One of my hobbies is baseball board games. You know, like Strat-O-Matic. It's safer than other hobbies (like drinking and driving or swordfighting) and I can use my brain.

The problem is that this hobby gets expensive -- or at least it does for me, because I don't know when to stop. Surprisingly, in this computer and video game age, there are a lot of baseball games out there. What seems to have happened is that the kids who oohed and aahed over the board game ads in Street & Smith's every spring have made their own games. 

And that's great. If you've ever played a baseball board game, you remember playing as a kid and feeling like everything was right with the world. It's an escape, and usually a healthy one. 

What I'm doing here is what I would have liked someone to have done for me: a guide to a good portion of the games, and their strengths and weaknesses. My apologies for not including APBA; I played it a lot in college, but not enough since then to remember it.

Strat-O-Matic

Cost for game with 2007 season: $61.75 plus shipping 

Other seasons available: a smattering of older seasons (1911, 1920, 1927, 1934, 1941, plus a few from 1950s, 1963-67, 1971, 1975, 1988, some from 1990s, 2000-06.)

Interesting: The company obviously puts a lot of work into its fielding ratings, mixing subjectivity, sources and statistics. The game itself has morphed over the years from a very basic game to something with all kinds of bells and whistles. The book, "Strat-O-Matic Fanatics" tells how creator Hal Richman created the game as an escape from his father, who is portrayed in the book as uncharmingly bipolar. 

Highlights: The older seasons, with the platoon data, are really nice, and offer some surprises. The game does a good job of selling itself with articles on the website showing the eye-openers in the card sets. The game also has a history, with some famous players (Spike Lee and Jon Miller are two).

Lowlights: The quality of the cards has also changed to the point where they are about as strong and sturdy as Monopoly money. When the game company has produced a season and it has sold out (like 1956, 1961, 1962, 1969 or 1970), it's no longer available unless you can find it on eBay. Some re-created seasons are also very stingy with the number of players available, although the company has addressed this in recent years. 

Also, the company has an interesting way of dealing with card mistakes. On the website, there is a letter from a gamer noting that the company used Tommie Reynolds' batting stats for Jeff Torborg's card. This is the company's response on the site:

"SOM’s Steve Barkan says you are the first to report the Torborg problem. He checked and confirmed that Torborg (who hits .203 with 0 HR in 123 AB) mistakenly received Reynolds’ batting card (.188 with 2 HR in 88 AB). “There’s nothing to do at this point but get a Nameless Player card to substitute for Torborg, or perhaps use the Fringe Player creation feature in the computer game” Barkan replied. 

"Here’s another possibility, no more imperfect than the Nameless Player option: Another catcher, Ken Suarez of Cleveland, hit .203 in 123 AB (but with 1 HR and more walks and strikeouts than Torborg). Use his card for Torborg, changing the HR chance to a single. If you want more precision, you could change at least half the strikeouts to popouts. But the walks are tricky. If you change them to outs, the batting average goes down. For every five carded chances of walk you remove, make one chance a single."

Great, so all you have to do is photocopy Suarez' card and adjust it accordingly. Or assume that Reynolds is the designated hitter and always batting for Torborg. Couldn't the company have printed some kind of card?

Ball Park Baseball

Cost for game with 2007 season: $137 plus shipping 

Other seasons available: Everything from 1894 to the present

Interesting: Cards are color-coded for each team, although they're not necessarily in the team's colors (The Mets, for example, are purple). Bill James noted in his last Baseball Abstract that he got to thinking about baseball in an analytical way because he wanted to win his Ball Park league.  

Good for you: Ball Park is like the town that says, "Yes, we know our property taxes are out of sight, but we believe it's justified because our school is so much better than the rest." And it is a very good game. Rare plays fit in with the game engine so that you can find something new even if you've played 1,000 games. Plus, you can pick any team since 1894. The cost goes down after the initial sticker shock because parks cover a range of years. Cards also come pre-cut.

Bad for me: The price can be prohibitive. Also, the instructions are so horribly written that people exaggerate the level of complexity and detail by a factor of about a hundred. Delivery times for games can be sporadic. Also, the formulas all appear math-based, which leads to ridiculous situations like Dick Allen (1973 White Sox) getting the best possible fielding rating. 

Ball Park also has something of a generic platoon factor with its batters. So if you're playing the 1980 Orioles for instance, a lefty platoon player will have a better column against righties, but toned down so enough hits will be on the lefty side.

Finally, the game has a rule that is all but etched in stone: Pitchers don't get a card unless they've pitched at least 29 innings in that league. That means no Joba Chamberlain for the Yankees if you want last year's set.

Inside Pitch 

Cost for game with 2007 season: $64 plus shipping

Other seasons available: 1965, 1969, 1978, 1980, 1985, 1995 

Interesting: The game engine uses Voros McCracken's Defense Independent Pitching Statistics, the theory being that pitchers control things like walks, strikeouts, hit batsman and home runs, but most of what happens when the ball is put in play is luck. Every at bats starts with the pitcher's card and the great majority incorporate a rating or use a roll from the hitter's card. Retrosheet data is also used for fielding ratings, so if a guy like Brooks Robinson has average stats at third for the 1965 Orioles, he gets an average rating.

Ooh!: The system is ingenious. Customer service is very good, as the inventor (Chris Davis) is very hands-on. Games and card sets are also available in PDF format. There's a nice help file on the Delphi forums where Davis goes through a game batter-by-batter to show how it works. When a card is missing or mistaken, it's posted on the forums and the correct one is included with new sets. A strategy system is built into the game so bunting and stealing can be automatic. 

Ugh!: No seasons available before 1965, although 1956 is in the works. The baserunning system is a little tedious at times. Too many typos -- on game charts, "less than" sometimes should be "greater than." The 1965 set had to be released three times in less than a year because of an error and an upgrade. Platoon data only comes into effect when a player has been up 40 times against lefties and righties. So lefties like Pat Kelly (1980 Orioles) and Bill Virdon (1965 Pirates) have their seasons misrepresented somewhat by having straight data against both types of pitchers.

Replay 

Cost for game with 2007 season: $89 (shipping included)

Other seasons available: 1908, 1964, 1967, 1971, 1984, 2005-06, 1923 Negro National League. 

Interesting: You ever know someone where you just feel like you have to be nice in front of that person? Not nice so you won't get in trouble, but nice because that person is so positive? That's Pete Ventura, who runs Replay. He's always cheerfully interacting with players on the Replay Delphi forum, and very politely asking them to be more polite if someone gets out of line. Replay's cards, which use a 6x6 matrix, are like APBA's in that they are not random (a home run chance is always in 6-6, for example). Ventura has stated he would like to shake that up a bit, but admitted most players don't want him to change.

Yay!: The 1923 Negro National League set includes wonderful commentary on all the teams. That alone is worth the price of the set. Customer service is top-notch. There's a devoted following of gamers who will swear Replay is the best game ever invented. An optional stolen base system is built into the cards. Ventura has added many features in recent years to make the game more realistic. This game probably does the best job of adding new features without making them clunky. Cards are available as PDF documents, and additions with every player carded are also available. 

Boo!: In Replay, the result is combined from the pitcher's and batter's cards and read on a chart. In many cases, however, the result will be the same no matter what's on the pitcher's card. Not enough older seasons are available, and like Strat-O-Matic, when a season sells out, it's gone. In the majority of cases, strikeout pitchers just change other outs to strikeouts. The K's add up on the scoresheet, but you don't get the sense of dominance that you do in other games. Some would like the cards to be more random.

Dynasty League Baseball

Cost for game with 2007 season: $94.85 plus shipping 

Other seasons available: 1967, 1970-73, 1982, 1993-94, 1996-2006

Interesting: The game is an offshoot of Pursue the Pennant, which was developed by Mike Cieslinski. (Pursue the Pennant is being reproduced and plans are to have the 1964 season by the end of this year.) 

Delightful: Playable game with an agreeable amount of chart lookups. Results are color-coded on the cards. Good amount of players available for past seasons. Game plays quickly and flows easily with a strong level of detail. Ballpark charts have photos of the parks.

Frustrating: Customer service. Unlike Ball Park, where delivery time is sporadic, with Dynasty you are almost certain it's going to take longer than it should. If you order by credit card, it's billed right away, but the game may not arrive for a month or more. Errors always seem to be a problem with sets, and players always seem to be missing. When Lenny Randle didn't receive a card in the 1971 set, despite having 215 at bats, Cieslinski first said making a card was on his to-do list. About a year later, he said it was impossible to make a new card for the set after the process. All other games listed above have more pre-1990 seasons available, and all (except Ball Park) could use the excuse that they're producing board games for other sports as well.

4th Street Baseball 

Cost for game with 2007 season: $54.95 plus shipping (cheapest listed here)

Other seasons available: 1960-61, 2005-06 

Interesting: This is the only game listed here where the count where the deciding pitch is thrown is a factor. For example, an 0-2 count drops the batter by two grades, and a 3-0 count bumps him by three grades. If you're playing head-to-head, the pitcher chooses fastball or breaking ball, and the batter guesses, with the ratings changing based on how he guessed.

Sublime: If you want detail, this game is for you. There's also a sample game for free off the website in PDF format. The pitchers interact with batters and the batters interact with fielders, so you get the sense that the fielders are involved more than other games. Play time is still reasonable (25-40 minutes) once you get the hang of things. 

Not so much: If you want to play anything other than a recent season or something from the very early 60s, this game is not for you. Plus, all that detail is not for everyone. There can be a lot of rolls, and that takes away from the fun factor. When I played, doubles were far too high, and another gamer reported the same thing.