First Stat-League Memories

[MikeVic]

I was just thinking about the first ever league I was in. It was a Diamond Mind baseball league where you pick a certain number of players to protect each year, and then the rest are put into a draft.

For my first ever year, I had no idea about what makes good stats. I had the first overall pick and took 2B Jeff King. I was DRILLED for that. I know I passed on Nomar Garciaparra and some solid SP for Jeff King. I also remember drafting Bobby Witt, who put in the performance of a lifetime. I had scrubs like him and Cal Eldred as my SP... Jeff Bagwell carried my offense... and Jeff Shaw was my closer. Ended up making the playoffs with a bunch of over-achievers.

I'll always remember that. Learned about OBP and other stats I didn't care about before in that league.

Anyone have stories to share?

[st.cronin]

10th grade, I joined a strat o matic league. There was one pitcher, I forget who (Charlie Hough, maybe?) who had just a ridiculous reverse split (meaning, as a righthander, his card was far better vs. lefties than righties). I used him only against certain teams, and I think about half his starts were shutouts.

[rowech]

1990 Statis Pro Baseball. We were freshmen in high school and there were six of us. Stayed together through all of high school and then even a couple of summers during college. Went from Statis Pro to Pursue the Pennant though. Was a blast the whole time. Still remember winning the first series when Puckett knocked home two in the bottom of the 8th against Eck. Still remember watching a guy rip up Steve Howe's card. I've stayed in touch with most of the guys but can never convince them to take our league to the computer.

[dawgfan]

I never had enough friends interesting in this sort of thing to have a large-scale league. I had one buddy that was into sports board games, and we'd play a few different games - we actually played a lot of football with the old Mattel hand-held game (the 2nd one with the pass button). We also had a set of Statis Pro Baseball cards from 1982 and we each drafted a team and played a bunch of games. I remember having Mario Soto as one of my aces, and Pedro Guerrero was one of my best hitters. I won about 65% of those games. He also had a set of APBA football cards - I think it was the 1981 or 1982 season and did the same thing, draft a team each.

I think a couple years later we discovered Strat-O-Matic and played the football, baseball and basketball games - same thing, each of us drafting a team. We ended up meeting a couple of brothers that were also into Strat and did some 4-person leagues for a couple of years - I remember we had the 1987 baseball set and I had a killer lineup from that year with Paul Molitor leading off, Willie Randolph batting 2nd, Alan Trammell 3rd, Eric Davis in the cleanup spot (man, Davis was a monster that year), Buddy Bell playing 3rd base. I can't remember my staff very well - I think Jimmy Key was my ace and Tom Henke my closer - but I'm pretty sure I had the best record of the 4 of us. We also played the college football game from the 1986 season - each of us took a couple of teams and just played a fairly full schedule. I had Miami from that year and they were awesome.

After that I was off to college and that put an end to any multi-player sports board games. I still played the various Strat-O-Matic games solo, but eventually stopped doing that when the computer sports sims started showing up. Fun times though.

[MikeVic]

I only had one friend that was interested in the stats of sports, and he moved away in grade 9. Was in an online league with him for a couple of seasons, but that's it. I had a boardgame that I'd play by myself though. I forget the name. But it had all old players. Like, Babe Ruth old.

[path12]

Coleco All Star Baseball. Set up my own league with a bunch of old-timers discs I ordered and played it all summer. Think I was about 10.

[Ksyrup]

My first year of rotisserie baseball I took Jeter and Garciaparra at SS when both were relatively unknown (96? 97?). In 98 or 99, I ended up in the top 10 on ESPN's fantasy baseball. Of course, since I lived in Florida at the time, I couldn't have won anyway.

[Axxon]

My first memories are of a game in the early seventies, I can't recall the name but it was a baseball board game which was the first time I'd ever seen 8 sided dice.

You'd roll two of them and crosscheck the numbers on these huge charts for a result.

The one thing I remember most was that there was either a misprint or a rule I don't know about because if you rolled the wrong number you'd get an "international walk."

It still only counted as one base. :)

Still, whenever I see the catcher moving over and pointing I still think "he's going to internationally walk this guy."