strat o matic apba baseball cards dice game pursue the pennant

My favorite part of the book was Guzzo's fly-on-the-wall account of Hal and his assistants having a two-day meeting to determine the fielding rating of at-the-time current (2005) players. SOM wisely focused on gameplay and statistics rather than great graphics and inferior gameplay, and even today their computer software and roster outsells their card and dice offerings. Despite knowing nothing about computers, Hal recruited programmers to create a computer game that played to SOM's strengths. Finally, the popularity of computer games such as Earl Weaver's Baseball started to pull customers from SOM. That was why most of SOM's competition folded - they could not afford to pay the MLBPA, while a few companies such as SOM, ABPA, and PTP could.

Fortunately some of the higher-ups there were big fans of the game.

There was another scsre when the MLBPA began demanding royalties. It led to the creation of Advanced (to counter S.I.) and later Super Advanced rules (to counter PTP). However, Sports Illustrated and later Pursue the Pennant (the latter now known as Dynasty League Baseball) gave Hal major scares. Hal's Basic game was so successful that he was able to focus on making an almost as popular football game and eventually basketball and hockey games as well. This section focuses on the growing popularity of, and evolution of, the Strat-O-Matic product line. He had a 'betrayal,' but overcame it to make 'a deal with the devil' to get the capital needed to properly launch Strat-O-Matic Baseball after a couple of costly false starts. He even tried to be different by using a deck of cards in place of dice, but realized that it was inferior to his game and became even more determined to make a better game.

APBA came out and Hal was crushed that there was already a commerical dice baseball game on the market. Hal created Dice Baseball and tested it with friends in the neighborhood, at school, and even at college. However, he hated that the spinner wore out and that the pitchers had no influence in the game. Hal's lack of a nurturing male influence growing up led to him play by himself a lot when he was home.Įthan Allen's All-Star Baseball game, just like it was for me, was a favorite baseball game of Hal. He had a domineering father, Irving, a supportive and protective mother, Helen, and a talented but afflicted sister, Rhett.

This section focused on Harold 'Hal' Richman's childhood and his inspiration for his Dice Baseball game. On vacation away from my Strat-O-Matic computer, I decided to purchase Glen Guzzo's Strat-O-Matic Fanatics book to learn more about my favorite baseball game. TextRich's Review of Strat-O-Matic Fanatics

Strat o matic apba baseball cards dice game pursue the pennant