl Weaver with a machine hurts.  I guessed the computer was struggling doing 70s era Oriole platoons but that wasn't the issue - the replay Orioles actually scored more runs.  But they also allowed 730 runs in the replay as opposed to 653 IRL.  Two obvious culprits - starters Rudy May and Ross Grimsley both has sub 4 ERAs in real life but well over 5 in the replay.  That is interesting - both May and Grimsley were low K finesse pitchers.  Weaver used to stockpile guys like that (e.g. Dave McNally) put them into that big stadium with Brooks, Belanger and speedy guys in the outfield. The game may not be giving sufficient credit to strong defense - maybe I'll run a couple 1973 Orioles replays to test this.

+ Tito Fuentes hit .367.  IRL he hit .309, the only time in his career he hit over .300.  The following year he hit .140 then retired.  BA can vary a lot; I could accept something in the .330s but .367 seems far out.  In the NL Reggie Smith hit .351  - similar issue though not quite as extreme as Fuentes.

+ Ken Reitz was #5 in the NL in RBI with 109 and Larry Bowa had 219 hits.  The game seems to have a yen for 70s era good filed bad hit infielders.

+ Bill Bonham posted a 14-11 record with a 2.87 ERA (4.36 IRL).  No way Bonham posts a sub-3 ERA in Wrigley.  Not a chance.

On the plus side a lot of the results look pretty solid, e.g. George Brett keeps his low strikeout rate. Aggregate results were very close with the replay at about 3-4 pts higher in OBP and slugging.

Pricing is terrific.  Worth keeping an eye on for sure.






 

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 07, 2021, 12:58:10 PM
Pricing is terrific.  Worth keeping an eye on for sure.

From what I could tell from the forums it looks like it's a one-man passion project. The official page is over here: http://digitaldiamondbaseball.com/

The 73 sim went fine; Orioles starters actually had lower ERA than IRL including McNally.  So the sim is capable of properly representing low K pitchers.

I ran 2 more quick 77 sims and the 77 Orioles had losing records in both, in both cases with high runs allowed and poor performances from May and Grimsley.  It may be the defense ratings on position players need to be upgraded.

In sim 2 the NL leaders for batting average were Gene Richards (.349) and Steve Ontiveros (.346), way off real life performances.

In sim 3 the Rangers won 107 games and Bill Bonham's ERA was 2.61; I also saw Lenny Randle repeat a high BA performance I previously saw the first sim.

Diamond Mind is a PC replay sim designed by Tom Tippett, a statistician and baseball analyst who used to publish in SABR journals and like.  I played it some in the late 90s and the Oughts.  It had (has) a clean functional interface and for the most part delivered statistically plausible results.  The main downside was that season disks were expensive.  Tippett took a job with the Red Sox in the mid-00s and annual updates to the core engine ceased for about a decade.  It appears the game is being supported again - the season disks are now downloaded instead of coming on CD ROMS and the deluxe seasons have gone down in price to "only" $25.  This is still a lot more than the competition though.

When Tippett left Diamond Mind, I started to shift over to David Koch's Action PC Baseball. Action PC gets an update every year (admittedly sometimes minor) and so over time the interface has overtaken Diamond Mind, with a better look and lot of display and informational options.  I have simmed  a bunch of Action PC seasons over the years and while there are always a few weird outliers, I've found that is usually yields plausible results.  Historically there have been issues with mistakes in files but the company is good about distributing corrected files.  Seasons sell for $15 list, but they are almost always on sale for half price, and sometimes there are special sales with even deeper discounts - also there are steep discounts for getting an entire decade and an additive 20% discount on big orders over $100.  So if you are selective and wait for the best sales, you can pick up season files for a lot less than Diamond Mind.

Lastly there is Out of the Park Baseball ("OOTP"), easily the most commercially successful data-based baseball game, and the one that completely dominates the "Manager" niche..  Most of the other board and computer games I covered are essentially one-man shops or very small ventures, with the exception of Strat-o-matic.  OOTP started that way - as the hobby project of a German teenager - but now is a real business, recently sold to a Korean gaming conglomerate.  It really took off when it acquired MLB licenses - allowing it to package true rosters with authentic logos etc. - in early years if you wanted to play real life rosters you needed to manually load in the Lanham database.  I first tried an early version (v3??) and found it to be an intriguing but underbaked development project; it began to stabilize as a functional game around version 6.5.  Current version is 22 and includes complete minor leagues, international leagues and historical roster information for the majors and minors.

As a management sim, OOTP is top notch with lots of customization options and a very swank interface that now includes realistic looking stadiums and ball animations in game.  It is not designed to be a historical replay sim but it does have the capability to do that  and there are even specific settings that facilitate it. That makes it very tempting to use for historical replay because for one price you get access to every historical season. Unfortunately, the game really is optimized for other purposes and I find that even with the development and scouting systems shut off and ratings based on that season only, big outlier results are frequent (e.g. in a recent 77 replay I ran, the Orioles won 118 games).  So at least for me I don't use OOTP for that purpose.  However OOTP is still great if you want to play past seasons as a manager or general manager - e.g. take over a strong franchise that underachieved like the Giants of 60s or the Indians of the 50s and see if you can do better. 

To add to OOTP's positives - it's also a breeze to set up a completely fictional baseball universe in it (or a fictional universe with real world players). I've started fictional leagues in the early 1900s, had a post-war Soviet league, and a global Languish league in the past. Options have improved over the years, e.g. you can now run leagues with promotions and relegations between tiers.

The World Series That Never Was - Part I

In 1902, the Pittsburgh Pirates, champions of the National League, agreed to schedule a series of exhibition games with an all star team filled with players from the newly founded (as of 1901) American League.  Although intercourse with the AL upstarts was frowned upon, the experiment proved profitable and in 1903, the Pirates (champions again) staged a more elaborate best of 9 game exhibition series with the AL champions, the Boston Americans.  The Pirates fell short on the field but it was a great financial success  for everyone involved - over 100,000 people attended the 8 game series, yielding profits of over $80,000, a nice chunk of change in 1903. At the time, those games were just an elaborate non-league exhibition series of the kind fairly common in the early years of baseball and indeed long afterwards.  But we now call those games - somewhat anachronistically - the first World Series.

That success raised expectations for a similar exhibition in 1904.  But the Pirates dynasty faded that year in the face of what many believe to be the greatest New York Giants teams and perhaps one the of the greatest teams of all time, the 1904-05 Giants. Owner John Brush was not averse to making a buck, but he had a problem.  A few blocks away from his club's home at the Polo Grounds, his hated AL rivals were plying their trade at Hilltop Park.  Led by staff ace Jack Chesbro and his 41 victories and the nifty bat work of Wee Willie Keeler, the Highlanders looked a good bet to win the AL crown.  No amount of money could tempt Brush to treat the Highlanders as equals, much less risk the ignominy of the kind of defeat suffered by the Pirates the year before.  Brush put the kibosh on a 1904 post-season exhibition, complaining of the lack of a proper set of rules and structures and raising all manner of other excuses.

The following year, his Gotham rivals safely out of contention, Brush relented. Using the aegis of the "National Commission" - the ancient ancestor of "Major League Baseball" - Brush propounded a set of rules for a post-season contest between league champions, the first World Series, properly speaking. Brush's Giants played in that 1905 series, triumphing easily over Philadelphia.

But what if Brush had known for certain that Boston would be AL champs in 1904, not New York?  Would he have changed his mind and then convinced the Americans to abide by his proposed "rules" for a 1904 contest?  Perhaps not, but we can imagine what would have happened if he did . . .

Ground rules

I assume the "Brush Rules" apply - best of 7 series, location of first 3 games to be determined by lot, the next 3 games "to be decided" in a way that ensures the each club hosts 3 games, the final game location if needed decided by lot.  I'm not going to research 1904 weather conditions so I will assume each game day has playable conditions.

I will be using Rostercard as the sim engine as it is quick and easy and one of the few systems to have the 1904 season. The system is particularly good for small deadball era rosters where you can use an Excel file version to get both lineups and all pitchers on one sheet. 

Lineups will be based on actual lineups used by the teams late in the 1904 season - that means e.g. "Turkey" Mike Donlin will be playing regularly even though he had fewer than 200 ABs on the season. Catchers of that era could not play every day given the rudimentary equipment and so will alternate days. Giants star Roger Bresnahan, who mostly played outfield that year, did not appear in any games after early September 1904, by which time the Giants were running away with the pennant.  A quick google search did not yield any additional insight - I presume there was some sort of injury although other explanations are possible.  Bresnahan was fully back in action in 1905 so it couldn't have been permanently disabling. One would have to speculate about whether he would have been cleared to play in the Series.  My compromise solution is to keep him out of the starting lineup but make him available to pinch hit.

The other tricky issue is handling stolen bases.  Retrosheet data on players caught stealing is very sporadic in the deadball era and isn't consistent until the late teens.  There is no date for 1904 and thus the Rostercard sheets assume 100% success rates, which is clearly wrong.  The issue matters because the Giants stole many more bases than the Americans - giving them a 100% success rate would give them a huge unfair advantage. given the low run scoring environment.  The data that exists from the surrounding period suggests an overall success rate of 55% was typical. For the sim, I will assume that players rated very fast (F!) steal at 67% rate; fast (F) at 55%; average (A) at 50%; and slow (S) at 40%.

All players have the same (high) bunt rating which probably also reflects a lack of data.  However, that assumption is more reasonable given that bunting was so fundamental to play in that era that every good player would be assumed to have some proficiency; in addition, those ratings do not favor one side over the other.

Statis Pro- had the whole collection, basketball, football and baseball. Ah the 80's prior to getting the Microleague baseball for my Apple IIgs

Throngs of men arrived early that day at McGreevy's 3rd Base Saloon on Columbus Avenue.  Chanting, singing, and carrying banners, and with former US Congressman John F. Fitzgerald in the lead, they marched through the streets to the Huntington Avenue Grounds. Once there, they filed into their traditional seats behind third base, under the watchful and appreciative gaze of Jimmy Collins, part time real-estate mogul, star third baseman, and manager of the Boston Americans.

Collins took comfort in the skills of his veteran batsmen – boisterous Chick Stahl, capable of spraying sharp line drives to all fields; former Senators standout Kip Selbach; slick fielding Candy LaChance at first; the dangerous Buck Freeman, who once hit a phenomenal 25 home runs in a season and led the AL in triples in the just completed 1904 season; and his brilliant shortstop Freddy Parent, who led the team in batting average. He took even more comfort in his peerless pitching staff, led by day's starter, the already legendary Denton True "Cyclone" Young.  But most of all, he took comfort in the boisterous support of *his* Royal Rooters, ensconced in their traditional perch along the third base line, well positioned to hurl insults at the visiting Nine. As player-manager of the reigning champions of all Base Ball, Collins knew full well the importance of the Rooters. His Boston Americans had faced a difficult foe that past year, but the mighty Pirates fell 5-3, rattled by the jeers and taunts of the Royal Rooters. Even the great Honus Wagner fond himself flustered as the Rooters changed the lyrics of their anthem "Tessie" – from "Tessie, you make me feel so badly" to "Honus, why do you play so badly." Wagner insisted he was unaffected but Collins knew better: the usually unflappable Dutchman hit a mere .222 in the contest. Collins would need the Rooters in full force again, facing a Giants team even more formidable than those Pirates.

The Rooters were not alone at Grounds today of course.  All of Boston's finest (and perhaps quite a few of their less than finest) had turned out for the contest, among them not a few members of the fairer sex, who – it was rumored – wanted to see for themselves the matinee idol good looks of the young Giant hurler, Christy Mathewson. Matty would be starting for the Gothamites that day, as Giant manager McGraw – himself a third-sacker of Collins' generation – sought to match youthful vigor against Young's veteran wiles. The Beantowners took their breath in as the New York Nine took the field: "Giant" seemed an appropriate word for the muscular 6 foot tall, Dan McGann, accompanied by fellow teammates including the incomparable Bill Dahlen, finest shortstop the game had ever seen not named "Honus," the beefy yet speedy outfielder Sam Mertes; Georgetown graduate Art Devlin, whose intellectual heft was matched only by his peerless play at third base and a deceptively dangerous bat – his first time at bat for the Giants, he hit a grand slam home run.  As if this galaxy of ballplaying talent were not enough, McGraw had engineered a midseason swap that brough "Turkey" Mike Donlin to New York, reinforcing the Senior Circuit's strongest lineup with one of the finest batmen in the game.

It was Donlin who led off to start the game, digging in against Young. A gasp could be heard in the Boston crowd as Donlin sent a deep drive to center field, but Stahl hauled it in for the first out; outfield mate Selbach then caught George Browne's fly to left. Sox rooters were relieved but Collins was concerned: if his ace kept allowing drives, sooner or later they would start falling in. As if on cue, McGann lined a single between Selbach and Stahl and then proceeded to steal second. Mertes followed by lashing a single to center. Stahl had no chance to catch the fleet McGann and right away the visitors had a 1-0 lead. Young, unperturbed, got Dahlen to ground to LaChance at first, limiting the damage to a single run.

In the bottom of the 1st, it look like the Americans would strike back, as Selbach led off his side with a double down the right field line.  But Matty quickly induced popouts from Parent and Stahl. Manager Collins, batting cleanup, sent up a towering fly ball to center that Mertes had no difficulty bringing in for the third out.

In the second, Young yielded a single to Devlin but then mowed through the soft bottom third of the Giants order, dispatching Billy Gilbert and Mathewson on strikes. Matty got his revenge in the bottom of the inning though. After Buck Freeman managed a drop a base hit just in front of Browne in right field, light hitting catcher Lou Criger laced a two out double to right.  But Browne relayed the ball in perfectly, forcing Freeman to halt at third.  There he would stay, as Matty dispatched the opposing pitcher with his unhittable fadeaway.

Neither club mustered a threat in the third and in the fourth, Young stranded Dahlen at second by securing three straight outs. In the bottom of the inning, The Rooters cheered lustily as Freeman smashed a drive that split Mertes and Browne, racing around the bases and sliding into third with a one-out triple. Working carefully to LaChance, Matty tried unleashing another fadeaway, but this one failed to dart, and LaChance deposited the ball in front of Donlin for single, tying the game. The Rooters howled with joy and intensified their riding of Mathewson, but the young moundsman ignored the taunts, inducing Hobe Ferris to pop out to Gilbert at second and then striking out Criger.

Two more scoreless frames followed as the pitchers settled in. Mathewson was not in top form but managed to scatter the Boston hits and bear down in the pinches. In the 7th however, the Americans broke through again. After Criger went down on strikes a second time, Young took matters in his own hands. Working the count full, he sent Matty's pitch into right field, advancing to second when Selbach sent a perfectly placed dribbler down the first base line on the hit and run play. With two out, Parent grounded the ball slowly to second.  Gilbert raced in and gathered up the ball, but too late to make a play on either runner. Stahl, who had singled on a drive to right field his prior at bat, again hit the ball into the air in right, but this time it appeared Browne had time to get to it.  But as the Beantowner spectators screamed, Browne stumbled and the ball scooted past him. Young scored easily and Parent reached third.  The home team took a 2-1 lead, sending the crowd into delirium. Only two frames left and the immortal Cy Young on the hill to close it out.

But the Giants refused to yield. Dahlen lead off the top of the 8th with a base hit and Devlin followed with a long single to right, placing Dahlen at third place with no outs. Gilbert popped out weakly to the catcher, bringing weak-hitting catcher Jack Warner to the plate. McGraw signaled, and Warner dropped a perfect bunt down the first based line, bringing Dahlen in with the tying run. Sensing a chance at victory, McGraw sent in reliable Roger Bresnahan to hit for Mathewson. Bresnahan responded with a deep fly to left field, but Selbach gathered it in for the out.
For the next three innings, both sides struggled to muster any offensive threat. McGraw brought in his fireballing rookie Red Ames. While yielding 3 walks in 3 innings, Ames otherwise shut down the exhausted and punchless Americans. Nor could the Giants make headway against Young, or against righthander Norwood Gibson, who replaced Young after the 10th. Only the Royal Rooters remained unfatigued, keeping up a relentless barrage of insults and repeated refrains of "Tessie".

In the 13th inning, McGann strode to the plate for the Giants, with two hits, a hit by pitch, and two stolen bases already to his credit. Facing off against Gibson, McGann grounded the ball down to Parent at short. McGann raced down the line as the strong-armed Parent fired the ball to LaChance.  "SAFE" cried the ump, to the fury of the Rooters, who immediately shifted their torrents of abuse to the hapless arbiter. But McGann took advantage of the tumult, stealing his third base of the day and reaching scoring position with no one out. Pitching deliberately to Mertes, Gibson threw a fastball low and Criger lost the handle, allowing McGann to advance easily to third. Bearing down, Gibson fired a pitch inside that Mertes let go by. "STRIKE THREE" called the umpire, whose concern for his continued worldly existence now took priority over his punctilious policing of the strike zone. The Rooters cheered joyously. The wily Bill Dahlen took the hint. When Gibson threw a pitch outside, he took no chances, reaching out and getting his bunt down. Gibson had no choice but to get the out at first as McGann sprinted home to give the Giants a 3-2 lead.

The Americans had one more chance. Parent reached base for his second hit of night, restoring the hopes of the Boston faithful.  But the usually reliable Stahl disappointed with a high pop straight up that Warner caught easily. That brought up Collins, who hadn't hit the ball out of the infield the entire day.  But after him was the powerful Freeman, who had 2 hits on the day. With the shadows lengthening on the field, Collins expertly bunted Parent over to second, setting up Freeman to bring him in for the tie. After watching one Ames fastball blaze by to set his timing, Freeman swung mightily at the second pitch, sending the ball into arcing flight into the heart of the outfield.  Mertes, tracking the ball and legs pumping, reached out, and hauled it in for the final out.  The Giants, victorious, quickly hustled off the field, wary of the hostile crowd around them.

But the stunned Rooters were uncharacteristically silent. Temporarily of course. Because Boston had drawn the lot again.  The Giants were winners in the first contest, but they would have to come back to the Huntington Grounds the next day for Game 2.

Quote from: katmai on April 10, 2021, 08:44:06 PM
Statis Pro- had the whole collection, basketball, football and baseball. Ah the 80's prior to getting the Microleague baseball for my Apple IIgs

I used to look at the box in the store as a kid but since I had Strat baseball and football, I couldn't justify putting money into another system.

I do think Statis Pro has been influential. Strat-o-matic and APBA are fine games but if someone were making a game from scratch now I doubt they would use those models. The innovations of Statis Pro - having pitcher characteristics impact the card split and the use of Fast Action Cards - are impacting designs today.

Game 2

The mood among Boston fans was subdued as the second game of the Series got underway.  The Giants had defeated their ace in taken a 1-0 Series lead in a game which displayed the speed and skill of New York Nine. Having struggled to muster safe knocks against Giant hurler Christy Mathewson, the American batters now faced an even more implacable foe in the thick and powerfully built "Iron Man" Joe McGinnity. While Matty had a splendid '04 season, winning 33 games to only 12 losses, McGinnity was even better, with an astonishing 35-8 record, yielding only 307 hits in over 400 innings of tireless work.

The only Bostonian that seemed truly confident that day was the other tough Irishman scheduled to pitch that day, the American club's Bill Dinneen. Over the past two years, the athletic Dinneen had perfected his repertoire – a sharp curveball complementing one the most feared fastballs in the game, its speed driven by Dinneen's powerful legs and vaulting delivery. Since coming over from the NL rival Boston Braves, Dinneen had reeled off three straight 20 win seasons, placing him in the elite of AL hurlers.  More than that – he was also the hero of the '03 series against Pittsburgh, winning all 3 games he started, including the decisive 8th game.

Still, Boston seemed all jitters in the top of the 1st.  Rock steady Jimmy Collins uncharacteristically bobbled a sharp grounder from Turkey Mike Donlin, before recovering and beating Donlin by a step with a strong throw. Dinneen worked the count 2-2 to George Browne before dispatching him with  looping curve ball. McGann, a Giant hero of Game 1, stepped in, characteristically crowding the plate to deny Dinneen the outside strike. Undeterred, Dinneen fired inside to brush McGann off, but clipped him on the elbow.  McGann, laughing it off, sauntered down to first and then promptly stole second on the next pitch, his fourth stolen bag of the Series. Dinneen walked Mertes, bringing up Bill Dahlen, who went 3 for 6 in game 1.  The Giant shortstop knocked the ball out to center, but right into the hands of American centerfielder Chick Stahl.  The Boston fans let out a sigh – the inning was over without damage done, but Dinneen had not seemed sharp.

They needn't have worried – the failed Giant first inning attack proved the Gothamite high water mark.  In the bottom of the inning, the Boston bats came to life, knocking McGinnity about like a rag doll.  Selbach and Parent started the affair with successive sharp hits down the middle; then Stahl moved them both over with a perfectly executed hit and run play. Collins then rapped out another single , bringing in Selbach.  Parent waited patiently at third to give slugger Buck Freeman a chance to swing. Freeman, his unimpressive 5'9" frame concealing a wickedly powerful swing, did not disappoint, blasting a deep drive to right field. Light-footed George Browne managed to track the ball down for the out, but even his strong arm had no chance to catch Parent tagging up from third. Just like that, the Americans had a 2-0 lead against the great McGinnity.

Boston continued their assault over the next 2 frames. Veteran catcher Duke Farrell, a Giants star a decade earlier, delivered a double for the Americans, advanced to third base on a sacrifice by Dinneen, and came home on a single by Selbach. In the third inning, Boston tacked on another run after Collins collected his second hit of the night, stole a base, and then loped home easily when switch-hitting LaChance ripped a weak McGinnity fastball down the right field line. 4-0.

The Rooters cheered raucously as their side rapped out hit after hit.  "Feeling rusty today, McGinnity?" they jeered, laughing and singing as Boston hitters kept the scoreboard boys in good shape. True to his nickname, though, McGinnity stoically continued on without betraying his frustration, hoping his teammates could make up the gap.

They couldn't. Dinneen was back on his World Series form and shut the Giants down inning after inning. In the third Donlin led off with a base hit to left field. But with 2 strikes on him, Browne muffed the hit and run, missing the pitch entirely and watching helplessly as the still strong-armed Farrell gunned down Donlin at second for the double play.  Dinneen also got help from his teammates, including a brilliant diving catch by Selbach, robbing Dahlen of a potential double, and a tough stop by Candy LaChance of a drive by Browne down the first base line.

In the sixth inning, McGann beat out a grounder for an infield hit and then attempted his to rob his 5th base of the Series.  This time, however, he was caught by Farrell.  A costly miscue for the Giants, as Mertes and Dahlen followed with back-to-back doubles. The Giants had finally mounted an offensive barrage of their own but had only one run to show for it.

It would not be enough – Dinneen settled down and cruised the rest of the way, holding the visitors to just the one run.  On their side, however, the Americans had one more indignity to heap on Iron Man McGinnity. In the bottom of the 7th, Farrell connected for his second double of the game and then scored when Freddy Parent's smash rolled all the way to the wall in deep center field, with Parent reaching third with a stand-up triple. Stahl then joined the festivities with his first base hit of the game, making it a 6-1 game.

That is how the scoreboard read when the Giant hitters fell meekly in order in the ninth.  The Huntington Grounds faithful had their highest hopes rewarded. Now they had one more home game to look forward to before the Series would move to New York for the next three games.

1904 World Series Game 3

For the third day in a row, the Royal Rooters took their place along the third base line, their spirts buoyed by their side's decisive drubbing of the New York the prior day. Their heroes of the diamond had exposed the Giants' vulnerabilities, just as the Pittsburgh had been exposed in '03. And on the mound for the Americans today was their third ace, the former Pirate standout Jesse Tannehill, whose pinpoint control was rivalled only by Boston's own Cy Young. His batterymate for the day would be Duke Farrell, fresh off his success the prior day controlling the Giant running game, while contributing two doubles.

For their part, the Giants could not be counted out, they had a third ace of their own, Luther "Dummy" Taylor, armed with an arsenal of pitches delivered from his twisting delivery. Deaf from birth, Taylor compensated with extraordinary keen eyesight, and did almost as much damage on the Giant's bench stealing signs as he did to opposing batters on the mound.

In the first inning, the Boston side continued their dominance the prior day. Farrell cut down Giant outfielder George Browne attempting to steal second, and then Tannehill dispatched the dangerous Dan McGann with a slow looping curveball for strike three.  In the American half of the inning, Freddy Parent and Chick Stahl rapped out two quick hits and then McGann mishandled Jimmy Collins' bunt loading the bases. But Taylor, immune to the taunts of the Rooters, did not buckle and escaped from the inning with only a single run scored.

The next two innings, the pitchers took control, with Tannehill breezily setting the Giants down in order. Taylor allowed two more hits to Parent and Collins, but stranded them both.  Still 1-0.
In the top of the fourth, the Giants struck.  Donlin led up with a sharply hit ball to right field.  Then, as Hobe Ferris moved toward second on the hit and run play, Browne shot a grounder in the vacated space, reaching safely and advancing Donlin to third base with no outs. Tannehill went after McGann with another sharp curve and McGann flied weakly to right forcing Donlin to hold. But then Mertes hit a sharp ground ball at short that Parent bobbled, allowing Donlin to score the tying run. Bill Dahlen then dropped a single in front of Stahl in leftfield.  Browne, hustling around third tried for the plate, and ball, man, glove and base all seemed to come together as one. A normal umpire would have and easy decision – call the out and avoid the wrath of the Boston fanatics. But Hank O'Day, calling behind the plate that day, was no normal man. He called the play as he saw it – safe – and the Giants took the 2-1 lead.

Tannehill struggled again in the 5th inning, allowing hits to Dunny Taylor and Donlin, again putting men on first and third. Facing McGann, Tannehill went to his inshoot one time too many. Timing the slowly arcing curve, McGann line the pitch to left, scoring Donlin. 3-1.

But Tannehill was unshakable as always and silenced the Giant bats from that point on. The question was whether the Americans could get to Taylor again. Boston threatened in the 5th with two more base hits, but again Taylor escaped, inducing LaChance to fly to left. The following 3 innings, Taylor fell back on his drop ball, and the Americans grounded pitch after pitch into the hands of the Giant infielders.

In the bottom on the ninth, their hopes waning, the Rooters were revived by Selbach's knock to left field. Advancing to second on Parent's slow grounder to Taylor, Selbach then raced home when Stahl hammered a single to centerfield. The Americans were within one. Collins then added a single of his own putting his team within one base of a tie. Facing the powerful Buck Freeman, Taylor twisted his body, uncurled and threw. Freeman's hands tightened as the ball approached the plate on a straight land and he took a vicious cut. But at the last second, the ball shot downward and Freeman, the victim of another Taylor drop pitch, drove the ball into the ground and down the first place line, where McGann gathered it in easily for the 3rd out and the game.

From the Archives of the Federal Writers Project – Selected Interview Transcripts from the American Baseball Oral History Project (1904 World Series Game 4)

Fred Silver, Forest Hills, NY, 44: My father took me to see the Championship Series game.  We didn't call it the World Series back then.  My father adored Matty [ed. NY Giant pitcher Christy Mathewson] – he used to call him the Galahad of the Diamond.  I'd never seen [Boston pitcher Cy] Young before although my cousin saw him pitch at Hilltop [Park – then home stadium of the American League NY Highlanders]
Q. How did your father react to what Mathewson did that day?
A: Of he couldn't contain himself – I don't think I ever saw him so happy in his life, but at the same time we were so nervous as well because we didn't know who would win the game. Everyone talks about what Matty did and he was magnificent.  But it was Young that captured my attention – nowadays people forget how well he pitched that day.  It was like magic watching him throw so hard and yet place every ball exactly where he wanted it. I was a Giant rooter of course but I couldn't help be impressed. I didn't say anything to Dad about that.

Lawrence Weddell, Yonkers, NY, 67: I got in late, the crowd was so dense, but I was in time to see the Giants score in the second inning. I remember Devlin beating out a bunt for a hit, you cannot imagine how fast that man could run.  And the next play I'll never forget.  The next hitter, I think it was Dahlen [ed.  It was Billy Gilbert; Bill Dahlen was at second] hit a routine grounder down to third.  Jimmy Collins was there – he was the Boston manager you know.  Back then there were lots of player-managers, more than now.  Anyway, I think Collins was thinking about a double play, he must have taken his eye off the ball a split second and muffed it.  Everyone safe.
Q. Do you see how he reacted?
A.  Oh he was furious at himself, you could tell from 100 yards away. I think that might have something to do with what happened later.

Bill Dineen, former pitcher, Boston Americans, currently American League umpire, Syracuse, NY, 61: We just couldn't hit Matty that day.  He struck out 3 of our boys in the 1st inning alone.  But it wasn't the usual Mathewson, always in command.  His fast pitch was really jumping around that day, even Matty didn't seem to know where it would go.  A couple of us got hit and we drew some bases on balls but we couldn't have hit him if we brought an entire truck full of lumber down to Coogan's Bluff.
Q. You must have been concerned already down 2-1 in the Series.
A. Of course but Cy was keeping us in the game.  And Mathewson was so wild we figured if we could just hang in and steal a couple runs, we could still take the game.
Q. Was the pressure too much for Collins?
A. No  it wasn't that.  You have to remember Collins was still seething over [Umpire Hank] O'Days call in Game 3 with Browne [the prior game the Giants had taken a 2-1 lead on a close call at home plate involving outfielder George Browne].  And he was angry with himself over the error in the second inning.  So when O'Day made the strike 3 call in the 4th – well, Jimmy usually kept his head cool, but he did have a temper.

Patrick Byrne, Bridgeport, CT, 73: I was quite close to the field, I saw those events quite clearly.
Q. What happened with Collins in the 4th inning?
A. The umpire called him on strike 2, and he said something.  I couldn't hear exactly what Collins said but it wasn't good morning.  Then he fouled off another pitch and the next Matty put in the dirt for ball 2.  I think the next pitch is when it happened. It was close but maybe a bit outside.  Hard to say, but the umpire called strike 3. Collins went absolutely mad, out of control. Two Boston men came out to hold him back, I think he might have killed the ump otherwise. I'm over 70 and I've heard about every curse a man can say to another, but there are things Collins screamed that day I'd never heard up to then or since. 
Q. He was ejected?
A. Of course.  Then Buck Freeman comes up and Matty's first pitch hits him in the chin.
Q. On purpose?
A. Oh no – I don't think so, Mathewson never went in for that sort of stuff – he seemed genuinely concerned for Freeman. But after the Collins business you couldn't tell it to Freeman and he went charging after Matty with the bat still in hand.
Q What do you remember then?
A. Mayhem. Every player running out, fans tumbling on the field, the Boston men retreating to the dugout swinging bats around for protection. McGraw had to come out on the field and talk the crowd down.

Art Devlin, bank manager and former Giant third baseman, Jersey City, NJ, 57:
Q. When you went out in the field in the 9th inning, did you know that Mathewson was pitching a no-hitter?
A. Oh yes -we all knew and Matty knew most of all.  But no one said anything about it.  Not so much because of the superstition but because we had to focus on winning the game.  We were only up 1-0.
Q. But surely you had confidence that Mathewson would get them out in the 9th?
A. Yes. But you must remember he was a bit wild that day.  We had a real scare in the 7th inning when Matty walked three men in a row. We only escaped that because Bowerman caught Patsy Dougherty trying to steal second.
Q. It was Dougherty who got the hit, right?
A. Yes, he had come in for Freeman when Buck got ejected. Less power than Buck but faster. He laid a perfect bunt down the 3rd base line.  He was a real master at that. It was my play to make and I felt terrible about losing Matty the no hitter. Of course afterwards he said not to worry about it, all that mattered was we won the game. The truth was I never had a chance to get Patsy. McGraw had positioned me perfectly and I hustled to the ball and made a good throw, but the hit was too well placed and Patsy was too fast.
Q. Did you think it was a cheap way to break up a no hitter?
A. No, not with the game still on the line. It would be different it we had been up 10-0 but they still had a chance to win.  We hadn't hit a lick off Cy Young since the 2nd and he would have shut us down all day if needed. Patsy did the right thing for his team.
Q. But they still lost?
A. yes Matty struck out LaChance and then got Hobe Ferris for the final out. We were up 3 games to their 1 and back to the Polo Grounds the next day. We were ready to take it all.

Game 5

New York sports fanatics have often been accused of an excess of smugness. The city on the Hudson has experienced its fair share of champions, and quite a few more beyond that. That experience has bred the New York fan to have high expectations, and when those expectations are met, a sense that all is simply proceeding as it should in the proper state of the world.

If ever that attitude of casual superiority - so irritating to partisans of other cities - seemed justifiable, it was on the morning of Game 5 of the 1904 Base Ball Championship Series. The mighty Giants held a 3-1 game lead, needing only one more victory to prevail and with the next two contests guaranteed to take place in the friendly confines of the Polo Grounds. Other than the 6-1 laugher won by Boston in Game 2, the Giants had prevailed in the prior contests, each of them a hard fought battle in which the New York nine's speed, confidence, and willpower allowed them to assert their dominance over their American League rivals. As for the game 2 loss, that could fairly be written off as an anomaly. Surely there was no chance that the Bostonians could hope to achieve such offensive success a second time against the great Iron Man McGinnity, winner of 66 games in the prior two years alone.

Boston did have one hope left - Bill Dinneen would be pitching for their side that day. Although not as celebrated as McGinnity or his teammate Cy Young, Dinneen had started four games in the interleague contests with NL champs over the past 2 seasons - and won all 4.

Dinneen did not seem sharp at game's start however, serving up an easy delivery to Donlin with his first pitch, who rocketed it out to centerfield for a standup double to the delight of the cheering faithful of the Polo Grouds.  After two fly outs from Browne and McGann, the crowd roared again as Mertes delivered another base hit to center.  But this time, Chick Stahl, charging the ball, heaved a perfect strike to catcher Lou Criger, who tagged out a sliding Donlin. New York might prevail today, but Boston would not go down without a fight.

McGinnity, as expected, was back on form, setting down the 9 out of 10 batters through the first three innings, baffling the Americans with his sidearm inshoots and overhand downshoots.  In the fourth inning, however, the reliable Buck Freemen managed to muscle one of McGinnity's sinking pitches over the heads of the infield for a hit.  When McGinnity attempted to dispatch the next hitter, LaChance, with a curve, the pitch hung, and the graceful Boston first sacker ripped it down the right field line for a double, driving in Freeman for a 1-0 lead.

To the satisfaction of the home crowd, however, the Giants quickly stormed back, plating one run each in the 5th and 6th innings. The first run was scored by Mike Donlin, who led off the 5th with a fantastic wallop off Dinneen, allowing him to reach third as the ball rattled off the walls in deep left field. In the 6th, the Giants used their speed to take the 2-1 lead, with McGann executing a perfect hit and run play to advance Donlin, who scored again on a softly rolling grounder off the bat of Mertes.

But in the 7th inning, Boston responded with some flash of their own. Dineen, batting second on the inning, appeared flail weakly at one of McGinnity's submarine strikes, but overeager Giant receiver Jack Warner thrust out his glove too aggressively, flicking against Dinneen's bat. Dinneen, taking first on the interference, advanced to second on a nicely laid bunt by Selbach and then raced home safely on Freddy Parent's single. 2-2.

Now it was the turn of the Giants again.  Billy Gilbert blasted a sharp one out single to right field. Warner seeking to atone for his fielding gaffe in the 7th, attempted the hit and run, but failed to make contact, going down on strikes, as Gilbert was caught easily at second for the double play. Then in the 8th, Donlin, with two hits and two runs scored in the game, hit a sharp grounder scooped up by a diving Freddy Parent, who then whirled and threw for the out at first. Browne, up next, hit an almost identical strike, this time towards the right side, where Hobe Ferris made an equally dazzling play for the third out, quieting the throngs at Coogan's Bluff.

In the ninth inning, Boston's weak hitting catcher Lou Criger, sidelined since game 1 after his failure to control the Giant runners, punched a single out to right field and then advanced on Dinneen's sacrifice. No speedster, Criger still scored easily when Kip Selbach found the gap in right center for a double.  Boston was now up 3-2; could their ace Dineen close it out?

It appeared not.  After inducing McGann to ground out, Dinneen yielded a double to Fred Mertes, perhaps the fastest player on the diamond.  Following Mertes was Bill Dahlen, the finest all-round player on the field and with six hits to his name in the Series. But Dinneen did not betray any sign of nerves. He reached back and threw a hard rising fastball which Dahlen popped straight up for the second out.  Devlin then grounded weakly to short for the game.

The spectators were too stunned to express their displeasure at the outcome and filed in silence out of the Polo Grounds. There could be no doubt - Bill Dineen had provided himself the master of autumnal Base Ball, winning his 5th championship series game in as many starts.

But would it matter?  The Giants still held the series lead, and would return to their home grounds the next day, looking for revenge.

1904 Championship Series Game 6

Giant rooters could be excused for their pensive mood at the start of Game 6.  Though their Nine held the Series lead 3 games to 2, and although Game 6 would be played at home Polo Grounds, Fortune seemed to favor their American League rivals.  The fearless Bostonians had descended down the slopes of Coogan's Bluff and with their backs to the wall, had wrested away Game 5 from New York. Knowledgeable fans recalled the similar resilience this same team had exhibited in the prior year's Series, where the Americans had ultimately triumphed against an imposing Pittsburgh team.  Was Boston about to turn the same trick again?

Perhaps the only unworried man in the stadium that day was the always effervescent but poised Giant hurler, Luther "Dummy" Taylor.  He had held the Americans to only a single run in Game 3 and was confident he could do it again on his home ground.  And in the first 4 innings, the Boston batsmen could not gainsay him.  They swung fruitlessly as Taylor unleashed a confusing array of fastballs, curves and drop balls from his corkscrew windup. Buck Freeman reached on an error by the usually surehanded Bill Dahlen in the 2nd, and Stahl barely beat out a infield dribbler for a hit in the 4th.  But on both occasions Taylor quickly snuffed out the rally. The shouts and cheers from the Giant rooters swelled as Taylor augmented his display of pitching mastery with running pantomimes of the umpire, coaches and opposing hitters.

The Giant hitters, on the other hand, fared little better against Boston's Jesse Tannehill.  They did manage to eke out a run in the first on a single, an misplayed flyball to Freeman in right field, and a ground out that scored Mike Donlin.  Other than that, their bats remained quiet as the two sides set down for what appeared to be a pitcher's duel and with the Giants clinging on to a thin 1-0 lead.

In the top of the fifth, veteran Boston catcher Duke Farrell, already a hero in the Series for Boston, clobbered a two out double off the left field wall. But he remained stranded at second when the next batter hit a soft fly to center, ending the inning.  In the bottom half of the inning, however, the Gothamites mounted a more sustained barrage, with Devlin, Gilbert, and Bowerman rapping out three straight singles.  With one run in and 2 men still on, Turkey Mike Donlin cleared the bases with a tremendous drive that ended with the ball rolling about near the centerfield fences. Donlin ended up at third with a triple and the Giants took a seemingly insurmountable 4-0 lead. 

In the top of the 6th, Taylor casually mowed through the top 3 batters in the Boston lineup and the end seemed near for the Americans. In the 7th inning, manager Jimmy Collins opened with a weak grounder to Gilbert for the first out.  Devlin then made a fine scoop of Freeman's sharp grounder towards third, but rushed himself with a poor throw that drew McGann off the bag, allowing Freeman to reach safely. LaChance then gave a fine display of hit-and-run technique, knocking the ball through the hole for a base hit. Taylor, now working carefully to light hitting Hobe Ferris, outsmarted himself and allowed Ferris to take a pitch just outside for ball 4 loading the bases.

That brought up none other than Duke Farrell.  More than a decade earlier, Farrell had a starring turn with another Boston team, the Reds of the now defunct American Association, leading the league in homeruns and runs batted in. But at 37, banged up after 17 brutal years behind the plate, Farrell's starring days were long over, and a hit a mere .212 during the season.  But the Championship Series seemed to have revived Duke, who had performed superlatively both behind and at the plate. With his characteristic faith in veteran players, Collins gave the old warhorse the signal to swing away. Farrell delivered dumping a single into left field and scoring a run. 

Seizing on the moment, Collins sent Patsy Dougherty in to hit for the shattered Tannehill. But Taylor refused to yield and dispatched Dougherty on strikes for the second out of the inning. Up came Kip Selbach, well known to the Giant faithful from his starring turn in the New York outfield in 1900 and 1901.  Ironically, Selbach had been lured away from the Giants by none other than current Giant manager John McGraw, then acting on behalf of the American League Baltimore Orioles. When the Orioles folded after 1902, McGraw took most of the top stars with him to New York, but Selbach slipped through his fingers, and ultimately ended up in Boston.  That oversight would prove costly on this blustery October day.  A Taylor curve hung, and Selbach crushed the pitch deep into the right-center gap, then whirled about the bases in a fury, before sliding under the tag at third base for a triple. The game was tied at 4 apiece.  The stunned Giants struggled to regain their poise as Gilbert misplayed a grounder from Parent allowing Selbach to score.  Finally, Taylor ended the damage, striking out Stahl for the third out.

In a manner of minutes the 4-0 Giant lead was gone.  Boston had surged ahead 5-4 and their domination of the post-season game seemed undeniable.

But the 1904 New York Giants were a team of legend for good reason. They had reserves of resilience of their own and were ready to prove it.  In the bottom on the 7th, now facing the Boston ace of aces Cy Young, brought in for relief as part of Collins' desperate maneuvers, the Giants clawed their back with a walk by Gilbert, a single by Bowerman, a sac bunt from Taylor and a deep sac fly to right by Donlin for his third run batted in of the day.

With the game deadlocked at 5 runs for each team, Taylor and Young set down the respective sides in the 8th inning.  In the 9th inning the game still tied, the Polo Grounds crowd became still as Duke Farrell strode confidently to the plate, a single and double in his last two tries against Taylor.  But this time Taylor reached back for what strength remained to him, and set down the Boston hero on strikes.  Cy Young then grounded to Dahlen for the second out.  That brought up the other American hero of the hour, Kip Selbach.  The Giant crowd gasped as Selbach mashed a high fastball deep into centerfield.  But Fred Mertes, wisely playing back was in the right position to haul the ball in for the third out.

That brought up the Giants, and Georgetown alumnus Art Devlin got matters started with a sharp single to right.  Gilbert followed by reaching safely on the hit and run, bringing Devlin to third base with no one out. Giant fans screamed as Bowerman lofted the ball to left, but Devlin held as the fly was too short to attempt to run on Selbach's arm.  Now it was McGraw's turn to make moves, as he pulled the exhausted Taylor and sent Roger Bresnahan to bat. Bresnahan, perhaps the New York side's best overall hitter, had been nearly absent from the Series, still nursing the leg injury that had sidelined him at the end of the 1904 season.  But with a tie game in the bottom of the 9th, McGraw just needed the Duke of Tralee's bat, not his legs.  The Polo Grounds faithful cheered lustily as Bresnahan limped to the plate. After taking two Young deliveries for a ball and a strike respectively, without moving his bat, Bresnahan now had the measure of the brilliant but tired Boston ace.  He laced the third pitch into right field, good enough to reach first base even with his hobble, and even having to make his way through the surging crowd for the last few feet down the line as the Giant rooters poured onto the grounds. 

The Giants had won their first Championship Series.

Players notes - the two 04 teams are pretty well matched, both have excellent and deep (for the times) pitching staffs. The Giants had a clear advantage as the faster team with more "A" rated hit and run batters at a time when that play was very common. They also have better hitters in the bottom of the order.  Despite that, Boston played very competitively - better than I expected - but the Giant advantage did tell.

1904 was the beginning of the deadball era, with the recently adopted foul strike rule suppressing averages. "Power" means doubles and triples - there were no homeruns in the six game series, quite typical for the time.  Rostercard did a pretty good job of replicating the feel of that era even without having any special rules for it.  The games played tight and taut with lots of action and swings of fortune.  I also got within 2 outs of a no hitter, something I've never got that close to in a sim game.

Just caught up, this was very entertaining. Thanks for doing these, Minsky. :)

I've started another series - will post something about it in the week

In the meantime - an epilogue for some of our 1904 stars:

Christy Mathewson won the pitching triple crown the following year and went on to become one of the game's greatest stars and the most loved and revered. After enduring the premature death of his younger brother from tuberculosis, he succumbed himself to the disease at the age of 45.  He was elected in the first Hall of Fame class.

Joe McGinnity had a few more strong years with the Giants and then continued to pitch on and manage in the minor leagues until the age of 54, when he went 6-6 for the champion of the Mississippi Valley League.  He died a few years after that from cancer.

Mike Donlin returned to the Giants in 1905, batting .356 and leading the team in runs. He married a famous vaudeville star and subsequently missed several years of his career as a holdout, pursuing a show business career instead,  eventually including roles in early motion pictures. 

Dan McGann was a close confidant of John McGraw's from the 1890s heyday of the NL Baltimore Orioles and he starred again for the Giants 1905 championship club. However, when he suffered an injury in 1907 and came back badly out of shape, McGraw unceremoniously shipped him off to Boston (NL) along with Bill Dahlen, George Browne, and Frank Bowerman in a blockbuster trade that netted the Giants slick young shortstop Al Bridwell, among others. When McGann returned to the Polo Grounds in a Boston uniform in 1908, McGraw mocked him mercilessly from the bench.  After the game, McGann tracked down McGraw as his favorite saloon and attempted to assault his ex-manager with a pool cue.  Cut by Boston at the end of the year, McGann tried to revive  his career in the AA level minors. When he failed to stick there, he shot himself at his boarding house, dead at age 39.

Sam Mertes also returned to star for the 1905 champions but his speed and power deserted him after that. In 1908, playing in the California league, he was beaten bloody on several occasions after arguing with umpires. It was his last year in baseball. He lived to the age of 72, working various jobs in the San Francisco area.

Bill Dahlen's batting declined after 1904 but he continued to field well enough at shortstop to keep a major league job into his 40s. After a disastrous stint as a manager, he worked various jobs in or around New York City until his death in 1950. Other than ineligible players and those suspected of PED use, Dahlen is considered by some analysts to be the best player not yet in the Hall of Fame.

Although already aged 37 in 1904, Cy Young went on to play 7 more years in the majors including two more 20 game winning seasons, and two more seasons at 18 and 19 wins.  Young finished his career with 511 victories, a record that will never be broken.  Late in life, during the Depression, Young suffered financial troubles and when his wife died, he was taken in by a couple at a neighboring Ohio farm.  The couple's young daughter, who used to drive Young around town after his eyesight failed, died in 2011 on the 144th anniversary of Young's birth.

Bill Dinneen never matched again his 1903-04 success but did stay on pitching until arm trouble finished his playing career in 1909.  He managed far more longevity as one of the American Leagues's most respected umpires, presiding behind the plate at the first All Star Game in 1933.

Jimmy Collins gradually drifted out of baseball, playing his last game in 1908 and letting go of his ambition to acquire ownership of a team.  Moving to Buffalo, NY he continued to expand his real estate holdings before suffering crippling losses in the Depression.  Two years after his death in 1943, the Veterans Committee elected him to the Hall of Fame.

Freddy Parent continued to provide stellar play at shortstop before retiring after the 1911 season.  Returning to his home state of Maine, Parent lived until the ripe old age of 97, and spent some part of his elder years amusing visiting reporters with quotable lines about the lack of grit of modern day players.

Chick Stahl continued to cement his reputation as one of baseball's best centerfielders over the next few years. After a strong campaign in 1906, Stahl got married and agreed to become the manager of the Americans in 1907 after Collins was scheduled to leave the team. In the middle of spring training, Stahl abruptly resigned, citing the discomfort he felt at having to make decisions about releasing fellow players.  Two days later, Stahl collapsed and then died, having swallowed carbolic acid in an apparent suicide attempt.

Duke Farrell played only 7 more games in the major leagues after the 04 season. He remained loved and respected in baseball circles and got various jobs aa a scout and coach before succumbing from cancer in the 1920s.