Robert welcome to the Ultimate Strat Baseball Newsletter

So Robert, before you became involved with Strat-o-matic, did you yourself play baseball in little league or high school?  Is so, what was your best position? 

Wolfman:  What about related to MLB, is there a team you root for - who are you most favorite players of all time?

Robert:   The New York Yankees are my favorite team, my favorite player of all time is Lou Gehrig, and of the players I've watched play (in person), my favorite is Thurman Munson.

Wolfman:  So you started in 1977 (in middle school) to play Strat-o-matic Baseball, as I understand but how did you discover the game? And at this early age, did you just play solo or did you have friends nearby to the play with?  What were your early experiences with Strat Baseball?

Robert:   My middle school math teacher had a league with a few other teachers, so as I was getting help after school with class-work, I watched them play and began doing statistics for them. That summer I bought the board game with the 4 team sample pack from Hermann's Sporting Goods in the Woodbridge Center mall in NJ and it began from there. My friends and I held 2 team draft round robin tournaments, we probably had 5 or 6 tournaments that 1^st summer. I remember that my father was positively sure we were shooting craps all day and not playing a baseball board game.

Then I stopped playing for many years in my 20's and 30's but got back into the game when the CDROM version came out , and then I became heavily involved in playing the Online game (the on-line version of strat offered by the game company which we have focused some articles and interviews before). I've focused more on the CDROM game recently though.

(Wolfman's note: When the computer based version of the game first came out, some people called it the CDROM version because the game and teams were on a CD ROM. Today the game company sells the computer game files and the team files as a single downloadable file, so wherever Robert refers to the CDROM version or game, he means the computer version of SOM Baseball)
 

Wolfman:  Now you say that your current league is PBEM, is this similar to the old days when we played by regular mail except you are using an email to send your instructions? Why does you league prefer to use this method or is this method still employing the use of the computer game and the computer managers somehow?  Please clarify for our readers how your league functions.

Robert:   The 1950 draft was started back in 2012. We pulled together managers from the Strat-o-matic Baseball Online version of the game and then some other managers from the CDROM (computer game) leagues for which I was a member of.  We had an inaugural draft from the 1950 season and free agent / rookie drafts each succeeding year for the remainder of this decade. We decided mid-decade to redraft completely when we began the 1960 season or to restart this process. We are talking now about 1970 or 1940 as the next decade. We redraft to keep things fresh and give everyone a chance to build teams with modified strategies or to recover from bad strategies (that would be me) LOL.

Wolfman:  What type of relationship do you have amongst your members? Where do your members come from?

Robert:   We have a great group of managers from all over the country. It's a play for fun league, so it is quite friendly, but still very competitive. 7 of the 12 managers won championships in the 50s. We vote for Cy Young and MVP awards each season and have started playing all-star games in the 60s.

Wolfman:  Now what kind of stories can you tell us from your league? What are some of the most remarkable games, series or seasons that have been played? Is there one or two of your league managers who are dominate in your league play or has many different members won your yearly league championships?

Robert:   Probably the most remarkable individual performance was Mickey Mantle in the 1961 playoffs. Mantle batted .490 with 14 HRs, 21 RBIs, 21 RS and 5 GWRBIs in 13 games to lead his Denver Bears to our league championship. The 1950s had a lot of parity, but our 1960s league is being led by the Louisville Colonels (Randy Newman) and Vancouver Mounties (Terry Cochran) each with 4 consecutive playoff appearances and 2 World Series matchups against each other. There are a couple of teams that drafted with their sights set on the latter half of the decade so we are hoping to send the Colonels and Mounties to the bottom of the standings any year now.

Wolfman:  You wrote in your email to me that people can watch the post season games from your league? How are you able to do this? What system are you using?

Wolfman:  Tell us more about the statistic package you are working on and where people can view this. What is this package exactly - how does it work, could other leagues use it?

Wolfman:  What is there that is so special or unique about your league?

Wolfman:  What advice would you give to other gamers about building good teams? What type of teams have you built that you have seen success? What about any special strategies you used to help your team win - what suggestions can you offer linked to these questions?

Robert:   All types of teams can win, in our 1960s league the Toledo Mud Hens (Jeff Kloster) are consistently successful playing small ball, as are HR slugging teams like the Montreal Royals (Scott Philippe) and Cy Young loaded pitching teams like the Richmond Braves (Bill Huffman). Decide on a strategy, commit to it, and hope that it will make a big enough difference to get you to the top of the standings.

Wolfman:  If someone wishes to learn more - is there a website they can visit? If they wanted to contact you what is the best way to do so?

Wolfman:  Robert, thank you so much for sharing with our members about what I consider quite a unique type of keepers retro league with some very nice bells and whistles.  Keep us updated with the goings on with your League(s).  All the best!!

Dear members, we plan to bring some more interviews in our next issue in December to talk about some other leagues who answered our call and were interested to talk with our members.  If you want to go back and read again about the Wisconsin SOM Baseball League, click on the link below: