Community - Get into the Card Discussions!

As I said, I personally do not know Rosie2167, so maybe he does have some connection to Strat, but I do not know that to be true. Why would the name Rosie be more likely to be the new SOM Marketing Director Dan Rozel than the previous Adam Rosen? Maybe Axl Rose is playing Strat online now.

I hope the veteran Strat players considering leaving decide to stay, despite any Strat failings, because your experience and knowledge can make playing online Strat a better experience for other players.

"Paging Dr. Rosenrose"

As I said, I personally do not know Rosie2167, so maybe he does have some connection to Strat, but I do not know that to be true. Why would the name Rosie be more likely to be the new SOM Marketing Director Dan Rozel than the previous Adam Rosen? Maybe Axl Rose is playing Strat online now.

I hope the veteran Strat players considering leaving decide to stay, despite any Strat failings, because your experience and knowledge can make playing online Strat a better experience for other players.

Why you ask?

Well how and why did Rosie suddenly gain control over the entire process of how we are going to choose new cards?

and Edwardneal63-- all of us veterans are VERY aware of how we have and continue to help others-- you've come in at the tail end of YEARS of us trying to improve things here, at some point, the lack of response to our attempts to improve the game for everyone just becomes pointless.

Salt -WTH were you doing up at 4 a.m.?

"Paging Dr. Rosenrose"

Hi everyone. Some spirited posts! Classic. First thing, it is the 4th weekend and I still play old man baseball at 49...and playing in a tourney this weekend, so forgive me for my lack of posting over the past 24 hours.

Fair questions...who am I and how did I get to run point?
My name is Bob Rosenau and I have no affiliation with SOM. I live in California in the Monterey Bay area with 3 kids+wife and sell software for a living. I played college baseball and enjoy the history of the game. I was extremely excited to stumble upon Strat-online back in Dec'13 as, like most of you I played it as a kid...but by the measure of some of you I'm fairly new to Strat.

Ok enough about me, why am I running this process?
Back in January after the last card adds I started this post. I was looking for other owners that were interested in creating a process to identify and nominate deserving cards for the community to vote on. At that time all I knew was the current process seemed a bit weak in terms of identifying the right group of cards to consider, as the first 40 nominations could all be Bob Ueker look alike. I had no idea anyone had done any polling or anything related to how cards were added. I also reached out to Strat support with a note for John Garcia asking him if he would consider a different approach (not necessarily mine but something) the next time SOM was ready to add cards. He responded suggesting they might. A week or so ago John reached out to me asking me if I was still interested in coordinating the nomination and voting process for the next batch of cards. Ok now everyone is up to speed.

I've got to get going to my last game of this baseball tournament now but have more to write, so back later this evening.

Best
Bob (Rosie2167)

First to respond to Bob's reply:

Bob, thank you for being forthcoming- b/c it was at the very least odd that this went down like it did-- well, let me rephrase that, ODD by any normal operating standards.

Which leads me to-- WHY IN THE WORLD DO THINGS GET DONE THIS WAY?

Random decision to just turn over the process to an individual player simply because they express interest?
Not caring at all if this is what anyone else would like to do?

HELLLLL-- WE HAVE A HUGE LIST OF CARDS CREATED BY BILL ALREADY-- WHY NOT JUST CONTACT HIM - HE SPENT COUNTLESS HOURS COMPILING EVERYONE'S REQUESTS?

Salt -WTH were you doing up at 4 a.m.?

Yeah...the life of a composer...odd things at odd hours, which is why when there is a passion to do something as an individual, find it incomprehensible in what would otherwise be a potentially good product, there is so much indifference from those that have the most to gain.

Okay Bob you sound like a reasonable, well-intentioned guy who walked into something he may not have bargained for. You need to understand that many people are very unhappy, and have been for many years, with SOM management and how they treat customers. Dozens of ATG stalwarts no longer play the game at all -including Nev - and quite a few of us are, to say the least, quite jaded re SOM's maneuvers and intentions. But you should know that SOM earned that perception by repeatedly ignoring what the community asks for and wantonly breaking promises over and over and then when they do make changes they are often tangential, superficial and unwanted. Garcia is currently the poster boy for these issues and I have no respect for how he conducts business or treats the community. He has shown repeatedly that his word means absolutely nothing.

Adding new players shouldn't be a big deal. But if you started out with asking for volunteer (ambassadors) then you shouldn't change the rules midstream and penalize the very few accomplished veterans who did sign up in a timely manner. Maybe you could have 5 instead of 3 ambassadors per era and that might go along way to generating some good will, at least from me.

My complaint is if they were going to use this long slow process...they should have started 6 months ago not 6 days ago

Here are some of they guys I want to nominate from the pre-war period.

Also, I signed up for the Mets and Brewers. For the Mets all I would like is Howard Johnson's 1989 season. The card can be viewed in the back to the 80's set and a switch hitting 3b with that offense will get used a great deal in ATG. For the Brewers I just want Lezcano (1979) and Hisle's (1978) best years; both of those cards can be seen in the 70's mystery set and Sixto was actually a 1 (-3) in rf that year and that is a key position that needs help in ATG.

Pre-war nominees:

Fatty Fothergill 1927 A career .325 hitter who hitter over .350 4 times. Not even in ATG.

Cy Williams 1920 or 1924. Led the NL in homers 4 times, lifetime OPS+ 125, played 19 years.

Ken Williams 1921, 1922 or 1923 A great hitter. Career OPS+ 138. Not well represented in ATG.

John Mize 1939 Any of his first 5 seasons were great. He was like Eddie Mathews as a hitter when he started out and he could flat out hit for average and power. All of those years were better than his 51 hr. season that we now have.

Ben Chapman 1931. The premier basestealer of his era he should liven up a lot of franchise leagues.

Bob Meusel 1925 Led the league in HR's over Ruth and Gehrig. Best OF arm of his era. Played 156 games that year. A good counterpoint to his 1927 good average, little power card.

Jim Bottomley -1925 or 1928 Never liked the card we have for him compared to his better years.

Would not be averse to another Jimmy Foxx card from one his three MVP years. Wouldn't object to the 1930 Gehrig card either since his other two cards don't perform so well, maybe this one might?

I like Bruce's suggestions. In addition:

I'm still hoping to get the 1926 Bibb Falk sometime. Not in the set, and would help a VERY weak White Sox Pre-war set. Batted over .300 8 times and a lifetime .314 hitter.

Rip Radcliff batted over .300 5 times. I would love to see his 1940 card, when he batted .342 and finished 9th in MVP voting, not to mention he'd help a weak Browns squad.

1939 Buddy Lewis, Washington 3b. An improvement to his current card.

1933 Billy Rogell, SS for Detroit Tigers during the 1930s.

1936 Lyn Lary. SS for Browns and a cool name.

1930 Taylor Douthit, CF for late 1920's Cardinals teams. Or 1931. 31 was a better season, but 30 was more representative.

Eddie Rommel's 1922 A's card. He won 27 games, was one of the top pitchers of the 1920's, and although he has 3 cards in ATG, they aren't very representative.

Wes Ferrell's 1930 Indians card. Like Rommel, Ferrell was one of the better pitchers in the decade of the 1930's, winning 20 games 6 times and needs better representation. He was also a fine hitter, not that we would notice it in Strat. If you extrapolate his hitting stats over 600 AB's he would've hit 19 HR's and batted .280.