A Stratomatic Christmas

[NEILKAHN]

My son asked me to recall what my favorite Christmas gift was growing up as a child, and the answer was easy. When I was nine, my parents got the Stratomatic Baseball and Football games for me. There is no question that these games gave me more sustained amusement than any other gifts I ever received, and obviously, they continue to do so to this day. They also gave me an encyclopedic knowledge of the players and teams, which heightened my appreciation for the real sports. They did NOT, unfortunately, help improve my speed or strength enough to allow me to actually play in the majors, or improve my speed and strength enough to make it as a linebacker beyond the High School level. Steroids would have, but my parents were too cheap and self absorbed to get them for me. So I had to go to med school instead. I will never forgive them for this.

[13Baseballs]

Me and Modmark used to play the '69 Astros versus the '27 Yankees... lots of fun games... :D

[NEILKAHN]

Fun if you had the Yankees. My first sets were 1968. I remember the first football game I ever played, Bears vs. Browns. I was driving at the end of the game, and was on the 1 yard line. I thought hard, and decided to try to cross up my @#$@#$%% brother by running fullback Bo Scott on 4th down instead of the star Leroy Kelly. After setting the play indicator, I said " Go" to my brother to indicate that he should set his defense, except instead of saying go, I said " Bo." He quickly rammed Butkus into the linebuck zone before I had a chance to change my play, keying on Scott. Loss of 2, and possession of the ball. Bastard.

[Simon31]

Ok, for those of you that played SOM football. Did you ever sit there thinking of an offensive play, move the play indicator, and then look at your defensive counterpart and declare "[b:b382eb8e47]I have a pass!!?[/b:b382eb8e47] (Instead of "I have a play") The defender would look at you grinning and quickly say "PASS!" We usually were nice enough to let the guy do his offensive play over, a SOM mulligan so to speak, but it was always funny. :lol:

[modmark46]

We discarded with the play indicators. The offense would right his play down on paper, usually something like ROT-HB, or SP-SE, etc. When the offensive player indicated he had his play ready, the defense would then move his guys and call his defense. I used to play like the coach from the 80's 49rs, I would script my first 25 or so plays, i.e. write them down BEFORE the game ever started. I would follow them religiously, except when I was forced to punt. Actually worked out really good. :)

[NEILKAHN]

Why is it I have a cinematic memory of all my failures, but I can not for the life of me remember the good things in my past, like the women I had sex with in my twenties? Or what it was like to be in my twenties? Anyway, I now recall that I lost that first ever Browns-Bears game on the last play of the game. Up by 5, my brother was driving, and got down to the three, with time for only one more play. I guessed run, and correctly blitzed the gap into which he ran some yahoo back named Sayers. He rolled a three on the white die, and a nine, I think, which referred to the blocker, Howard Mudd, a three, of course, who plowed a gap through which Sayers ran for the game winning touchdown.

[Palanion]

My first Strat, I think, was 1984, though I thought it was earlier. I still have most, if not all, of the cards for the 84 through 92 seasons. Now THAT is what shoeboxes were made for.

My friend Jason and I would spend days drafting, trading, evaluating and trash-talking about six teams each. Then we'd play like every day after school for about a month. Then one of us would get pissed at the other about something and we wouldn't talk for 2-3 months. And then we'd start the whole process over again. Really, we just loved to draft and trade and trade and draft.

One of my favorite cards was that late '80s David Wells relief pitching card...

[MICHAELEVANS]

i started Strat baseball first, around '68 or so. I was a total baseball fan and didn't care that much for football, but my friends got me hooked on SOM football around '70. What fun we had, drafting, playing whole seasons, keeping stats. Somehow back then, I didn't care that much about winning or losing, but I wanted to kick butt in stats. My players usually led the league (both baseball and football) in most major stat areas, but my teams sucked. We also were hooked on Avlon Hill war games (Gettysburg, Midway, D-Day, Guadalcanal, Afrika Korps, Diplomacy, etc.) We even played Le Mans, some courtroom thingy from AH (probably why I ended up as a @#%@# lawyer!). Those were the days. Any of you remember the show "Dark Shadows" that was such a cult hit in the mid 60's?

[GREGGZILIANI]

I think you guys might get a kick out of another take on Strat. I only played a single season of Stratomatic baseball back in I guess it was 1988 or so. I never got a chance to play live after that. It wasnt that I wasnt interested, I just could never find enough people to start a league. I never played as much of an inning again until I read about the 2001 TSN Stratomatic release. The seed that had laid dormant for 13 years had been awakened. My addiction was reborn and now that Im Netplaying as well, it is fiercer than ever.

On another note: Hey Old Geezer, did you used to play Axis and Allies? Now you want to talk about an addiction. Biggest problem with it was that it took almost a half hour to setup the damn board.