Game:Strat-o-matic Baseball

Baseball board games have been popular since the mid-19th century, at least. They allow baseball fans to re-create the game in their own homes, even in the rain. Throughout the years, game producers attempted to produce ever more realistic simulations of the actual game. For most of these, a simple roll of the dice or spin on a spinner determined the play, which wasn't very realistic. However, in 1961 Hal Richman, a Bucknell University mathematics student, began selling an early version of his baseball tabletop game out of his basement, buying advertising space in Sports Illustrated to aid sales. The game incorporates living players' batting and fielding records into the play, determined by statistics on cards and by rolls of special dice. Thus players "manage" their teams and a more realistic baseball "game" is played. Strat-O-Matic became a huge hit with baseball fans once it incorporated specific players' stats, and now the company, still led by Richman, offers historic team player cards and specialty offerings, such as their 2009 Negro League cards. Though they face competition from electronic games--and a version of Strat-O-Matic is available on the Internet--Strat-O-Matic remains probably the best-known and loved baseball board game.