Strat-O-matic memories

Bruce:

I can't come close to your tale of the Saints 21-0 shutout of the Colts, as I was much more of a baseball Strat-o guy. I did buy the football version and it came with season cards circa 1978, but only David Silverman and I played (I never could get Mark interested), and we never evolved a league.

Mostly, we played baseball with sets of cards from the early '70's playoff teams - I had an affinity for the Oakland A's, and even though they listed Rollie Fingers as a reliever/starter, I stretched the truth and started Rollie frequently. I think he was limited to 6 innings by the Start-o rules, but if Chris had wanted to argue with me that my game play didn't reflect reality, I could have only sheepishly plead guilty.

David brought in a third player, who didn't have the Strat-o mojo that we had - he didn't last long, and our grand plan to draft All-Star teams using the complete set of 1976 or '77 cards came to naught. Silverman and I would play all sorts of variations for hours on end - All Star teams, teams from different years, post-season replays from the prior year. I remember the closest we came to a fight was a game where I trailed by a lot going into the ninth and rallied. I got a single that would have loaded the bases, pulled me within three, and given me a shot to win with two outs. But without seeking my permission (a Strat-o no-no), he decided to send my runner from second home, as he was a fast runner and his OF has a + rating on his arm, making the safe to out split 1-19 (safe) and 20 (out). I didn't want to send him as his run didn't mean anything, but Silverman ripped the top card off the deck and it was a 20. He celebrated, I protested, and I rolled the dice - grand slam! I should have won that game but he argued that I would have sent the runner. It didn't make sense, but he was probably too embarrassed to have blown a 5 or 6 run lead in the ninth, and was clinging to his bizarre idea that I would have sent the runner home with a meaningless run.

Those were the days, huh? Do you remember some of the cards that came with warnings, because guys with only a few at bats but stellar stats had unbelievably good cards? The apotheosis of this was Roger Freed in 1977, who in 89 ABs hit .398 with 5 HR and 21 RBI. His card was like a pinball game - the sheet for that season's packet warned against using him as anything more than a pinch hitter or else he alone would skew outcomes all season long. Roger was the first player to homer in the Vet, by the way.

Somewhere in an attic, or maybe long since donated to charity, is a red box with cartoonish drawings of baseball players and an umpire. Inside that box are cards that made memories. Supposedly there is a computer version of Strat-o, but I haven't tried it. It seems almost sacrilegious to contemplate Strat-o without numbers-laden cardboard player cards and three dice. I just can't bring myself to try a version with electrons.