Game:Strat-o-matic Baseball

Well before the year 1900, baseball was already known as the American National Game. Once a simple pastime for boys, it evolved in the nineteenth century into a commercialized spectator amusement operated by promoters and played by professionals within a nationwide, monopolistic structure called Organized Baseball. The game's history reflects much of the concurrent history of the United States, and American interest in the game has grown exponentially since its beginnings. During the rise of the manufacture of board and card games in the mid-nineteenth century, it was natural that producers made games that mimicked the play of the game that virtually every boy and man loved. Following the rise of star athletes in the early twentieth century, game manufacturers often used the star power of these athletes to help sell their playthings, whether baseball-style games or other toys. Baseball-style games as well as player-endorsed versions, both manual and electronic, continue to be popular through the present day.