Its spring....its baseball!

http://www.ootpbaseball.net/index.php

I need to oil that door, because its creaking from the opening of the closet with the skeletons. I am about to share with you loyal readers one of my most geeky passions ( besides this blog thing). I like to play simulation baseball games. Ok I have admitted it to the public, its a good first step. The following paragraphs will expose the story behind the nerdyness ( is that a word?).

I have always loved baseball and the history behind the game. The statistical history going back to the late 1800's is fascinating to me. To compare a Ty Cobb with a Rickey Henderson, a Babe Ruth with a Hank Aaron, a Walter "Big Train" Johnson with a Tom Seaver, or even a Scooty Babbitt with a Mario Mendoza, occupied many a afternoon for me. One of the first gifts I received that was related to this passion was the 1977 Baseball Almanac. Yes, keeeeds this was pre-internet and you actually had to have reference books around to get this kind of info. I loved this book and wore the pages out thumbing through the long history of the game.

My first step into simulation baseball began with Strat-o-matic baseball when I was about 14. It was a game that had a card for each player in a certain season ( my first season was 1977) a board that had 3 dice and a stack of split cards. You would roll the dice, look at the white die for the collumn, and add the 2 red dice together to get your result on the card. If your result required a split card ( ie 1-15 hr 16-20 2b) you would draw a card. ARE YOU STILL WITH ME???

I loved this game. I spent hours and hours with pencil and paper and calculator keeping my own stats and running a solo league. It was great fun for me and made me a expert on players from that era of baseball. I played strat for about 8 years and used to mark my calendar for when each new season of cards would come out! It was geek heaven!

As the years passed and technology has evolved, I migrated to computer simulation baseball. Gone were the pencil and paper and the board and cards. Now there was stats kept on your hard drive and even the ability to run the financial part of baseball. Much more involved of a process. Its amazing how in depth these games have become, it has got to the point that I have to turn off some of the features because it gets so involved and intricate, that I dont have the time to do 45 adjustments to just play a game. That doesnt mean that I dont love the depth....but hey...I have a job to do and a kid to raise!!!

If you look at the link above...you will get a taste for what baseball sims have become....I love it...but I do miss the days spent waiting for the mail to get my geeky x-mas present of Strat cards!