Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

Do any of you mix up the rules when you play the board game? The advanced rules seem kind of...advanced and the basic rules are simple. So I just played a game with mixed rules. Used the ballpark effects, clutch, etc. and L vs. R on the cards and played by the basic rules. Seemed more fun.

I do that all the time. I don't really use the basic rules, but I certainly pick and choose among the super-advanced rules. To be honest, I have so many older season sets that I purchased before 1985 that when I mix and match teams, things like ballpark and clutch don't make sense. That said, I generally use those two rules, at least, but almost never the advanced closer rules and such. Basically, I froze my rules around 1986/87 -- if it came out after then, I probably don't use the rule!

I think you can pretty much pick and choose the advanced/super advanced rules as you prefer. For instance I do not like the super advanced fielding charts or the SA stealing system. I use the advanced rules for both. It is a much easier flow of the game IMO. That's the beauty of the game, setting it up to play the way you like

Thanks for your answers guys.

So they only started using ballpark effects and cluth around '85 then eh? I didn't know that. I hope to get some older cards sets eventually. I hope to find someone to play the game with too. Right now it's just solitaire.

I personally do not like the closer rule, either. I mean just because a guy is a good closer (C6), he can't even [i:c6f614af61]begin[/i:c6f614af61] to get fatigued until he's gotten six outs?! And a very good r2 with no C rating is always [i:c6f614af61]immediately[/i:c6f614af61] susceptible to fatigue in closer situations?! This can turn an average relief pitcher into a very good one in closer situations (if he has a good C rating) and a very good reliever (with no C rating) into a very average one.

I hear ya. I don't even bother using the pitcher fatigue thing. I don't see how a relief pitcher could be fatigued after two outs or innings. They're major league players! Guess it's just to make it more challenging.

pstar, the closer rating system was designed to try to force you to use relievers like they were used in real-life. There are numerous instances every year of middle relievers who put up dominant stats but not during the end-of-game, pressure-packed situations that closers find themselves in routinely. That's why TSN came up with the closer outs system. Now, whether or not you believe that pitching in tight ballgames in the ninth inning versus pitching in tight ballgames in the sixth or seventh innings is different is another story.

Don't knock solitaire play, canuck. You can play really fast, and besides, it's spending time with someone whose company you really enjoy (to paraphrase Woody Allen). :)

I probably would use the closer rule if I were doing a replay, to keep things more accurate. But most of my cards are older, so the closer rule wasn't even an option then.

And yes, clutch and ballpark came in with the 1985 set. I think that ballpark was at least in part a reaction to Pursue the Pennant, which had sophisticated ballpark effects.

Hey blueiguana, what was Pursue the Pennant? Was it fun?

Yeah...solitaire can be fun. I do like it. I'd just like to play against someone else sometime. My fiancee hates baseball and it's like pullin' teeth getting her to play. Eventually, she will.

IIRC, Super Advanced was originally Advanced, plus playing with Supplementary Steal (a must IMO), and BP effects.

The above way to play is great, except one thing I love is the holding runners penalty in SA.

The robbing an HR rule, and catcher blocking plate are pretty much for bored super geeks. 8)

Blocking the plate is kind of realistic thogh. Good catchers are better at this.