80's game: Who am I? Who are you?

[bjs73]

I've been wanting to write this topic for a little while but have abstained from doing so for various reasons. However, Miller Lite + Spring Time convinced me that now is the time to start this topic so without further adieu:

It is my opinion that most managers that get involved with simulation leagues have a "glorious" baseball past of sorts. The reason why they "stay involved" in baseball of any kind (fantasy, simulation, Little League, etc.) is because they feel a void that's been missing from their youth: the great game of baseball. I am no exception.

There is an incredible following here in the 80's game and most of us know each other "by rank" or by "message board posts." I thought it might be fun to start a topic that brings back the glory days of our youth and try and project that into an 80's topic of sorts.

I started playing Strat-O-Matic as a teenager in the 80's because, quite frankly, I couldn't get enough of baseball. My whole world [i:bd22b39a93]was[/i:bd22b39a93] baseball. I was constantly playing pick up games as a youth. When I was a kid, I admit that I was a Cincinnati Reds fan. I loved the Big Red Machine and my favorite player was Johnny Bench. Pete Rose ran a close second finish to Bench back in the late 70's. It was Johnny Bench because he was a catcher but it was Pete Rose because he really enveloped everything that was good about baseball as a player: hustle + determination.

As I grew up, I became a die hard Cubs fan but my real child hood hero was Don Mattingly. I spent many hours in the back yard trying to learn to hit left handed in order to emulate his stroke. LOL. I even convinced my high school coach to let me switch hit in every practice but it never came to fruition.

I'm not a big person. So, I almost always took a backseat to the bigger kids. I spent all of my time perfecting my game with the little things: technique, hustle, bunting, stealing, working on my signs, etc. I worked hard because I had to do so. I spent most of my "career" as a catcher. If I was to give myself a [b:bd22b39a93]Strat-O-Matic catcher rating[/b:bd22b39a93] I would have been: [b:bd22b39a93]1 (+2) e4 T 1-10.[/b:bd22b39a93] It really made it difficult for me to keep a starting spot with my arm. However, no one could block the ball on wild pitches or the plate like I could. Pitchers had the confidence to throw the ball into the dirt when I was behind the plate and they trusted my judgement on calling a game too.

When I entered high school, I was made varsity as a "bullpen catcher" as a sophmore. Which is basically the kiss of death. It meant that I spent almost all of my time traveling with the varsity while my peers played every day on the B-Team developing their game. In fact, I played a total of 5 innings as a sophomore and spent most of the time warming up varsity pitchers in the bullpen. I passed time on the bench by stealing signs from the other team. This eventually led to me becoming the coach's "go to" guy for pinch running. Yes, I could actually steal bases. It wasn't about the speed, it was all about being able to make a read on a pitcher and capitalizing on it when the time was right.

My sophomore year ended and the coach sat me down and told me that I was "on the bubble" for making the squad the next season. He planned to make cuts during summer ball and he was only going to keep 20 kids out of 25. Needless to say, I felt the end of the road coming quickly. And then a miracle happened that summer. Our LF'er decided to lolly gag a flyball and let it drop out of his glove because he didn't use "two hands." That was my big break. Coach said, "Simpson get your glove and go out to LF!" (I had never played there a game in my life.) LOL However, what I lacked in defensive skill, I easily made up for in batting skill.

I was leading off for our high school team from that point on. I had a career .410 BA in high school and swiped 20 bags in 32 games my junior year as well. I walked way more than I struck out and still am 5th overall in OBP. (I averaged 16 HBP's a season as well.)

I often project myself as Lonnie Smith in the 80's game though it isn't a perfect fit. I guess my defense in LF could have been considered 4(+2) e 12 and I certainly had as many HBP opportunities as him as well. I would have been a AA or A stealing threat but I wouldn't have been 1-17 running.

I was probably more like a 1-14 running with A bunting and B H&R. I would need catching eligibility so Wockenfuss comes to mind except that he didn't swipe as many bags as I did. Stearns comes to mind also except his OBP wasn't that great and he had a better arm.

Anyhow, I miss baseball every day. I umpire little league games now and again and it helps me get by. The 80's game is still able to evoke those memories from years gone by too.

So, basically I am Lonnie Smith, shorter and a slower but could also play catcher, bunt, and H&R too.

Who are you?

[FletchGriswold]

Wow, cool stuff - and great idea, BJS! By the way, if you're Lonnie Smith, I'd take you on my Strat team anyday!

Some of my best memories growing up in Iowa, is playing wiffle ball and emulating all of the players and their batting stances. My older brother and two uncles (who were like big brothers) would "draft" all-star teams and then go outside and actually simulation games - whiffle ball style, keeping stats on paper the whole time. We would then compile the stats after several games and make a "League Leaders" page - all hand written on paper, of course. I remember we used 1978 Topps cards to draft our teams before heading outside.

Playing baseball through middle school and high school came very easy to me. I was a pretty hard throwing left handed pitcher and made honorable mention All-State my senior year. I went on to pitch for a junior college for two years, and decided that was as far as my arm could take me.

In high school, I think I would have been a Jimmy Key in the BTT80's game, but once I got to college, the hitters got a whole lot better! I started feeling more like Charlie Leibrandt (the crafty lefthander). At the ripe old age of 33, I still play summer baseball in a men's league for 18 and over. My arm is shot, so I play first base. I absolutely can't get enough, even though my body feels like it has :D

For me, this game is very nostalgic, reminding me of the whiffle ball days and the baseball cards I used to collect. Everytime I see the names on my BTT80's rosters, I instantly picture a baseball card or two of their's. I've never played the Strat-O board game, although I would absolutely love too.

Long live 80's baseball!


I'm curious to hear more stories.....



Fletch

[nycalderon]

I'm older than you dudes... I grew up in the Bronx and obsessively played punchball and stickball in the streets when I was young. We had a diamond near my building and we would play softball and baseball there. I was a huge baseball and football fan and between the ages of 9 and 14 I played APBA baseball and a few other tabletop games.

I played one year of Little League, when I was 12, and for the first part of the season I was the strat equivalent of Omar Moreno - as a hitter - only I struck out more. I was big and had great speed but had never faced real pitching. About a third of the way into the season my much older brother, who was a fantastic baseball player, came to watch me play. My father asked him to watch me and give me tips. My first at-bat that day came with the bases loaded and I was really nervous. I belted the first pitch and nearly hit a grand slam. The ball hit the fence and I had my first hit of the season, a double and 2 RBIs. To this day I can't remember if I had my eyes open when I swang. Later, I doubled again with the bases loaded and struck out twice. I hit pretty well the rest of the season but never played organized ball again.

Later that year a gym teacher organized a punchball game between my class and a class that had some of the best ballplayers in the school. They figured they would roll over us, and so did I since my class was marginally athletic. In the first inning, however, I realized they had never played the game much and that I was the strat equivalent of Babe Ruth when it came to punchball.

In high school I played less and less ball and listened to more and more Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. With my discovery of rock music I found other pursuits. My senior year is a bit of a blur but I'm sure I had a good time.

I first played Strat in college in 1986. I vividly remember defeating my roommate in the bottom of the ninth of the seventh game on a split off of Don Mattingly's card. We were so worked up we had to shake hands at the end and remind each other that we were still friends. Then we got drunk and I tried to convice him that REM was better than ZZ Top.

I hadn't played Strat in almost 2 decades when a great friend of mine encouraged me to try 80's with him. He still plays 80s once in a while... I play a little bit more than that...

[rookssa1958]

I played Strat in the late 60's early 70's as I grew up in a neighborhood with more older boys and they played Strat.

We played all manner of pickup baseball games also, and we had games you could play no matter how many guys showed up to play. We played with baseballs, tennis balls, wiffle balls, golf balls, rocks and beans that grew on trees in our neighborhood. We played a lot of games in my front yard, which we called "Rooks Memorial Stadium." If you hit a grounder to the left side of the infield, you were automatically out.

We all liked the Baltimore Orioles because they trained in Miami and we would go to Spring games. Brooks Robinson and Boog Powell were two of the favorites.

I was kind of a traitor and liked the Atlanta Braves and Orlando Cepeda. I think I liked the Braves because I could pick up broadcasts of their games on my transistor radio. And sometimes, I would tape the play-by-play of Cepeda's at bats. Does that make me sound old, that I had a transistor radio and a cassette tape recorder?

I played a lot of little league ball, but did not play High School ball.

I think maybe I would be Bob Bailor as I played so many positions except I could also catch, and I had no power. Catcher probably was my favorite, except, I had a rag arm. Again, maybe I am old, but sometimes, when I caught, they called me "Dick Dietz." I always "understood" the game though, as when playing wih the older boys in the neighborhood, if you made mental errors, you got chastised mightily. I guess my game was more mental than physical.

When I got older, I umpired a lot of High School Baseball, and I really loved that. I thought about going to Umpiring school and trying to become a big league Ump some day, but blew it off.

I vacillated for a long time before signing up for my first Back to the 80's team, and proceeded to go 65 - 97, but for whatever reason, I loved it.

I like '69 Strat also, but I just don't do as well with the single season games (not that I do especially well in Back to the 80's, but hey, I keep coming back.)

Glad to get to compete with you guys, and one of these days, I am going to get Bailor's good card.

[honestiago1]

I've always been a basketball player and fan. Baseball took a back seat, though I played little league (mainly catcher), and was good at teh game (lettered my freshman year of HS, didn't play again; we won state when I was a senior [missed out on the gold]).

I've always been into games, and was the one who had to read the rules and interpret for my friends. In the early 80s, we started playing "Statis-Pro" baseball, which got old quick, because everyone snagged the "2-9" pitchers, regardless of their actual stats (which meant, basically, that 75% of the results went to the pitcher's cards, many of which were dudes who had great years while pitching, y'know, 20 IP or something -- we didn't know any better). I got so tired of playing "little ball" (every inning was "bunt for a base hit [to get off the card and onto a chart], H&R, swing away), that I looked around for another game and found Strat at a local toy store.

Instant success. We formed leagues for several years (I'd say running from 1982 to 87), keeping players from year to year (usually a core of 7). The game was fast, easy to learn, and addictive. I kept buying the cards year in and year out, but there was no one to play with, so about 1992 I begged off. I bought the computer game intermittently in the intervening years, then stumbled upon this site, which has been a godsend.

I'm no huge baseball fan, though, strangely enough, I've read so many baseball books: Cobb, Babe Ruth (Creamer's biography), Men at Work, Shoeless Joe ("Field of Dreams"), Halberstam's ode to, was it 1941? (what year was that), Bill James Baseball Abstract, and Whatever happened to the hall of fame. I vividly remember Gibson's homer off Eck, and watching Dave Henderson drop a ball from his glove over the fence, then come back and homer later to get the Red Sox past the Angels (so they could lose to the Mets later). I remember getting cable in my podunk Texas town, discovering the Cubs, and picking Ryne Sandberg as the athlete I would've wanted to be, had I the talent (my youngest son is named Ryne).

Oh yeah, and wiffle ball (PLENTY of wiff, after we were too tired to play basketball; we kept stats!). In wiff, I was Jack Morris (found ways to win, but ever now and then -- BAM! -- tape measure shot).

James Earl Jones' character speaks of baseball marking the passage of time in this country. It often does. It's unique in the way moments can be clarified due to the lack of a clock, and the singular confrontation of pitcher vs. hitter. It's iconography and cultural literacy, within a "friendly confines."

[gmac94]

I have a terrible memory of my early childhood, but I remember a few things regarding baseball.

I have a big family and my older brothers were varsity baseball players, so I tried my best to emulate them. Unfortunately, I was very small and didn't get many opportunities (or coaching).

From the start I figured my best way to contribute was to be a "jack-of-all-trades" and I volunteered for every position on the field. While playing in NJ, and playing second base, I took a bad hop directly in the face and had a shiner the size of a pumpkin just below my eye for quite a while. It wasn't until we moved to Florida that I tried baseball/softball again.

In Florida, I played first base in softball, since I seemed to be able to handle the big thing more effectively than anyone else. My first softball team was a championship team due to some great teammates who could crush the ball. In baseball (I guess it was pony league), I played catcher, since this was the position no one would volunteer for. I was decent, but couldn't hit a curveball! Therefore, no chance on the varsity squad in high school, since our school was a baseball school and never lacked for studs at each position.

I would say I was Joel Youngblood, but could also catch. I had decent speed and did "the little things right".

I also play in an adult baseball league. My league is over 28, and I am now 43. Our team has been together for about 10 years and stole a championship in 2002. That trophy is one that will never be thrown in the trash!

Our team is now showing its age, but we have fun playing. I am much improved at hitting the curveball and any hangers I crush. I'm still reliving my last two run-scoring hits - I smoked a double over the left fielder's head with the bases loaded to break open a close game in the 7th two weeks ago; and last Sunday I executed a perfect hit and run, hitting a scorcher into the hole vacated by the second baseman for another run scoring double.

We use wood bats, which makes the league very challenging (and expensive if you get sawed off!). Back when we used aluminum, I had a game where I hit a solo homer in the top of the ninth to take a one run lead and then booted a ball in the bottom of the ninth to lose us the game. That's baseball in microcosm, and why it is the best sport of all.

Thanks for the topic, can't wait to read more stories.

Gmac

[roofinghorse]

now i,m just sitting here thinking waaaaay back to the bob gibson dats when they played the tigers in the world series.68 i think.
being a youngster in a fairly dysfuntional home didn,t leave much to be desired.but i came upon the wonderful world of baseball in 68 when my step-aunt put me on a little league team (dixie-post 220).my previous expierence of playing was bank-ball.where we played in a bank parking lot with a rubber ball (it was easier sometimes on windows and cars) and had to bat oppisite handed.1 yard was a double,the second yard was a triple and if you hit it to tony,s bar it was a homer. :)
but that first and only year in little league was all it took to get hooked on baseball.i didn,t have a clue of what i was doing.my first game was a trip.we had a pitcher who didn,t have no control and if he wasn,t walking somebody,he was hitting them.the coach told me to go behind the dugout and start throwing and warm up.hell, i ain,t never pitched in a REAL game before.well to make a long memory short.i got in to pitch.4 and 2/3 innings of shutout ball.awesome.but the best part was my first AB.i looked at a strike.i swung and missed at the next pitch,and the next pitch i smacked it OVER the right fielders head.it rolled to the fence.i just STOOD THERE,amazed at what i did...everybodys yelling,run ,run, and finally i took off and chugged on into second with a double....
i was hooked on baseball every since.i remember i thought blue moon odom had the coolest name...i too was a big red machine fan...but my life bounced around way too much to get settled down for anything organized again.
then one day(i was 27 by now) my older brother saw a ad in the newspaper about a strato league that was forming in town.we played for 3 years. every sunday ,3 american league and 3 nationals.we started out playing with the cards and wound up playing on a disk.(seems like it was a floppy,but i ain,t really sure).And then the kiddo,s started popping out like popcorn and baseball took a backseat again .
then, last year, i was looking for some scores of something and stumbled on this strat and guess what?yep,hooked again.still lovin the game...
that,s my long story made short but i,m going to be 50 in august and the game has evolved in a lot of ways but you still have to do it between the lines and thats the best part of this game.

slug

[baracus68]

I was introduced to Strat by this farm kid who lived down the road from me in rural Vermont, Buster Olney. He was an absolute baseball fanatic from his earliest days (as you can probably guess if you've ever seen his ESPN work). He had Strat figured out pretty well and generally kicked the butts of me and my brother by stocking his lineup with good OBP guys (this was WAY before anyone outside of Lawrence, Kansas, was talking about OBP). Instead of a salary cap, he devised a three-tiered drafting system in which everybody was allowed to pick ten guys from each of three ability levels. Buster based these levels on the big stats of the time like batting average and RBI, etc., knowing that we'd be too dense to identify all the great "lower-tier" guys like Gene Tenace and Darrel Evans and even Bobby Grich. We were too stupid to think much about righty-lefty issues either; meanwhile, almost all of Buster's teams featured John Lowenstein. He got very animated when playing the game, especially when his closer (usually Goose) struck somebody out: Buster did an umpire one-two punch and shouted "hooaaahh!"

[Ducky]

At heart, over the years, I have come to realize that I am a baseball player. I did not have Major League skills, but I loved playing and watching the game of baseball at any level. Once I was old enough to realize I was not good enough to be in the big leagues, my first thought was what do I do with the rest of my life. That may sound like a strange thing to say, but I am betting there are others of you out there that had the same thought at some point in their lives.

Baseball is and was everything to me. I spent my childhood playing organized baseball or playing a game called "Strikeout" with my buddy who could throw in the mid to upper 80's before he reached high school. We pretended we were Major League players and our lineups had to be set so our batters were alternate lefty/righty. Good way to learn how to switch hit.

As the years went by, I played three years of varsity baseball as the starting shortstop. I batted second two of the three years and lead off the last one. I had a decent arm, good range and good quickness as fielder. As a hitter, I was an excellent bunter, I may still hold the school record for sacrifice bunts during my Sophomore year (22), and a line drive gap type hitter with almost no power beyond the gaps. I'd say as a high school player standing 5"11' and weighing 130 pounds, I was an Ozzie Guillen type.

By my sophomore year in high school, I started playing amateur baseball for the New Munich Silverstreaks. For those of you that aren't familiar, almost every small town in Minnesota has an amateur baseball team. I spent 13 years with New Munich as a shortstop and later a third basemen. I got married and changed teams, playing for the Clear Lake Lakers for 9 years until I retired at the age of 37. My amateur career spanned four decades, from 1979 through 2000. I enjoyed every mintue of my career including all the work we did on the baseball fields to keep them in shape, all the practices and all the beer drinking afterward. I was inducted into the Clear Lake Hall of Fame in 2005 and finished my amateur career with an average of around .333 to .350 with 30 some homers over the years. I never did acquire much power.

I've coached amateur baseball as a player/coach and I have coached my son's teams. He is a shortstop like his dad. Small and quick with a lot of baseball savvy.

I love the game and I am very happy that I found Strat on-line. I have enjoyed trading stories with some of the "real" baseball fanatics out there.

Mike

[roofinghorse]

i love reading these old(or new) baseball stories.....