Vol. II,
Issue #1 - January 2014
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**
SOM Baseball World News **
(
a new periodic column where we share special news
linked to the SOM Baseball Game .... stay tuned!! )
Notes from the Wolfman:
- Welcome to our new page. We are not sure how often this page
will appear but as we were going to press for issue #1 of 2014,
we had some interesting news to share. We have decided rather
than talk about such items on the main page for the newsletter,
we would do it on its own page. So sit back, as we share with
you some interesting stories linked to the SOM Baseball World .....
FLASH:
Announcement of the "National Strat Tournaments" organization
-- January 2014 (Plus meet the new
Star Tournaments World Champion)
We first heard of this
announcement via our good friend Pete Nelson who is connected
with Star Tournaments (a former board member). Actually
this new organization isn't really new at all as it is a merger
of the two main national SOM Baseball tournament groups who have
collectively conducted tournaments throughout the U.S. and
Canada -- Star Tournaments (basically doing tournaments in the
West and Midwest of the U.S.) and SOM Tours (on the eastern part
of the U.S. and Canada). As you may recall we partnered with
Star Tournaments and PureStrat (the western region of Star) for
a possible event last year under the name of the "Strat
Alliance".
In any case, the new merged
organization will be known as the "National Strat Tournaments" (NST)
and members from both groups will sit on the new board of
directors, for which Pete will be stepping down. After the World
Tournament which was held in Las Vegas earlier this month was
concluded, the new merged organization is now in effect.
This now means all tournaments run within NST will follow the
same rules and of course both face-to-face and on-line
tournaments will continue within the joint regions setup by both
groups. As we reported before, the tournaments being offered
through NST are
all draft tournaments depending upon which season of cards is
selected. We at the "Ultimate Strat Baseball Newsletter"
support this merger and continue to support these very fine
tournaments being offered. We expect to share with you other
articles and reports linked to the activities offered by NST in
the future.
For the full details of this merger, you can go to:
www.startournaments.com
(click on the link in the center of the page for "New
National Organization")
=================
Wolfman:
Also we are fortunate to have a chance to interview our good
friend Pete Nelson who is the new NST World Champion. We
are going to ask him some questions here how he won this
tournament and for his comments about the new organization. Pete
will still be running and organizing the two tournaments slated
to be held in Portland this year (Wolfman's note: I hope to
attend the April gathering, as a birthday present for myself) if
you live out that way.
First of all
Pete, the Ulltimate Strat Baseball Newsletter would like to
thank you for all your advice and support that you gave to us
last year when we explored our mutual project through the Strat
Alliance. It gave us a chance to learn a great deal about how
Star organizes their face-to-face and on-line tournaments and
the special rules you use for your drafts and tourney play.
Second, may we congratulate you on your recent victory at the
World's Tournament in Las Vegas earlier this month.
Pete have you won a world tournament before or was this your
first time, I know you have won various Star Tournaments
before?
Pete:
Yes, I've been very fortunate to have won the Worlds before. I
won in 1997 and also in 2011.
Wolfman:
How many people
attend the World's Tournament you were in?
Pete:
We
had 39 people in Vegas (four drafting groups of 10 with one
group having the computer draft a dummy team).
Wolfman:
What Strategy did
you this time around that brought you the championship? What
type of team did your draft?
Pete:
My
strategy is always the same. Take what the draft gives me.
That usually puts me in some kind of hitter's park but this time
I wound up in a pitcher's park (Seattle). I've played in 100's
of tournaments and this is the first time where 5 out of my
first 7 picks were pitchers. It's just the way it worked out.
I was a little worried that I wouldn't have enough offense but I
had just enough.
Wolfman:
Was this tournament
an easy win for you or were there some challenging moments,
series or games you had that you might have not been so
victorious?
Pete:
There was nothing easy about it. If you add up all of the
tourney wins over the past 18 years of the people there, it
comes to 239 wins. The people there were all excellent players
who know how to win. I was very fortunate to win given the
quality of the field.
Wolfman:
During your journey
to win the Worlds, was there a special game that came to mine
which was exciting or unusual? Which of the players you drafted
did very well or were a key to your success?
Pete:
The World tournament is great in that the three days gives you a
chance to play a 4-game series with everyone in your division
(round-robin, 36 regular-season games). Game 36 was pivotal.
If I won, I would be in a 1-game play-off against former world
champion Mark VanKlaveren (MVK) to decide the Division Champion
(and, more importantly, a 1st-round play-off bye). If I lost,
I'd still be in the play-offs but would have a much tougher road
to travel. Down by one in the top of the 9th with two outs and
a runner on, I get a 1 to 9 Diamond shot by Aramis Ramirez off
Chapman to take the lead. I hang on to win and then win the
play-off game (game 37) with MVK (Medlen getting the Win). My
pitching and defense was the key to success. Having Medlen and
Lohse starting and the law-firm of Jansen, Janssen and Kimbrel
in relief put the strangle hold on the other team's offense.
And, it was very hard to get anything off my defense with Adrian
Gonzalez at 1b (1e3), Pedroia at 2b (1e6), Asdrubal Cabrera at
ss (2e24), Aramis Ramirez at 3b (3e8), DeJesus in lf (2e3),
Bourne in cf (1e2) and Heyward in rf (1e5).
Wolfman:
Any tips you would
share with our readers if they should decide to participate in
any tournaments (face-to-face or online) offered by the new
National Strat Tournaments that would help them be more
successful.
Pete:
Play. The more tournaments you play in, the better you get.
I've been doing this for over 20 years and I still learn new
things every tournament I play in. National Strat Tournaments (NST)
has three kinds of tournaments: 1) FTF where you gather together
in a place and play the whole weekend, 2) Skype tournaments
which are like FTF in that you use the cards but your opponent
may be on the other coast as you communicate via Skype and use a
web dice roller and 3) Internet tournaments where you use the
NetPlay option of the SOM Computer Game. For the last two
options, the games are spread out over a 4-6 week period which
works better for some people's schedules.
Wolfman:
How do you view the
merger of Star Tournaments and SOM Tours? How will this merger
be a bonus for the SOM Baseball community?
Pete:
National Strat Tournaments has become an umbrella organization
for five independent participating partners. It's great because
all will be using the same in-game rules now. NST will run the
Worlds and manage the rule-set and a central website but the
Participating Partners will be pretty much on their own to run
their tournaments as they see fit. The five Participating
Partners are Internet (SOM Computer Game NetPlay Option,
PureStrat (SOM Cards, Skype and web dice roller), SOM Tour (FTF
tourneys in the Midwest and East plus some Skype tournaments),
Strat Tournaments South (FTF week-end tourneys in the South) and
Strat Tournaments West (FTF week-end Tourneys in the West).
Wolfman:
Pete, thanks for visiting
with us again and sharing your special insights from all your
years of playing in SOM baseball tournaments. I am sure we will
hear from you again in the future Mr. World Champion :-).
FLASH:
Oh My God, All the New Changes to
the Baseball Computer Game Plus ...
(if you did receive the PDF based newsletter that SOM sent to
people on their mailing list read this ...)
As
you have probably no doubt heard, the Strat-o-matic Game Company has
announced all kinds of new changes and enhancements to the latest version
of their computer baseball game which will be available next month.
Many of these changes are new features and options that many loyal SOM
gamers have asked for
to simplify creating their computer manager and making the game more
powerful and realistic as well as making the computer game run better. Well dear members, if wishes could come true,
the game company just did it.
However, we caution our readers, especially those of you that use the
computer games for your
leagues or tournaments, you will definitely need time to study these new
capabilities. It is a common belief that if a GM doesn't use all the
capabilities the computer game offers, this can cause them a few games.
But, we would say that Strat-o-matic has done it again to make this game
the very best and most realistic baseball simulation on the market
today. We will be inquiring in the near future if there is someone we
can interview who can explain in more details how the new features will
work but be prepared to experiment and play with them when your computer
game comes.
Additionally of course we have another season being offered that fully
utilizes all the new features of the computer game and SOM is releasing
the 1973 MLB season along with more teams from foreign nations (which
sounds like the work of Len Durant). There are so many changes to
the computer game along with all the new teams that we don't have the
space to go into them. However, we
discovered on the SOM website a special article by Glenn Guzzo in their
announcement section who has done a great job to summarize all these
changes. You can read this article at:
http://www.strat-o-matic.com/community/announcements/strat-o-matic-baseball-2014-new-features
FLASH: What the Heck is
this? A Stratomatic Watch?
From time to time we receive emails
from our members who either ask us questions or tell us about their
special stories or information they uncover linked to Strat-o-matic or
MLB. In any case a member
sent us the follow digital image of a photo that appeared in a magazine
from the 1950's.
All we can read from the photo is
Stratomatic and at the bottom
of the photo it saids: "with exclusive Power Reserve Indicator"
It is possible that someone knew in
the early 1960's Strat-o-matic was coming? What a strange coincidence,
we don't know any more than this nor does the source who sent it to us.
If we come up with more information we will let you know in a future
issue. If any of our readers have a clue about this watch also, please
feel free to contact us :-) !!
FLASH: Did You Know
Strat-o-matic Baseball was on display at the Baseball Hall of
Fame in Cooperstown?
Wolfman:
As I was visiting the SOM website,
looking for the latest news and
doing some research for a future project for the newsletter, I found a
little obsure notice that actually there is at one time a display for
baseball table games that included the SOM Baseball game at the Baseball
Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. That in 1981 when the Baseball All Star
game wasn't played due to a player's strike, a group of people came
together at the Cleveland Stadium where the game was suppose to be
played and used SOM to simulate the All Star Game. Even a few
celebrities were on-hand to actually play the game. If you don't know
this story check it out on the SOM website as this was another amazing
article submitted by Mr. Guzzo a few years ago. You can find it at:
http://www.strat-o-matic.com/community/glenn-guzzo-column/guzzo-archive/strat-o-matic-hall-fame-again-0
Note:
-- if you have a new story you think our readers might enjoy
linked to Strat-o-matic please feel free to email us your story
by contacting Wolfman at:
wolfman@ultimatestatbaseball.com
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Support the Cause
If you are enjoying
the content and information our newsletter shares with you, why
not support us with your helpful donation for our minor expenses
and time?
|
Contained inside this exciting issue of Ultimate Strat
Baseball Newsletter:
(to view the various interviews, articles, columns and special sections click on
the links {underlined} and
this will take you to the appropriate
webpage)
♦
RETURN TO NEWSLETTER MAIN PAGE
♦
INTERVIEW with DEL
NEWELL,
retired
Editor
of the "Strat-o-matic Review"
♦
STRAT THOUGHTS with
BRUCE BUNDY,
SOM Gamer, Creator of
Baseball Card Formulas, Baseball Strategy Advisor, Beta Tester
for the Game Company
(Continuation of his column of "Strat Thoughts", one of our
members has some great questions for Bruce about how the
baseball cards are created to show realism.)
♦
ARTICLE with MIKE
SANCLEMENTE,
founder of Stratogists.com
(Mike takes us on a delightful journey with his article "Koji
vs. Bill Gates" and then discusses how
using Excel spreadsheets can take you far with your league's team
strategy)
♦
EARLY SOM
CONVENTIONS COLUMN with WOLFMAN SHAPIRO --
editor of
"The Ultimate Strat Newsletter" and 2012 CBA Champion.
Wolfman takes us back in
this article to the seventh national Strat-o-matic
Convention in 1979 held in Champaign-Urbana, IL, at the
University of Illinois as the Wolfman and his buddies organize
their sixth convention. Wolfman will be
our guide through the first nine conventions happening through 1980
of which he was present at each one. This particular column now
moves into the 1974-1980
era when the conventions moved to Illinois. We will continue to share one new convention in
each future issue till all of these early conventions are published.
Also we hope this column will inspire our readers to help us
create a SOM On-line Baseball Convention
in the near future.
♦
COMMISSIONER's CORNER with MARC WASSERMAN --
commissioner of the Cyber Baseball Association (CBA) continues
his column about what it is like to be a League Commissioner.
In this article he turns his focus to how things wok in the CBA
and via the Strat Alliance introduces us to another baseball
league that has existed for 43 years.
♦
ARTICLE with WOLFMAN SHAPIRO
--
Wolfman discusses his strategies
how to build a very successful team
in a draft SOM
baseball league where you keep your players form year to year.
♦
RECOMMEND
ON-LINE SOM RESOURCES
-- On-line Strat-o-matic and Baseball related websites that offer amazing information, special tools and products to improve
your game play
that we strongly recommend. In most cases, we have had personal contact with
these sources who agree with the principle to work together and help promote each other.
♦
BOOK REVIEW with WOLFMAN SHAPIRO
Wolfman takes a peek at the
"The Bill James
Handbook
2014" created
by Bill James and John Dewan through Baseball Info Solutions (BIS) and
why if there is one book on baseball you must have, this is it!!
Also speaks to Ben Jedlovec of BIS to discuss the book a bit
more.
♦
BOOKS TO
DIE FOR and Become a BASEBALL GURU
-- This page
is
specifically about special books we are finding that either will
expand your insights about the game of Baseball, help you in the
creation of your current league teams or with your replays and
learn more about the Strat-o-matic Base Game and Game Company's
history. We
have a special arrangement with Acta Sports, who is a publisher
of a number of great baseball books (including Bill James
Handbooks) to offer for our members
a 10% discount. We will continue to add more books to this page in the future
as we uncover other gems our members should know about.
