Sports Gaming Digest (9-7-98)
Greetings Sports Gamers!
I'm talking to you live from home today; thanks to the holiday I
have some extra time to putter with sports gaming stuff.
Last week I put out some data drawn from the SP Baseball Fast
Action Cardss and a question was raised which has come up before:
by converting from FACs to dice am I compromising the integrity
of the Statis Pro system? In other words, am I changing the game
beyond simply changing the play resolution method? Possibly.
In the case of SP Basketball, flipping through the entire FAC
deck once constitutes one full quarter so the argument could be
made that the spread of results made available in the complete
set of FACs are intended to simulate the overall average of play
results that one should expect within a single quarter of play.
At the end of the quarter the cards are shuffled and the process
repeated. To some extent the thoroughness of the shuffling
activity determines the randomness of the results in the
following quarter.
The range of results in the SPBK FAC deck equates to good
shooting, bad shooting, offensive or defensive fouls, rebound,
steal, and block activity. But the randomness of the results,
based on the thorough shuffling of the deck and the luck of the
draw determines the frequency or infrequency of any of those
results. The FAC system does not, at least in my mind,
predetermine that only a specific number of results in any given
catagory may take place within a single quarter, or game for that
matter.
Imagine a real game and suppose a player shoots ten baskets
successfully. Does his success in shooting determine necessairy
determine another player's success in shooting, rebounding, or
making assists? I don't think it can be proven either way,
although it may be true that when one player is hot other players
start feeding him the ball and forfeiting their own shot
attempts.
SP Football and Baseball are different from Basketball because
the FAC deck does not serve any other function than play
resolution. Timing is handled as play intervals in SPFB, and
time doesn't matter in baseball. Shuffling the FACs more often
produces more random results. Flipping the cards straight
through without any shuffling might skew the results more than
using a dice system--but I'm sure it would take tens of thousands
of playtests to give that idea any credibility.
All three SP systems are grounded in overall player performance,
not precise frequency of that performance. If you play one game
you might see a player of poor quality have an outstanding
performance well above his normal ability. Or a great player
might fall flat. Happens all the time in real life, and in
sports games. But if you play the game for a full season, or
two, or three including thousands of games you can expect to see
the better players perform better. Maybe Player A has a big game
and scores 50 points, when he never did so in real life. Does
that hurt the integrity of the game? I don't think so, not any
more than the same player shaving 5 points off his season average
determines his team's total performance.
The foundation of the SP games is solid enough that using a dice
resolution system will not adversely impact either the randomness
or accuracy of the play results, not in a broad sense. In SP
Football, you look at the FAC deck and see that Pass Number 1
only appears a certain number of times. Rolling dice instead of
flipping cards might produce that Pass Number more often in the
course of a game. And it might not. But a pass completed off #1
is still only a pass completed and it could have been completed
with a range of other numbers. The case against using dice is
somewhat stronger when one considers breakaway runs or other
situations which legitimately occur more rarely than a simple
completed pass.
I'm glad to have any of you offer an opinion on the SP FAD
concept. I enjoy discussing game design theories, and I'll be
the first to concede that using dice with the SP games does
change them. But they are all fine games regardless of whether
you use cards or dice.
My main reason for developing the SP dice systems? I don't like
shuffling cards.
Happy Labor Day.
Regards,
Jim Gordon
jgordon@library.berkeley.edu
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Stadium/2125
P.S. I turn 40 tomorrow. (Grimace.) Luckily I'm still a kid at
heart.
******************************
From: CMalitsky@aol.com
Jim,
Can you note that I have color copies of the SI All-Time All-Star game and am
looking for an original game so I can have a complete game. I will pay a
reasonable price for one. Thanks
Chris
******************************
From: Bart Beddall
Hey Jim,
I welcome anybody's help with typing in team information. I have two guys helping
right now, hats off to Chris Matlisky and David Baumgardner for helping out. It
takes about 2 hours to type in one team. So I probably typed in something wrong
and mislead you, sorry about that. Once again if anybody wants to help, send me
an e-mail. It's looking more like late September for the first release, I've just
been busy at work, they don't understand how important Bowl Bound is.
I saw that $415 for 1972 SI Baseball, obviously some guys have too much money.
I'm just happy I have my 1970 season and All-Time All-Star.
later,
Bart
******************************
From: Wgreview@aol.com
Hi Jim,
I've been lurking on the list for a while; I've been out of the sports
game world for a while now but am intererested in getting involved again.
I have a fairly large collection of board games (no computer games) covering
all different sports -- I'd be interested in doing some trading with the
membership once I get an up-to-date inventory of what I have. I also have
various magazines like APBA Journal.
A few years back I started compiling a list of as many different sports
board/card games as possible, for the magazine I publish, World Game
Review. This has been on the back burner for a while, but when I get it
going again I'd be happy to compare notes with others doing the same thing.
> Regarding the ongoing Sports Game Inventory, can anyone give me a
> list of the sports games once marketed by 3M and later Avalon
> Hill? I would like to sort out these info for the inventory.
I have _The_Complete_3-M_Games_Catalog_ edited by John Farewell.
This lists the following sports games:
[Bookcase] Challenge Football, Challenge Golf at Pebble Beach
AH republished both, the latter as Pro Golf
[Flatbox]Big League Baseball, Blue Line Hockey, Pro Football, Regatta,
Speed Circuit, Thinking Man's Football, Thinking Man's Golf; Win, Place,
and Show
AH republished Regatta, Speed Circuit, and WPS in bookcase format.
There are also a couple of rarities which exist only as prototypes or
test market titles:
Profi Fussball (soccer), Thinking Man's Baseball, Thinking Man's Basketball
> Finally, does anyone remember Centennial Baseball, a game that
> appeared briefly about 4 or 5 years ago? I recall seeing ads but
> I don't remember who published it. Has anyone played it?
If we're talking about the same game, 1876 Centennial Baseball is from
Chatham Hill Games, Inc., P.O. Box 253, Chatham, NY 12037, and sells
for $29.95. Telephone is (800)554-3039 for orders and (518)392-5022 for
information, fax (518)392-3121, E-mail CHGames@taconic.net, web site
www.regionnet.com/colberk/chgames. I saw the game briefly
at the New York Toy Fair this February.
Best wishes,
Michael
******************************
From: "D., K., P. Premo"
Jim,
For those who might be interested, I have a new Fast-Action Games
Supplement ready:
Women's Pro Basketball Supplement is now ready. (You need the Pro
Basketball game to play, however.) All 3 WBL seaons (1979-81), 1995
WWBA season, both ABL (1997-98), and both WNBA seasons (1997-98) are
included -- EVERY team in every one of these leagues is found in this
supplement. Cost is $4 ppd.
Send payment to: Patrick M. Premo, 1250 Chipmonk Road, Allegany, NY
14706
Thanks and keep up the great work with your newsletter.
Pat
******************************
From: bcbc@jerseycape.com
Subject: SOM Football draft leagues
>We/I bought SOM board football game.....we wanna do a draft of
>ALL players including linemen,DB's,LB's etc....We can do that
>much..as SOM supplies the ratings--even though there
>are not cards....BUT...how do we come up with a "team def/off"
>cards???Can we somehow do this?I'm already thinkin maybe we
>should've went with APBA....too late now!
>Any advice you can give me would be great....
>Bill.....bcbc@jerseycape.com
Well, SOM Football doesn't lend itself to a draft approach
in the truest sense, that's true. On the other hand, maybe
APBA is better for drafting, but at least from the version
I bought recently, it's nowhere near the football game that
SOM is.
This was awhile back, but my friends and I had tried a few
different 'draft' formats for SOM Football.
The first way and most successful way and the way we used
most was a stock team draft where you drafted whole teams.
Each guy took 3 teams, the first two rounds you could pick
any team you wanted with the second draft round in the
reverse order of the first draft round. (So person drafting
#1 also draft #16). In the third round of drafting, you HAD
to take a sub-.500 team if one was available. Although this
was meant for guys to use as spoilers against other guys
good teams, often a lot of guys would identify most and best
with their scrub team!
Then you could do where you draft SOM CARDS. That is, draft
Minnesota's LINE BUCK/OFF TACKLE run defense card and San
Diego's Special Teams card and so on. An alternative to this
is to have each guy draft 2 or 3 teams and mix and match their
cards to come up with a best team.
Just some ideas,
Dave
******************************
From: Michael Robinson
bravefan@bellatlantic.net
can we place some ads?
Thanks,Mike
******************************
From: "Gary Brown"
Subject: Big League Football Demo
Hi Jim,
I'm new to your journal so I'm not sure if you can use this or
not.
Demo: Big League Football V 2.0 by Cyclone Software
I've been researching statistical-based football sims, in search
of the most complete and realistic software for the money. One of
the sims I recently considered is Big League Football by Cyclone
Software.
The sim is a DOS program and does not provide mouse support. It
was not terribly difficult navigate, but calling plays takes a
little time to get used to.
Here are some strengths and weaknesses in the demo:
Strengths:
It's simple. This sim should provide believeable statistical
results without being difficult to play. AI seems solid. It was
hard to challenge the computer when I had the clearly inferior
team.
On defense you can key on a specific running back.
Weaknesses:
Cannot designate the primary receiver on pass plays or the length
of the pass routes. Play-by-play is pretty weak. It won't tell
you who made the tackle or batted the pass away and is
repetitive. Cannot double-team a specific receiver.
All in all, I think this sim was fun to mess around with, but
it's not the one in which I would want to invest a lot of time.
It seems to lack detail. At $49.95 for the full version, it's
probably overpriced. Maybe in another couple of years Cyclone
Software will have a contender, but for now my choice seems to be
between Haffner 3 in 1 and Action! PC Football.
I welcome any of your opinions on Haffner and Action! PC sims.
You can check out the Cyclone's demo for yourself at
http://users.aol.com/cycsoft/cycsoft.htm
******************************
From: mike keeley
Subject: pennant race
I've been reading with interest about the game 'Pennant Race' being
sold. I used to have a bunch of games from the past that I sold, but
before I sent them off, I copied all the rules and players of each for
my own future use. I checked on that pennant race that I had, and it
included the 1982 teams. Is that possible? I see in your archive of
games from the past that only 1972 and 1973 are listed. Or was it made
for some number of years after that? By the way, I'm hoping to send you
an article explaining the game system for Solitaire Pro Football
sometime soon. Thanks again for the issues every week. I'm always
looking forward to them. Mike Keeley
[It is unfortunate the Avalon Hill chose to use the name
"Pennant Race" for the baseball game marketed in the early
1980s. That Pennant Race (1982-84) was a completely
different design from the original Sports Illustrated
Baseball Game which was renamed "Pennant Race" in 1973 (1972
season stats). I think AH missed a great opportunity to
revive and market the SI baseball games in the mid-1970s
when they acquired the SI line but they focused on Paydirt
and Bowl Bound instead, plus Decathlon and Superstar
Baseball. I look forward to you comments about Solitaire
Pro Football.--JCG]
******************************
From: "Christopher P. Carl"
Just came across your Sports Gaming Digest while surfing the net
looking for past season Strat cards. Nice to see table top gaming
is still alive and well.
I've been playing sports board games now for 16 years now. I
Started out with the Statis-Pro games in 1982 and was hooked. I
moved on to APBA in 1986 and finally found heaven with
Strat-O-Matic in 1988.
Why SOM? Three reasons:
statistical accuracy, excellent strategy and coaching options,
and ease of play (i.e. 90% of results are read off the cards).
APBA drove me crazy!!! (roll dice, find number, find chart, flip
chart, find result). And oh my God! Don't even get me started
with APBA Basketball. Just getting through a quarter was enough
to test anyone's endurance. After that said though, I must say
that APBA Golf has got to be one of the best games ever (and
that's really saying something considering we're talking about
golf here).
Anyway, enough of my personal rambling. I'm really looking
forward to receiving your Sports Gaming Digest.
Also, if anyone out there is interested, I have APBA Football
w/'86 season, APBA Baseball w/'86 season, APBA Basketball w/'87
season, Statis-Pro Basketball w/'85-'86 season, and Statis-Pro
Baseball w/'92 season (unopened, box still in plastic shrink
wrap). Willing to trade for SOM Basketball '83-84 or '84-85
season card set, APBA Golf sets (I already have the ATG set), SOM
Football '90-'96 seasons, or SOM Baseball '80-'88 seasons.
Thanks,
ccarl@voyager.net
******************************
From: "Burbridge, James"
Jim,
I received your email. I'd like to join that Sports Gaming Digest.
Thanks,
Jim Burbridge
******************************
From: "Bodenheimer, Karl "
I am not real big into sports games but I occasionally play one. I am
usually interested in new variants or expansion ideas. Please add me to
your list.
Karl Bodenheimer
******************************
From: (John Horn)
Hi, Jim. I got your name from a friend who enjoys your newsletters. Would
you mind putting me on your email list and also, if it isn't too much
trouble, sending me some back issues.
[All back issues of the SGD are available on my website:
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Stadium/2125 Let me know
if you have problems accessing the material from there and I
can email some issues to you.--JCG]
Thank you.
John Horn
******************************
From: "Bill Chase"
I have recently tried APBA and STRAT board football...they both seem to have
their strengths as well as weaknesses.Has anyone tried to come up with a hybrid
of the two?It seems to me that if combined,you could get a perfect board football game.
Though it would take somebody alot smarter than I am to implement it.
Any comments about strat board basketball?Also,I'd like to buy a copy of statis pro
basketball.....any out there?Can you buy it new?
[Avalon Hill might still have some copies of the 1994-95 SP
Basketball season. I believe that was the last season they
produced for any of the SP line. Also, SP games seem to
turn up regularly on the eBay auction site, and sometimes on
the rec.games.board.marketplace.--JCG]
******************************
From: EdenSker@aol.com
I'd be interested in Sports Gaming Digest. Thanks for the e-mail.
Robert
******************************
From: JohnBench5@aol.com
Hello. My name is John Mettler. I was checking out your website and I enjoyed
what I saw. I am writing to find out how I can get the "Sports Gaming Digest".
I would be very interested in subscribing.
I noticed that you would like some info about my gaming
histories and preferences. So here you are....
What are your sports gaming interests and preferences?
Pretty much all games. I own and have played the major 4 sports from both APBA
and Strat-o-Matic. I play solitare, tried to get some friends to play, but
they weren't interested. I also play computer sports sims. I prefer Football
and Hockey for my board games, but I play all of them from time to time.
Which games have you played in the past and what have you played
lately?
I have played the following: APBA Baseball, Football, Baseketball, and Hockey
board games as well as the football, bbw, and Hockey v3.0 for the computer. I
have played SOM Baseball, Football, Basketball, and Hockey. I have 2 versions
of Bowl Bound, I have the 1979 and 1990 seasons for Paydirt. I have the 1985
Version of Statis Pro Baseball. I have the 1985 & 89 versions of Statis Pro
Football. I have the 1989-90 version of Statis Pro Basketball. (Is there
really a version for the hockey game? I've never heard of it before). I've
played Face-off hockey. Avalon Hill's Superstar Baseball and Title Bout. To
this day I still play SOM Hockey and APBA Hockey and Football.
Which games do you like (or dislike) the most?
I really enjoy the APBA Games as a whole. They are very simple to play and
produce very realistic statistics. I LOVE SOM Hockey!!! This might be my
favorite board game. I use many innovations that I have acquired through other
players as well as my own. I still play APBA Hockey. I am in the process of
creating my own Hockey cards for APBA as they have stopped producing them due
to the licensing fees. I'm not too keen on Statis Pro Baseball. Just something
about the game makes me uneasy. I don't like the fact that most game companies
are going the Compuerized route. I understand their reasons, but I still don't
like it. :-)
Please add me to your mailing list.
John Mettler
******************************
From: "Dennis Christensen"
Please let me know what I need to do to subscribe.
Thank you,
Dennis C.
******************************
From: SRNOTJR@aol.com
In response to the question about a pc football sim, my money's on Action PC
Football. Statistically it is sound....the AI is surprisingly good......and
creating season disks, and, again, getting sound results out of them, is
relatively simple to do. I have created WFL disks for both 1974 and 1975, with
the '75 disks including players like Craig Morton who signed with the league
but reneged.....its simple to do this by exporting from the APCFB '75 data
disk. Injuries, fights, weather, home field advantage....even details like
inside/outside running ability....its all here. APCFB just gives you so many
more options than LH.
Moving to baseball.......I just acquired a large run of 60s and 70s Street and
Smiths....and they are full of ads for table games......one called "Extra
Innings" got my interest and I wondered if there was anyone who contribute an
overview of it. And, how DO you get a hold of some of these old and (to the
great unwashed) forgotten tabletop gems out there?
[I think I've seen Extra Innings once or twice on the eBay
auction site, but admittedly some of these old games are
hard to find. Maybe someone on the list has something to
sell or trade.--JCG]
Ronnie Stone
srnotjr@aol.com
******************************
From: Golden9arm@aol.com
Please send me the sports gaming digest magazine..I am very interest in
reading it.
Sincerely,
Richard Kornhaus
******************************
From: Mike Simmons
Subject: Help
Jim I was just wondering if you or anybody out there knows how to take a
Apple Disks and convert it over to be able to play on an IBM compatible
computer through a Apple Emulator. If you or anyone else knows I would
like some help. I have some Statis-Pro Baseball games that I would love
to play. Mike Simmons
*******************
END DIGEST 9-7-98
Return to Sports Gaming Digest Contents Page
To receive the Sports Gaming Digest, contact Jim Gordon at
jgordon@library.berkeley.edu
This page hosted by 
Get your own Free Home Page