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.

 

 

Keeping Relievers Under Control

 

Recently I played an LCS with our 2006 league commissioner for the right to go to our league’s World Series.  He was up 3 games-to-1 as we headed to Game 5.   After scoring two runs in the bottom of the 2nd, he brought in his closer, Joe Nathan, to face my team in the top of the 3rd, leading 2-0. Now, I was aware that with Scott Kazmir as his starter, he might go to his bullpen early.  But, I did not expect to see Joe Nathan for 6 innings of work.  My team managed 1 run off Nathan and lost the game, 4-1, and the series.  (He subsequently lost the W.S. in 6 games.)

Nathan had plenty of usage remaining so that was not an issue.  However, is there anything in the general SOM rules that prevent one-inning closers like Joe Nathan from being used from the 3rd through the 8th inning?  Since I am now the league's Commissioner, do you have any suggestions for how other leagues prevent this unrealistic usage from happening? 

Thomas Treece, Ayersville, OH

 

            You didn’t specify, but it sounds as though you were playing the board game, and I’ll presume you are playing Advanced or Super-Advanced, because there are no restrictions on pitching duration in the Basic game. Advanced Strat-O-Matic rules don’t prohibit a relief pitcher from being over-used, but penalize him my making him pitched fatigued.

Rule 27.63 states: “The maximum number of innings a reliever can pitch without fatigue is his POW (point-of-weakness) inning, plus 2.” Nathan has a POW of (1). So, after three innings, all of the outs on Nathan’s card that are followed by a dot are automatic two-star singles. Moreover, Rule 27.64 states: “Relief pitchers cannot be use more than two straight days. After pitching two straight days, he must rest at least one day.”

Many leagues go further, since they consider controlling use of dominant relievers to be one of the most sensitive issues in competitive play. Among the techniques I have seen leagues use:

 

n                          Capping the number of innings a reliever may pitch in a single day and/or a combination of days. The one-day cap can be equivalent to Rule 27.63 – two innings more than the POW rating. The STAR Tour caps reliever use at four innings over any three-game period.

n                          Making relievers rest as if they were starters if they pitch more than 3 innings. In the example above, Nathan would have to rest four days.

n                          Not allowing any reliever to enter until the starting pitcher has thrown either five innings or has allowed X number of runs (usually three, four or five, depending on the league), whichever comes first.

 

If Talk Show readers have other methods that work well for their league, please feel free to share them.

 

 

Unstoppable

 

I recently played a game in my 2004 College Football Tourney, which is finally in the second round (I have two kids 2 years and under).  It pitted Bowling Green at USC.   If I told you that BG held the ball for 41 minutes, had 441 yards of offense and 28 first downs to USC’s 15, you'd think I had the makings of an upset.  Well, USC won 56-30 (I had BG). USC had 654 yards of total offense.  Seven TD passes of 49, 72, 86, 74, 51, 74, and 68 yards.  The only rushing TD was a 53 yard scamper by Bush.  Although I agree that there are times USC should have had these long plays, I think this is a little ridiculous.  Especially since I guessed right at least 5 out of 8 times.  And I would say that on most of the TDs, I was in a nickel package.  I don't doubt the outcome or the score, just how it got there.

 

Two other things: 1) I was playing Wisconsin at FSU in my tourney and FSU scored with just under 1 minute to go, to make the score 29-17, pending the XP, but the computer went for two and got it to make it a 2 TD game.  I thought that was impressive, although Wisconsin’s offense shouldn’t be feared enough to score 14 points against anyone in under one minute.  The second: Will the 2005 College Football version have the away team in white if you play the game using the animation? 

 

Henry Roman, New Jersey

 

            Whenever something extreme happens in real sports – about weekly – some of the clever posters to the online bulletin board at stratfanforum.com write tongue-in-cheek messages like, “Wake Forest 30, Florida State 0 – at Florida State! Can you believe how unrealistic Strat-O-Matic is!” In my case, two players on my draft-league baseball team hit back-to-back homers twice in the same game, something that had not occurred in the 100-plus years of baseball history – until it happened two weeks later for the Seattle Mariners.

 

            We’ll never know if Bowling Green would have been so defenseless against one of the greatest offenses in NCAA history (the 2004 Trojans were 13-0 averaging nearly 40 points per game). But Strat-O-Matic lets you imagine it. Obviously, the game engine considered the USC offense a mismatch for the BG defense and turned many “Gain” results into Long Gains. SOM has explained that this technique is required to simulate great college teams’ ability to roll up such big scores. Even then, it took some extraordinary computer “dice rolls” to turn Long Gains into so many very long TDs.

 

 

Misery Loves Company

 

I was amused by a fellow gamer getting his first no-hitter. Take heart: I am older then he and have been playing the game since 1964. In all that time I have had a ton of 1-hitters. But alas! Never have I had a no-hitter. But that won't be for lack of trying!

Alan L. Dehn, Schenectady, NY

 

            There are so many of these stories – decades without a no-hitter. I can definitely relate to all the near-misses – I have had many of them, and in the cruelest ways (a HR 1 / flyball 2-20 breaking a no-hitter and shutout in the 9th; two errors extending a no-hitter one out away, then a hit on the fielding chart; a computer rare play where an 8th-inning pop fly drops in for a hit between infielders; a bottom-of-the-8th-inning injury to a pitcher three outs from a no-hitter). But thankfully I cannot relate to the decades of drought. I have had them from the great (Sandy Koufax, Early Wynn) the good (Dave Stieb, Bob Welch – two each) and the ordinary (Marty Pattin, Jim Hardin, Barry Latman). Some have come in replays, others in draft leagues. Some have happened in board-game play, others on the computer.

 

 

Back to Basics

 

Do you think Strat will ever make a “basic” version of the PC game?

Gordy Gowdy, San Francisco

 

            No. That’s taking a step back in technology. However, the Basic-only Oldtimer decade sets with six to eight teams each – teams like the 1953 Dodgers, 1917 White Sox and 1929 Cubs, as well as teams that have since been produced as part of deluxe seasons – are available for the computer game. Take a look at the card images for those teams – the top of the card has some Advanced-game ratings, mostly generic, to make the teams play a modified Basic. But the columns are conspicuously Basic. The left side and right side are identical, with such results as singles that have no outfield designation. The outfielder arms are all 0. We can play these teams as we would in Basic cards-and-dice mode.

 

 

The Feminine Side

 

I suspect I already know the answer to this question, but I'm going to ask anyway.  Is there any chance of SOM doing WNBA seasons for Strat Basketball?

 

Any representation of women’s sports would be a first for Strat-O-Matic. Yours is the first call I have seen for WNBA or any other women’s teams. I think that gives us the likely answer. Surely you are not alone, but at this point we’d have to regard your wish as a novelty item.

 

 

The Fastest Goal?

 

This is more of a unique moment than a great moment.  But I had a question to go along with it.  In playing the board game hockey, I managed to score a goal in the third period of a game between Colorado and Dallas without drawing an action card.  It was an inter-period power play, the Stars (shorthanded team) won the faceoff, attempted to ice the puck, but it was intercepted by Alex Tanguay for an inside shot and a goal.  I wonder how many other people have had a goal scored without drawing any action cards in a period?  My question, though, is how to I determine the timing of the goal?  The chart says at 1 card drawn you start at 0:00 and add the two split numbers.  What do you do though if you have 0 action cards drawn?  Just start at 0:00 also?

Scott D, Florida

 

            Yes. The timing of a goal is more a matter of adding interesting detail than anything that drives the game engine or the stats, so you could also try this if it is more to your liking: Start at 0:00 but rather than the splits, use the time elapsed on the power play at the start of the period through the power-play timing technique.

 

 

Pictures for Dummies

 

I have been playing Strat since the ‘75 baseball season. Now the computer lets me play three of the four. I have always loved reading everyone’s stories. What I need help with is how to put the darn pictures in the game. Could you please print Importing Pictures for Dummies? I mean, I need step by step. 

Roger Williams, Grain Valley, MO

 

            The Help-file entry for “player pictures” follows. But here is a basic step-by-step):

 

  1. Find a pre-prepared photo database online. A Google search or a trip to the www.stratfanforum.com (Resources section) should get you there.
  2. Choose one of two folders to download the database into. You can find these folders by going to the START menu on Windows, then My Computer, then clicking until you see the folders.
  3. Assuming your game is on your hard drive and the hard drive is letter C, then: c:\cdrombb\player\batter or c:\cdrombb\player\pitcher. Download the file into the Batter folder or Pitcher folder, depending on the group of pictures (when you try to download, your computer should give you the opportunity to choose a folder)
  4. Restart your SOM game.
  5. You’re good to go. You can confirm that it’s working by double-clicking on a player from the Main Screen. That should take you to his Notebook and his photo should be there.

 

Now, here’s the wording from the Help file, which is more helpful if you want to locate individual pictures rather than a pre-packaged database of pictures:

 

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.

 

In some cases you might have two batters or two pitchers with the same first and last name. In that case you can use the "alias.txt" file to allow for separate pictures for each player.  An example is shown in the "alias.txt" file that is shipped with the game.  Sandy Alomar Jr. was called "Sandy Alomar" from 1990 to 1999 on the Strat-O-Matic disks.  Of course this might confuse him with his father who went by the same name on Strat-O-Matic disks.  The example "alias.txt" file shows how to make the program look for "Sandy Alomar Jr." as the picture file name instead of looking for "Sandy Alomar".  That way you can have separate pictures - "Sandy Alomar" for the father's picture and "Sandy Alomar Jr." for the son's picture.

 

The program will strip all periods out of the names before creating the file name to be searched for.  As an example, "Sandy Alomar Jr." has the period stripped out to make "Sandy Alomar Jr".  Then all spaces are converted to underscores to make "Sandy_Alomar_Jr". Then the file extension (".bmp" or ".jpg") is appended to determine the final name to be searched.  In this case it would be "Sandy_Alomar_Jr.bmp" or "Sandy_Alomar_Jr.jpg".   As another example, a jpeg picture for U.L. Washington must be named "UL_Washington.jpg" in  order for the program to find it.

 

 

The French Connection

 

I am searching for SOM computer hockey leagues. I have a tough time trying to get one. Could you send me a list (or an Internet address) where I could find it?

Francois Lesard

 

 

Here are a few places you can check:

 

http://www.strat-o-matic.com/1206clas.htm ... these are league-forming classifieds on Strat-O-Matic's web site.

 

http://www.stratfanforum.com/forums/ ... these are specific leagues (most are not hockey, though) that you could contact about future openings

 

http://www.stratfanforum.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=8 ... to ask other hockey gamers about league possibilties.