Sports Gaming Digest (02-08-99)
Greetings Sports Gamers!
In case anyone had trouble contacting me in recent days, I apologize. Our email server has been undergoing maintenance and upgrading lately.
I appreciate the responses expressing support for the effort to interest Hasbro in reviving sports games. Don't get your hopes just up but I am glad to see the enthusiasm for working to improve the designs and playtest new developments. At some point I would like to organize the efforts around individual games, and that will allow interested parties to have some input regarding their favorites. It's a little early for that elevel of involvement but it never hurts to pull together your ideas and think about what you might like to see changed, refined or added to a particular game.
This seems like a good time to mention that I am gradually compiling a database of list members to include names, emails, address/approximate locations with the idea that sports gamers might be able to locate someone in their area. So far my database is fairly small and a few dozen members have joined since the last time I mentioned this project, so if you hadn't heard about it before you are welcome to send me pertinent information anytime.
Regards,
Jim Gordon
jgordon@library.berkeley.edu
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Stadium/2125
Pawtucket or Bust!
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From: Bogoljubov@aol.com
Hi,
I collect RGI sports games - the first generation - not the 'players series'
which came in the shoebox. I am looking for a complete copy of Rocky
Graziano's Century of Great Fights. If you could post this on the newsletter I
would greatly appreciate it. I can be reached at bogoljubov@aol.com by an
interested party.
Regards,
Ken Calitri
***************************
From: Bruce1001@aol.com
Subject: Re: Items wanted
Jim,
I think trying to revive the SI/AH line of games is a great idea. Although I
have just started to get back into boardgaming, I am especially fond of Pro
Golf (I have the Augusta and Pebble Beach course booklets - I wonder if any
others were ever made, and the '81 and '86 golfer cards).
Also, I am looking to purchase the following items:
APBA Golf (full game, expansion courses, golfer sets)
AH/SI Superstar Baseball card set #2
Thanks,
Bruce
***************************
From: Randy Cox
Howdy Jim,
I'm up for having you approach Hasbro with a collective bargaining agreement.
I suppose it's worth a try, but I'm not sure how successful it will be, because
that company shelves titles which don't sell in the hundreds of thousands.
There's not a sports game ever invented which could sell 20,000. So, good
luck.
By the way, my web site devoted to Sports Illustrated (later Superstar)
Baseball is up. It's a necessity these days for drumming up participants in
the tournament which will be held at the Convention Formerlly Known as
Avaloncon.
That web site is at www.innova.net/~randycox/ssb.htm and it includes a short
history of the game with a couple of low-resolution scans of the charts. It
also lists the rosters which I'll have for the upcoming Teams of the Decades
charts.
Keep up the fine work.
Randy Cox
***************************
From: dmelkin
I am certainly in agreement with one viable proposal to Hasbro
I couldn't design a doughnut, I would forget the hole or something.....
Suggestions I am pretty good at.
Have a Paydirt "Super Bowl" Edition (All teams since the lst one) and
the 1998 Season included in the initial package. Lot's of teams would
get more customers.
AH's Baseball, Basketball and Football Strategy are probalby too
esoteric for the general gaming public.
Statis Pro Packages.
Baseball is the easiest and they could market a great team's edition
including the 98 Yankees and 15 other great teams as well as the rest of
the 98 season.
Football is the most popular sport (ouch!, that was hard to say) but the
game I still have was incredible complex. I would think that to sell the
football game you would need to revise the game somewhat, removing
individual offensive linemen cards and creating a defensive card grid to
simulate the different defenses utilized by the teams (The Eagles could
be a small card :-) ) They could make available the Statis Pro Master's
game as a seperate add-on
Never played baseketball or Hockey but I sure would try to market the
"Jordan Years" and the "Gretzkey Years"
Don't remember much of the Sports Illustrated Series that AH bought.
Just some thoughts
Dave Elkin
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From: "K., P. Premo"
Jim,
I am very interested to see how Hasbro responds to yoru proposal. I
will try to be optimistic -- after all, what does Hasbro have to lose.
I wonder if they are thinking computer/video games rather than board
games?
[Hasbro stands to lose whatever they invest in any project, and I would not expect them to make any business decision lightly. They will but their own best interest first. It's just business.--JCG]
An update for my Fast-Action game fans:
1. The 1998 Pro Football season is now available for the usual $1.00
2. The women's ABL "last season" (even though it wasn't a full season)
is also available for the Pro Women's Basketball Supplement. The cost
is also $1.00.
Free brochure for all games also available: Patrick Premo, 1250
Chipmonk Rd., Allegany, NY 14706
Keep up the good work.
Pat
***************************
From: "Derek Evans"
Subject: Hasbro
You certainly have my support. Anything I can provide would be a pleasure.
Theoretical suggestions, rules enhancments or game ideas. I could also do some play testing in the weekly game I attend and you tell Hasbro there's a big market for the re-release of Paydirt over here. I know of 3 superbowl parties I was invited to I choose to go to one held at a friends house where there were 16 people all willing the Bronco's to lose.
Perhaps it was just our bias but we all thought the Minnasota Viking should have been there to beat Denver as Atlanta didn't even make a fight of it.
Cheers
Derek Evans
***************************
From: Bodenheimer Karl
Jim,
If I read it right, then you have 270 members. Within that group there
would be quite a large number of web pages. We could offer Hasbro free
plugs on these for their games. Nothing large of course, just reviews and
links. But that adds up to a fair amount of advertising. I would be glad
to playtest new or old game systems, and just like everyone else, I have my
own ideas which I can throw into the pot. Keep after Hasbro, and don't let
them forget about the subject.
[Hard to say how much Hasbro would care about our websites. They don't seem to do much with their own. In any case, I'm a long way from giving up. -JCG]
Karl Bodenheimer
***************************
From: CMalitsky@aol.com
Jim,
I am interested in the playtesting, testing and refinement of games should
Hasbro sign on. I also gave Bart Beddall a heads-up on the Bowl Bound front.
He has spent countless hours developing the computer Bowl Bound game and I
have been assisting in data entry. I would not charge a large fee, but I
assume the testers and refiners should be paid a little by Hasbro. Your
thoughts on that? Thanks
[I would not expect any payment from Hasbro for playtesting, and probably not much even for those doing the research/design content. --JCG]
Chris
***************************
From: Cavsoldr11@aol.com
Jim,
You bet, I would be very interested in serving as both a playtester and
designer for the games. I don't have much experiece designing sports games,
but have played a few to have some experience, and have worked in developin
other wargame rules. Count me in!
Ed Kelly
West Palm Beach, FL
***************************
From: "g.victor"
Jim,
Count me in for support. I think my strength would be in playtesting.
Anything to help our cause!!
***************************
From: RogerACox@aol.com
Hi Jim,
I don't have much to report at this time either. Only that I am soon to start
a pbm game/tournament of SI Alltime Allstar Baseball. As far as I can tell,
this will be the first play-by-mail game of this game ever attempted, so some
of the rules are a bit quirky (some have still not been ironed out, even). I
may run it in a pbm 'zine I already am a guest gamemaster in, "Absolute!". If
not, it'll likely be on a flyer basis. I'm not quite ready to take the plunge
into amateur publishing. Just thought I'd pass along this info to you, in
case some readers want to try it.
Take care,
Roger Cox
5108 Borman St.
Spartanburg, SC 29301
***************************
From: Alosmera@aol.com
Subject: statis pro football
Jim,
while reading some past Digests, I noticed you mentioned something about Fast
Action Dice for Statis Pro Football. I didn't see it on the website. Could you
email or snail mail me, I'm interested in trying it out.
[I need to do more cleanup of this stuff and reformatting to make it easier to send on email. I'll try to have it ready this week and it will go back onto the website.--JCG]
Thanks
Al Osmera
9919 Weir Plaza 317
Omaha, NE 68127
alosmera@aol.com
***********************
From: OBLIETE1@aol.com
Subject: Reviving Gaming
Thanks for the continuing greatness of the Digest. As long as you're
researching various companies' attitudes toward reviving their sports games, I
think it would be fascinating to get rough sales figures for modern table
games. For example, I play APBA and Strat-o-Matic (and would lovingly play
Statis-Pro if they still put out new cards), and I've always wondered just how
many people still buy these games. Does APBA sell 10,000 new baseball card
sets? 5,000? 50,000? We gamers know we are not alone, but just how not-alone
are we? Legally it might be impossible to find out these figures, but I wonder
if a sympathetic corporate ear would lend us a guesstimate sometime.....
[I agree that it would be interesting to know these figures, but I don't expect any company would readily offer up the info. I would be surprised if any sports game sold 10,000 units.-JCG]
Robert Lentz
Annapolis, MD
***************************
From: "Paul Sauberer"
Subject: Games for sale
I am going to be selling off a lot of my old games that I have not played in
years. Mostly, I will be using eBay, but there is one item that I thought
might interest list members, what with all of the talk about Title Bout I've
seen here.
I have a copy of the pre-cursor to Title Bout, the Truco Boxing Game,
copyright 1976. It is printed on legal sized card stock or slightly lighter
than card stock, but heavier than regular paper. It is comb bound into a
book. All of the pages are there and readable although it has suffered some
water damage. None of the boxer cards or fast action cards have been removed
from the book. I actually picked this up at the old Avalon Hill retail
outlet in the 70s when I lived near Baltimore. They must have bought out the
Trunzos' copies when AH bought the rights to make Title Bout. I bought it to
get the list of boxing venues that was included. I did not see this game in
the comprehensive list of games on the SGD site, so I don't know how
familiar everyone is with it. I also have no idea what a fair price would be
for it, but since I would put it on eBay, I am willing to entertain bids.
Speaking of the comprehensive list of games, there are a couple of items
missing from the Statis Pro baseball section. Whoever produced Statis Pro
before AH made a Great Pennant Races set with cards for the 1950 AL, 1964 NL
and 1967 AL seasons. They also made a 1977 season set. I also got these from
the Avalon Hill store shortly after AH put out Statis Pro. Avalon Hill also
released a card set of the 1958 season, shortly before they stopped
producing Statis Pro baseball, I believe. Although it wasn't a card set, All
Star Replay magazine listed ratings for several great teams in one of their
issues. These ratings could be copied onto blank cards. The teams were 1906
Cubs, 1927 Yankees, 1936 Yankees, 1943 Cardinals, 1953 Yankees and 1976
Reds.
[I know about most of these omissions. One of these days I get around to updating the list again. Thanks for the notes.-JCG]
Paul Sauberer
***************************
From: Alosmera@aol.com
While sorting through some old sports magazines in my attic, I came across the
middle pages of a newspaper like magazine titled "ASD." I think it might have
stood for All Sports Digest. Anyway the pages that I had, contained 1983-84
statis pro basketball ratings for 60 or so college basketball teams as well as
advertisements for Big League Manager, computer Title Bout, and even Pat
Premo's Fast Action Horse Racing Game. Now that I have the rating for some
college teams I was wondering if I need to make any changes to incorporate
them into the game. Are there special rules to use for the college teams. I
know I've heard of some people making their own player cards, I was just
curious if there were any special rules I needed. Also, does anyone remember
that magazine "ASD"? My copy was dated 1985. Maybe Pat Premo can shed some
light on this magazine or has some old copies.
Al Osmera
alosmera@aol.com
***************************
From: "Michael Argiropolis"
Jim,
If anyone is interested, I am putting four years of APBA Journals (6/87 - 5/91) up for bid on the board games section of e-bay.
***************************
From: Alosmera@aol.com
I was looking at Jim's Fast Action Dice chart (pre 92) for statis pro
basketball and thought I'd compare the chart with my two sets of fast action
cards from 78-79 and 89-90. There Is a little difference from my cards to the
charts so I was wondering If all fast action decks were the different in
basketball or any statis pro game.
Also I was curious which year of fast action cards Jim used to prepare the
fast action dice for pre-92 basketball.
[I don't actually remember which FAC set I used to compile the data. It was either 1983/84, 1985/86 or 1990/91. I had all three at one time and I don't recall that I made any careful comparison. If you do any analysis of the cards I would like to know about any differences.-JCG]
Al Osmera
alosmera@aol.com
***************************
From: "BEN CREASEY"
Subject: Replay results
Hi Jim ,
I just completed a few football simulation tournaments over the past
week and thought readers might be interested in some of the results.
I used Lance Haffners' 3 in 1 football game for these first two knock-out
tournaments as the game is accurate , gives complete stats and
has a huge array of teams. I included what I thought were the best 64
college teams through history ( if included on the game ) and seeded the top 8 teams.
The semi-final results were =
1976' Pittsburgh defeated 1947' Michigan 21 to 17
1964' Notre Dame defeated 1966' Notre Dame 34 to 18
The final was =
1976' Pittsburgh over 1964' Notre Dame 15 to 12
I then used the same format for the top N.F.L teams , also using Lance
Haffners' game.
Semi-finals =
1958' Baltimore defeated 1968' NY Jets by 21 to 17
1973' Miami over 1977' Dallas 9 to 6
Final =
1973' Miami over 1958' Baltimore 20 to 16
Next up was a 32 team tournament using Patrick Premos' fast ' n ' furious
football ( which is a great game ) which included all 32 SuperBowl winning
teams in a knock-out format once again.
Semi-finals were =
1996' Green Bay over 1994' San Francisco by 39 to 24
1985' Chicago beat 1990' NY Giants 25 to 19 in overtime
Final result =
1985' Chicago defeated 1996' Green Bay by 22 to 12
Then for the ultimate dream tournament.................I set up
a 32 team knock-out ( using Michael Owens excellent Quick-Play football game )
and included all teams from the Atlanta Falcons' history!!!!!!!!!!!
I suppose everyone can guess by now that I am an avid Falcon fan.
The Semis went =
1995' defeated the 1980' edition 37 - 30
1989' upset 1997' pipping them 29 to 27
Final =
1995' over 1989' in a points bonanza 52 to 36
If anyone is interested further in early round scores or teams included just e-mail
me at the following =
creasey@ozlinx.com.au
Go Falcons !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ben Creasey.
***********************
From: "K., P. Premo"
I have all three of the Compu-Sports games, NBA, PGA Golf, and Winston
Cup auto racing that are in excellent condition. Will sell for $5 each.
I also have a classic game that I have decided to sell: Vic
Hasselblad's THOROUGHBRED HORSE RACING GAME. The edition I have is the
last he published; it also has every "track" he ever published along
with every horse card -- 100s and 100s of horse cards. This was a first
class game in every respect. It is in excellent conditiion. I am
asking $100 for it, but will consider all offers. I will sell to the
highest bidder one week after it is posted.
Postage on all of the above would be extra depending upon where you live
and how you want it delivered.
Let me know if you have any questions: patrickp@eznet.net
Pat
**********************
From: InPoverty@aol.com
Subject: Statis Pro FAC
I'd like to see the results of your analyzing of the baseball Fast action Cards
[I have not been able to work the kinks out of this project. Basically, it was easy to deal with every aspect EXCEPT the Outs Sequence results, and that posed an enormous stumbling block. I haven't gotten around to actually formatting this stuff into charts but you'll get the idea.
The Fast Action Card deck in my Statis Pro Baseball game (1978) includes 392 cards. Three cards are blank, leaving 389 cards with results. The Fast Action Dice method uses two eight-sided dice. Read one die as 10s and the other die as 1s. The 64 possible numbers (11 to 88) equal approximately one dice roll result per six FAC results.
Following the guidelines produces the following spread of results. Read this data as:
Category:
FAC Result = number of dice roll results
Random Number:
11 to 88 = one dice result for each
Clutch Defense:
P = 4, C = 3, 1B = 3, 2B = 9, 3B = 13, SS = 16, LF = 4, CF = 8, RF = 4
Error:
1-10, 2-10, 3-10, 4-10, 5-10, 6-10, 7-10, 8-10, 9-10, 10 = 1 each
None = 54
Error:
All 3 = 7
IF P C 1B 1; 2B 3B SS 2 = 32
IF P C 3; 1B 2B 3B SS 1, = 24
OF 4 = 56
OF 5 = 8
Reroll (1D8) = 1
reroll results:
All 1 = 1
P C 3 = 1
P C 1B 1 = 2
P C 1B 1; 2B 3B SS 3 = 2
PB Number:
Z = 1, BD = 3, CD = 3, 2 = 2, 3 = 3, 4 = 5, 5 = 6, 6 = 8, 7 = 10, 8 = 8, 9 = 6, 10 = 5, 11 = 3, 12 = 1
Pitch:
Yes = 25, No = 39
Now for the sticky part. I compiled the following data for the out sequences but these numbers do not fit neatly into the base-8 range of results. If anyone feels like collating the same data from their FAC deck I would be interesting in hearing about discrepancies.
Out Sequence:
Outs P LN LP SN SP RN RP TOTAL
3-1A* 2 3 1 3 9
F1 6 6
F1* 1 1
F2 14 20 20 8 7 23 19 111
F2* 6 1 7
F3 10 6 13 12 7 11 11 70
F3* 4 6 1 11
F4 22 8 10 8 9 8 12 77
F4* 1 1 6 1 1 1 1 12
F5 15 7 12 19 18 8 13 92
F5* 8 8
F6 6 11 6 14 11 13 12 73
F6* 6 6
F7 18 12 19 19 12 23 20 123
F8 22 23 17 25 23 25 26 161
F8* 1 1
F9 17 30 23 39 20 17 20 166
FD7 7 10 12 29
FD7* 6 6
FD8 1 6 15 1 2 25
FD8* 1 1
FD9 11 12 6 1 30
FD9* 5 5
G1* 13 27 10 11 21 27 10 119
G1A 2 2
G1A* 3 6 6 5 1 21
G2* 8 6 8 6 6 6 6 46
G2A 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 14
G2A* 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 7
G3* 42 21 29 25 30 18 18 183
G3A* 7 9 7 7 9 7 7 53
G4 2 2
G4* 19 30 31 29 32 19 20 180
G4A* 15 6 11 3 13 8 56
G5* 39 29 29 41 34 34 41 247
G5A* 1 5 1 3 2 2 14
G6* 33 22 29 20 22 22 30 178
G6A* 10 17 9 16 12 13 11 88
Gx1 3 3
Gx1* 4 5 13 1 8 3 12 46
Gx2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 14
Gx3* 6 1 1 6 14
Gx4* 7 17 10 16 12 6 5 73
Gx5* 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 42
Gx6* 18 19 21 21 28 29 14 150
L1 6 6 6 18
L1* 6 6
L3 5 5 2 6 18
L3* 1 1 2
L4 8 5 6 19
L4* 6 6
L5 6 6 10 1 6 8 37
L5* 6 6 12
L6 6 6 5 17
L6* 6 6
389 389 389 389 389 389 389
--JCG]
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END DIGEST (02-08-99)
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