Through the years...

Stop braggin'

just overcompensating

My son sent me a text about this topic on the message board and said I should check it out.
Wow, it sure has been fun reading all the stories everyone has shared, especially Roosky’s.
Thanks Bruce for doing another one of these threads. I’m sure it’s been several years since we did this.
I am 67 and retired from running an insurance agency 6 years ago. I own a farm/ranch in central Kentucky where my youngest son and I raise beef cattle. He also trains cutting horses. My wife and I will celebrate our 45th anniversary May 22.
We have two sons, Randy (Roosky) is the oldest. Randy and his wife have blessed us with two wonderful grandchildren.
When I’m not spending time with the family, working on the farm/ranch, or playing strat, I try to carve out a little time for golf.

My name is Mike Donoho, I'm 65 and a retired Mail Carrier, married, two grown kids (boy and girl) and 2 grandkids (boy and girl). I live in Georgia now, just across the Tennessee border from Chattanooga, but I grew up on the west coast in Culver City, which is just east of the city of Venice. I spent most of my youth at the beach in Santa Monica, and that is the city I carried mail in for 35 years. My family were HUGE Dodger fans, we went to 20 or 30 games a year. One of the neighbor kids bought the APBA game in '67 when I was 12 (1966 season) and 5 or 6 of us played a league when we weren't at the beach. Kept stats religiously for that season and the next 4 as well, kinda lost interest in the game when I hit High School though. Never even heard of Strat back then.

Flash forward to my 2nd year in the Post Office and a Mail Carrier friend (from Cleveland) who shared my interest in Baseball started talking to me about Strat. He showed me the game (basic cards) and I was hooked. We found a head to head draft league starting in LA and both joined. We played an 84 game season on Monday nights, 6 games each week. National League, using 60% of their card PA's for each player and each team drafted 30 players, five were injured reserve. Played in that league for 6 or 7 years, then quit because I was getting too obsessed!

Flash ahead another bunch of years and I discovered the online game in 2008, ATG IV. First league I was in featured Druid, Nev, 13baseballs, Frank Bailey, B.o.b.b.y and PJMB. I finished 10 games under .500 with a -79 run differential. I've learned a little about how to put a team together since then by studying successful players teams, and made some friends along the way. I now play mostly on Strat's dime, mostly in a few of continuing leagues and the occasional random one. I have really enjoyed reading these stories and now when I see some of these names I have a little bit of an idea who y'all are. Thank you Bruce for putting this topic out here and thank you all for giving us a window into your lives.

Thanks Bruce, great thread.

I'm Matt, 45, recently moved back to my home town of Tucson from SF after 26 years away to raise my 2 boys (aged 3 and 4) here.

As a kid played stratomatic and statis pro baseball, basketball and football obsessively. As an adult played windows stratomatic baseball, basketball and football obsessively until I discovered 365, at which point everything else in my life fell away and it's a wonder I still know my kids' names.

I was a starting (lefty) pitcher for Dartmouth in the mid-late 90s, where I gave up a home run to Carlos Pena while he was playing at Northeastern. I spent a year in Australia playing and coaching baseball, after which I moved to San Francisco, where I spent the next 20 years working in nonprofits. I currently run a nonprofit in Tucson.

Married to an Australian I met in Russia with whom I bonded over a shared love of Dostoevsky. Lover of the game of cricket, which I picked up in Australia, and to which I have also devoted countless hours of stratomatic-style computer simulation gaming.

Also, I'm 5 years sober and I love to cook.

Keep em' coming, boys!

-Matt T-W

My name is David Gray - my nickname in school was Goose, given to me by my dad. That explains my ownership name. My father went by the nickname "Bus" and I've named him as manager of all my teams. I'm 56 and grew up in southern Ohio during the Big Red Machine days but I don't follow MLB much anymore. I'm a librarian at a community college in Virginia.

I played a lot of the SOM board game as a kid but only starting playing online last year when a friend I grew up with suggested to me and another friend that we try it out. I didn't even know there was an online version, but now I'm hooked. It also keeps the 3 of us in contact more than we were before so that's a nice thing.

I believe this is Mike's first league from atg 4.

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/league/54940

From what I can tell from the posts so far the only one here who's younger than me is roosky who, we all just learned, is a 2nd generation stratman! I wonder if there are other "youngsters" lurking about...

I believe this is Mike's first league from atg 4.

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/league/54940

That's the one!

Weird that the two teams with the best regular season records are names I don't even recognize.

Hi All! My name is Joel, 55, from NY. Married with two kids, Army vet, and work as an analyst at a NY law firm. I have been playing Strat since its ATG II version and have enjoyed the game thru all of its iterations, quirks and all. Grew up playing APBA as a kid, always was into stats which appealed to me, though grew to dislike its ratings for pitchers. Remember reading Baseball Digest with all of its game ads and sending out for the APBA game and another game called Time Travel Baseball?. That was fun. I also wanted the game with the detailed stadium diagrams (cant recall) but my grades sucked so didn't get the money for it lol. Yankees fan, though first game I remember was at Shea with Seaver pitching and George Theodore at 1B (Mets were just...geeky!) One of my favorite baseball memories was also my worst - attended Game 4 of 2001 WS vs Diamondbacks and left after 8th inning to beat traffic (BK Kim was just mowing them down). As i'm driving up the Deegan Expwy, Tino hit the HR to tie the game - some fan I am. Never over till its over!