THE TALK SHOW
Host: Glenn Guzzo
You can submit your question or insight on any Strat-O-Matic game to SOMTalkShow@aol.com. When you do, kindly include your name and town. Other gamers like to see that. And the display format below works better that way.
Reminder: Send us your “Great Moments in Strat” – your
playing experiences that you just have
to share.
Worth Remembering
Glenn, in
a recent SOM Talk Show, you wrote:
Yes, this is an amazing hobby. Almost each game played is
full of thrills, large and small, that fertilize the imagination. Memories from
ballparks and bubble-gum cards come to life. An empty house becomes a stadium.
Three dice become bats, balls and gloves. When playing Strat-O-Matic, the ill forget
their pain for a while, the lonely feel companionship, the frustrated
feel relief. And the Strat-O-Matic player has friends all over the world who
speak your language. It’s magic.
This
certainly describes the experience of myself and
others. In particular, it applies to the
life, illness, and untimely death of my friend Mark Lynch. A convert from APBA (but played Strat for 25+
years), Mark loved the Orioles and he loved Strat. He was the glue that kept our
At his
funeral, many of his Strat buddies and his current and former students came to
pay tribute to the man and to the game.
Mark struggled with cancer for 3.5+ years and although I have not seen
Mark in years, I know that Strat helped keep him mentally focused and keep his
spirits up. There was not a bigger fan
of Strat and baseball than Mark Lynch.
Your words certainly ring true in his case.
Dave Black,
These stories
touch the heart and help turn the cards and dice to flesh and bones. Thanks for
sharing this, Dave. Ironically, I just had a conversation with
Pick a Card, Any Card
It’s been
talked about many, many times. I know that. But it seems to me that an
overwhelming number of Strat gamers are dying for a set of Negro League
All-Stars.
I fully understand Strat's
position on this subject, that they want to collect
all statistics as accurately as humanly possible before creating this set. But,
there are questions about how these statistics would hold up against Major
League competition, which is what we gamers will be playing this All-Star team
against.
For
example, it is said that Josh Gibson’s greatest season in the Negro Leagues
consisted of about 84 homeruns and a batting average well over .400. Would he
have had those stats against Major League pitching? Not likely. So, what would
be the best way to create this team so that it plays realistically against
Strat’s Re-Created Past Teams? Here’s what I suggest:
Every
Negro League All-Star can be closely compared to at least one or two Major
League Stars (Josh Gibson compares to Babe Ruth or Jimmie Foxx
). So what
Strat should do is use one of
Ruth’s or Foxx’ season statistics that are not used in any past-season set to
make Gibson’s card. Strat could do this with every one of the Negro League
players to create this team. Now, most important, put it to a vote.
Present
this idea to all Strat gamers on the web site. If they would definitely
purchase this set if it was produced using this formula. A minimum of say 80
percent approval is required, or don't make the set. Just try the vote.
Mike, Clearwater, FL
Mike, there is no way SOM is going to go for
simply declaring another player to be Josh Gibson. There is no chance the SOM
community would afford that any credibility. If the approach would be
satisfying to anyone, he could do it himself. Pick players who you imagine Josh
Gibson and others to be like, put the new names on the card and roll ‘em. Can’t
find an 84-homer card? No worry. According to Shades of Glory, the book compiled after the recent deep
research conducted by the Baseball Hall of Fame team, Gibson never hit more
than 13 homers in any of his 10 Negro League seasons from 1936-46. Granted, his
13 HR happened in 97 AB (at that rate, he would hit 80 HR in 600 AB) and his
Negro League career averages of .359 batting and .648 slugging are Ruthian. But
the mythical memories of Negro League players are exactly why SOM needs real
numbers, not folklore.
Can’t Get Enough of the Sixties
I agree
it would be great if Strat would come out with an entire carded season for old
football seasons. I would be willing to pay a bit more for sets in the Sixties.
What a great card set 1969 would be. I also have several other questions
regarding Strat Football cards.
Why is
Strat so secretive about telling us what new seasons are next? We always know
well in advance regarding baseball, yet each year it seems like Strat says
nothing about the football card set until it is only a month or two away from
coming out? Any clue on what the next sets will be?
Would
Strat consider coming out with the “best of” cards for the first seasons that
came out on computer...1966-1968-1972-1977. There are many non-carded great
teams that are missing in my sets from these years... 1966 Green Bay- 1968 NY
Jets- 1972 Miami- 1977 Dallas.
It is my
goal to someday have a ‘60s football league to play with cards that have at
least one year of each of the teams that made up much of the ‘60s Leagues. I’m
still looking for Washington, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, SF, Denver,
Miami, KC, Cincinnati, etc.
Mark Bender, Lansing, MI
Covering some familiar ground: It’s not “a bit more” to buy
26 teams from 1969 than it is to buy the six-team sets SOM produces. The much
higher price might chase away most of the audience for the six-team sets.
I want to
play that Sixties league, too. Those are truly attractive teams from 1966,
1968, 1972 and 1977. Many of us wish SOM had carded them when it produced those
computer seasons. But now, it’s strictly a board-game sale for seasons already
available (and played) on computer. I think it’s possible we’ll see those in
card form someday, but it’s not likely to be higher priority for SOM than
producing other seasons not yet available for the computer or in modern card
format.
SOM has always
been conservative about product announcements. Foremost, it tries not to
promise until it knows it can deliver. And the game company has remained on top
of its field for so long by taking the competition seriously. So SOM holds its
cards, so to speak, close to the vest.
AFL Glory
What are
the chances that we will see the 1968 and/or 1969 Raiders and Chiefs?
Ken Brown
Co-Founder: Detroit NFL Strat-o-Matic League
We have the ’68 Raiders in computer form, but not in cards (see answer
above). Just a matter of time for ‘69, and likely short time given the pace of
SOM’s historic-season card-making and its emphasis on the Sixties.
Treasure Chest: The 1967 NFL, Featuring …
Milt Plum
I
recently uncovered a 1967 NFL Strat-O-Matic football game in an old box. When I
opened the game to glance inside, in a split second I noticed Milt Plum on top
of the Lions and zeroed in on a strange reading. Short pass #4 Right is 12
yards and Wrong is incomplete. I don’t think I remember ever seeing something
like that. Can you confirm after all these years if this is a misprint? I
didn’t look at any teams in detail but a cursory
glance at a few other QBs who had
the top cards in their team stacks revealed some pretty zany and unique numbers
(> 20-yard Short Pass readings). So, although logical, I can’t really
dismiss Milt Plum’s card as a miss-print sans confirmation. Thank you.
Tommy, Kennedy Twp, PA
Those were the
days … before current card-making customs, and before Strat-oriented
publications where gamers could get such questions answered publicly. I checked
with James Williams, who was an SOM employee then and who has been deeply
involved in the football ratings for many years. He said it’s unclear if that
was a misprint, although the older cards may have been more error-prone. The
1967 season was the first SOM ever did for football, and things done then,
Williams observed, may have been deliberate, but then soon abandoned in favor
of better card-making.
Baseball Player Usage I:
Simpler is Better
I’m
playing the 1950 baseball game in cards, and most teams don’t have decent
relievers. Even better teams – Red Sox,
Tigers – don't have a decent pen. That
means starters often must relieve. I
allow starters to relieve as long as it’s not the game before or after their
scheduled start. My regular relievers
can go one inning beyond their POW, then must come out. Relievers can’t pitch more than two straight
games.
I have a
similar system for position players and part-timers. If a player has 300 or more plate
appearances, he can play every day. At
250 to 300 PA, three out of four games; 190-250 PA, two of four; 110-190, one
of four. Under 110 PA, a player can play
only rarely or not unless a starter is injured.
Under 75 PA, pinch-hit only or play almost never. These rules prevent someone who had a great
88-at bat season, like Joe Garagiola in 1950, from making an unrealistic huge
impact.
Another
player-limit rule: No catcher can catch both ends of a doubleheader. The only exception in 1950 is Yogi, who
actually did so often. Pretty amazing.
As for
pitching injuries, a triple 6 roll on any batter gives the pitcher an injury
chance. After a triple 6, I roll the
20-sided die; if it’s 1-5, the pitcher is injured. The exception is a four-day starter, who gets
a second 20-sided roll. If he rolls 1-5
twice, he's hurt. This has worked well;
pitchers (in real life) tend to get hurt more often than position players, and
the injury roll on the pitcher's batting card doesn’t reflect enough injury
chance.
No-hitters?
In 40 years, I’ve had one: In the 1961
game, Mudcat Grant no-hit the Yanks with about five walks. I had a more
interesting near-perfect game the first season I played, 1966. In a league I created, the Yankees' Fred
Talbot, 4-something ERA, pitched 8.2 perfect innings against the great-hitting
Pirates. Even after all this time, I
remember the sequence of Talbot first losing the perfect game, then the
no-hitter, then the shutout, then the game.
I pinch-hit Jose Pagan, who walked.
Matty Alou singled, Manny Mota doubled, Clemente singled in one run and
Stargell doubled in two. I couldn’t bear
to take Talbot out, but I guess I should have.
Thanks
for keeping this great game going.
Jim Poole, Cobleskill NY
I like your style, Jim. I have played in my
share of leagues with AB and IP usage set at 100 to 110 percent, and I’ve never
liked regulating things that way. I don’t like tracking that any more than I
like punching a time clock at work. And teams with higher-octane offenses end
up pushing clean-up hitters to eighth, bunting when they never would otherwise
and pinch-hitting with pitchers. I much prefer a cutoff system like yours and
I’ve come to believe it should be done in your fashion: Lesser-used players are
limited to X games out of four or X games per six-game week. Your guidelines
for relievers, catchers and pitcher injuries are elegantly simple, too.
I’ve also enjoyed
my share of great-teams projects that so many simulation-game players love. And
yet I’ve come to realize that a significant part of Hal Richman’s genius was in
producing a game where we could see the differences between great, good,
mediocre and poor players. That was always important to Hal. And finally I
realize how important it has been to me in my replays. We are in awe as the
great players dominate lesser foes, pile up the stats and deliver game-winning
performances. But we also see the Fred Talbots over-achieve brilliantly – until
their fatal flaws make them inevitable losers. Most often, the stars shine.
Once in a while, the underdog rises above. It’s all good.
Baseball Player Usage II:
Starting Pitchers
I want to
share one rule that has been adopted in all leagues that I have played in. One thing that always bothered me was
pitching gems being shattered with a single after a pitcher is “tired.” Also,
since so many starters can only go 5 or 6 innings, it becomes difficult for a
man who loves pitching to lose what I consider the greatest things in the
game. A couple rules have been
adopted. First, no pitcher can go more
than 3 innings past his “tired” inning. Thus, 5-inning starters just simply
cannot pitch a complete game, but guys with a 7 still can experience a Jack
Morris-like day. The rule we adopted is
that a pitcher cannot get tired even if he has pitched past his limit if he has
allowed no runs, 3 or less hits or 5 total base runners for the game. The
pitcher gets immediately tired once he gives up his first run. Also, if the
3-inning rule is used, the pitcher loses one inning of effectiveness in his
next start. The 3-inning rule cannot be used in consecutive starts, either.
Rich Gapinski, Eastlake, OH
Another Way for the Computer to Outsmart
Us
I have
played the computer baseball game since it was first released, and have played
the board game since 1972. Could the computer game make suggestions to the
manager (the person playing the game) like a bench coach does, when to change a
pitcher-what pitcher has the best percentage verses the next batter due
up, what batter to pinch hit, defensive replacements. This would have to be
somewhat controllable by the manager, but would use much of the information in
the computer manager.
I love
the many things that have been done to improve the computer game, and
just flat out love the game
Rod Shelly, Berkley, MI
This could get
very amusing. I wonder how many times a virtual bench coach would second-guess
my decisions before I tell it to shut up. Seriously, although we don’t get it
via prompts from the computer, the game does offer us the Comparison vehicle to
evaluate the pitcher-batter match-ups exactly as you suggest. If you haven’t tried
it, access the Comparison screen by clicking the button at the bottom of the
lineup screens before and during games.
More
Draft-O-Matic Functions
It seems to me that so much more
could be done with the sort function of the baseball draft program. Not that it
isn’t useful. I was looking to find a good reliever in my recent draft. I
sorted by era then runners per 9 IP. Only ending up having to look over most of
the cards anyway. I think it would be great to be able to do a sort and get a
breakdown like you get in the Baseball Ratings Book. Like ob vs. left-handed
batters and also show the complete stat line. I did buy the Ratings Book,
computer and print versions both. I could go and eliminate all players not in
the draft and so on, but why not have the game do that?
Brad Wilkens, Inver Grove Heights, MN
The otherwise-valuable Draft-O-Matic has its limits. I’d
also like to be able to program it for present value vs. future value (taking
into account age, several past years of performance, etc.) in drafting for
keeper leagues. Alas, it’s inevitable that we expect computers to be able to do
everything – and “everything” tends to mean satisfying our own special needs.
For now, your request and mine are Wish List items.
Photo
Op
I’m a long time player, first time
“caller.” Question: I’m using V10 and I see I can add player pictures to the
interface to display during at bats. How do I do this?
I
started playing Strat baseball on a Mac. In fact, I beta tested a Mac version
back in the early ‘90s and I’ve been hooked ever since. Right now I’m playing
abbreviated seasons starting in 1949, the year I was born. It’s been very
enlightening seeing how the teams evolved during the various decades. And I get
a kick out of “visiting” all the old ballparks and “seeing” my favorites play
once again.
I also completed league play
using teams from the ‘90s. I created a league using the top four AL and NL
teams, based on season wins and losses, playing in two divisions and
incorporating inter-league play. Frankly, I liked the ballplayers in the
Fifties and Sixties better. Age and stage I suppose.
This
is a great hobby and it keeps me out of trouble.
Alan Albert, Geneva, IL
The player photos do add nicely to the experience.
Check the Help File under Player Pictures. This is the key
portion:
To assign a player picture you simply need to place his
picture in the appropriate folder:
For batters - put the pictures in Player\Batters folder
(located inside the game folder). For pitchers - put the pictures in the
Player\Pitchers folder.
The file name should have an underscore between the first
and last name. For example, a picture for Alex Rodriguez could have the
name: "Alex_Rodriguez.jpg"
The player image must be 90 wide by 135 high. The file format and extension name should be
.jpg or .bmp. We recommend jpg format
because this will save space on your hard drive, especially if you are using a large number of
player pictures.
Bigger Than Life
Thanks
for providing this forum. It is interesting to read about the experiences
of other Strat players across the county, as well as your insight on these
subjects.
I’d like
to discuss two Strat baseball subjects. The first one is high-end hitting
extremes in Strat. I have not done any in-depth statistical analysis on
this, but I have been playing Strat since 1970 and it seems to me that Strat
baseball has an issue with being too much of a hitters’ game. In
practically every season I re-played (using “As Played” version), there is
typically at least a couple of players who wildly exceed their stats and have a
season that would go down in the annuals of real life baseball as one of the
best on record. The total hitting stats appear to skew towards hitting as
well. Exceeding the actual hitting stats appears to be the norm, rather
than the exception. One example is Morgan Ensberg in the 2005 replay I am
currently in. I am at the All-Star break. Below is a comparison of
Ensberg's SOM stats vs. his real-life stats.
AB BA
HR RBI Slg
Pct AB/HR
SOM at
Break
298 .342
32 70
.738 9.3
Real Life at
Break 297
.290 24
65
.596 12.4
Real Life Season End
526 .283
36 101
.557 14.6
I could
provide a couple other examples of this from the same season replay. I’d
like to see it be more difficult for players to have such an exceptional Hall
of Fame worthy season, rather than a common occurrence. Do you and other
Strat players have the same issue?
The
second subject I’d like to put out for discussion involves linking the
“default” Computer Manager to the As Played version of the game. There is
more and more data available today regarding how players are used in
baseball. For example, Baseball-reference.com shows the situations in
which pitchers were actually used. It would be great if Strat would
pre-load the Computer Manager to change based on actual occurrences. For
example, let’s say Strat has a relief pitcher as the Closer in Computer
Manager, but in real-life he did not begin to close until the 2nd half of the
season. Strat could program the Computer Manager to use him as he
actually was in the first half (perhaps he was the set-up man for
example), and then as the schedule turns to a certain date his Computer Manager
role changes to coincide with his real life role. This would save a lot of
time for the gamer who wants to simulate the As Played schedule and
lineups as realistically as possible. Is this a modification that
Strat could pursue?
Doug Ward, Olathe, KS
Some of your hitters SHOULD over-achieve
mightily. Some should over-achieve slightly. Some should under-achieve. And
some should be very, very close to actual. Same for individual pitchers. That’s
just what we call statistical standard deviation. In order to achieve true
randomness, we’d need a sample of 10,000 AB or more. The lower the number below
that, the likelier that the results will deviate from actual and the likelier
that the deviation will be wider.
It’s
normal for a simulation to be accurate to within one or two standard
deviations. That’s for every statistic. For instance, a standard deviation for
a hitter with 15 homeruns in 500 AB might be four homers. According to
statistical standard deviation, 68 percent of the time you will be within one
standard deviation (in this case four homers).
So if you ran many replays for this player, 68 percent of the time he
should have between 11 and 19 homeruns.
Also, statistical standard deviation tell us that 95 percent of the time his total should be between 7 to 23 in the
replay. The other 5 percent of the time his replay total will deviate more than
that.
The
typical experience in representative Strat-O-Matic replays does not skew
towards hitting over-achievement. Typically, league-wide batting averages
(which can involve 80,000 AB) are within 1 or 2 points of actual. “Typically”
comes from many thousands of auto-plays in testing and the vast majority of
replays I have seen in online forums, submitted to STRAT FAN in the days when I
published that magazine. My own replays
bear this out. Other batting statistics are remarkably close to actual, too.
Yes, if
SOM was inclined to provide a separate computer manager for the as-played
seasons, I think it could program the changes you desire. That’s a Wish List
item for the game company to consider along with other requests.