Vol. III, Issue #2 - July 2015

** SOM Baseball Cards with Tom Nahigian **
      (thanks to our friend Tom Nahigian and his complete collection of SOM Baseball Cards we go
       back into the past to share some of the first cards issued by the game company!!)

(Notes from the Wolfman: In January of 2013, our first issue, we introduced a quiz of our members related to specific questions linked to any of the SOM Baseball cards ever printed. Specifically we were asking about unique aspects of the cards related to the performance of the players.  However, because only a few people, like our good friend Tom Nahigian (who is highlighted in this article), have the full collection of the cards ('The Collector' as Glenn Guzzo called him in his book on Strat), the responses to our quizzes dwindled to nothin' eventually.  So to celebrate Tom's birthday in June of 2013 and then again in the August issue, we shared the image of a few of the cards that SOM printed in 1960 (just an All Star set) and then 1961 as well (an all star set and the top two teams in each league).  I thought for his issue we might take a peek again at some of these amazing early version of the Strat Basell cards -- to view how the baseball game has evolved so much in the 50+ years of its existence. Some key features of the existing version of the game (just considering the basic side of the cards today) had not been developed yet.

I first met Tom in person when I visited my father in Chicago in 2005. At this time I was living in Holland and usually once a year I would come home to be back in the U.S.  Now in April of 2013, we did an interview with Tom, you might remember if you have been our member since then. However if not, to learn more about this personal good buddy and fellow SOM fanatic, and how he was able to create his collection, check out this interview using the link shown below. So I contacted Tom for this current issue to see if we could once again share a few of the cards from these early years with our members since it has been two years since we did so the last time. Naturally Tom was willing to do so. But also he said a few things in his email back that I thought were interesting about his journey to get all the cards.  So here is his most recent message and below that, I have listed the links to the two previous issues in 2013 when we shared some of the other baseball cards from the first two years of Strat's existence.

 
Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2015

Hello Wolfman,

Happy July 4th to you as well. I had a nice quiet day, which I like. I watched the Red Sox-Astros game.

Of course, you can use the scanned card images.

Collecting the cards was a lot of fun. My cousin also played SOM Baseball and he gave me a bunch of his cards. My first set was the 1971 Baseball season without the extras. I enjoyed the 42 old timer teams. He gave me six 1968 baseball teams and over the years I was able to purchase the missing teams, I remember I paid $12 for the Cardinals. Bob Gibson had a 1.12 ERA that year. I completed the set around 1979 after starting in 1977 when I received my May SOM Review. I placed an ad in the July issue and I was able to purchase a 1970 set with extras and a 1969 set without extras. Later I was able to pick up the extra players for 1969 and 1971. I was nine in 1971 and my earliest baseball memory is the 1971 All Star Game. Vida Blue started the game and Reggie Jackson hit a moon shot off Dock Ellis that hit the roof of Tiger Stadium. I also remember the 1971 World Series and the great play of Roberto Clemente.

1968 was the year of the pitcher. 1969 had a nice balance of hitting and pitching. I remember looking at the 1969 cards for Harmon Killebrew, Frank Howard, Willie McCovey and Reggie Jackson. Great slugging from them, they all hit over 40 homers. 1970 was a great year for Johnny Bench, 45 homers, 148 RBI and Gold Glove defense. The Orioles had a great all around team in 1969, 1970 and 1971. Brooks Robinson was Mr. Third Base.

Take Care,
your pal Tom Nahigian

LINKS TO PREVIOUS ARTICLES THAT SHARED EXAMPLES OF THE EARLY CARDS

http://www.ultimatestratbaseball.com/USBN-6-2013/Baseball-Cards-TNahigian-June2013.htm

http://www.ultimatestratbaseball.com/USBN-8-2013/Baseball-Cards-TNahigian-August2013.htm

 

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What did the Baseball Cards Look Like in the First Years?
(submitted by Tom Nahigian, to read Tom's interview that
we did in our April issue, please click here)
 

1961 Based Cards
(Sharing a few more cards from the Dodgers and Tigers)

Los Angeles Dodgers

Detroit Tigers

(Again in 1961, no fielding ratings or X chart existed plus the results shown in
lower case for outs and getting on base [hits/walks/errors] is capitalized)
 

Note from the Wolfman: We again want to thank Tom for his help to allow our members for this rare view into the history of the development of how the baseball cards have evolved over time. Of course there are modernized versions (card sets) of these early seasons that the game company now offers along with the computer rosters.  One mysterious reading I saw on the cards which I didn't notice the last time we shared cards from 1961 was the mysterious GROUNDBALL E (showing up on a result of 3 or 11 on the cards or a dice roll chance of 2 out of 108) found on both the hitter's cards and pitcher's cards and a FLYBALL E (showing up on 2 or 12 on the cards or a dice roll chance of 1 out of 108) on the hitter's cards only. 

As we all know for non x-type ground balls and flyballs the letters go from A-C, so what happened to this E-rating?  In exploring the answer to this puzzling result on the cards I discovered that this was how errors happened during the game for at least the 1960 and 1961 based season. This answer I received back was with help from Bruce Bundy who spoke to his contact linked to SOM. The GROUNDBALL E was a one base error (but the error wasn't credited to any fielder) and a FLYBALL E was a two base error (again not accredited to any outfielder). Just very interesting to see the format of the early cards aye?
 

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