Board gaming pt 2

My favorite sports related board game is Strat-O-Matic Baseball. It also used real players but unlike All Star Baseball every player on the team is involved and games are played as teams. It also takes into account fielding, running, throwing, injuries, and most importantly pitching.

In every at bat, a batter card and a pitcher card is involved. One six sided dice (d6) is rolled. If it is 1-3, the corresponding column in the batters card is used. A 4-6 roll uses the column in the pitchers card. Then 2 d6 are thrown and the total is read in the column to reflect what happened in the at bat. Some results need a twenty sided dice rolled as there are two options. Also the d20 is used for stealing, plays where a fielder's rating is involved, base running, and injuries.

To show how a card would look, I took my daughter's stats from this year and created a card:



For example if the first die is a 2 and the total of the other two dice is 8, the result would be a walk.

A few notes: Since the card only reflects half the possible options, it does not match the stats. I adjusted the card to provide the results if her batters card went against an average pitchers card from her league. (In the game, no pitchers card had a hit by pitch (HBP) possibility)

Fielding ratings in the game went from 1 (best) to 4 (worst) and throwing ability was from +5 (worst) to -5 (best). I created a 5 fielding rating and +8 throwing to be honest.

In the game, there are power ratings of "N" and "W". A "W" rating would turn a home run on a pitchers card to a SINGLE**(runners advnace two bases) for those who regularly don't hit home runs. I created "VW" meaning all hits on a pitchers card would become SINGLE* (all runners advance one base).

Also, I matched column 3 on my daughter's card with the column 3 on the card from Barry Bonds 2001 season where he hit 73 home runs.

Board gaming pt 1

When I was growing up, there were no video games so I was playing sports related board games. They involved individually or combinations of dice, magnets, levers, ping pong balls, charts, spinners, and football players that vibrate on a football field when electricity is turned on.

Most of those games involved generic players who occasionally had different abilities but the games were basically simple.

There were two baseball games that actually used real players that I played as a kid. One was called All Star baseball. Every all star player was represented by a disc which fit into a spinner. One player from each position was selected, a lineup was made, and every at bat was a spin. Numbers ranged from 1-14 and the space for each number represented how often each possibility could occur.

The numbers were:
* 1 Home Run
* 2 Ground out, double play with runner on first base
* 3 Runner reaches base on error
* 4 Fly out, all runners advance
* 5 Triple
* 6 Ground out, all runners advance
* 7 Single, runners advance one base
* 8 Fly out, runner on third base scores, others hold
* 9 Walk (Base on balls)
* 10 Strikeout
* 11 Double
* 12 Ground out, runners advance if forced
* 13 Single, runners advance two bases
* 14 Fly out, runners hold their bases

Since my daughter's softball season ended last Monday, I decided to create a disc to represent her season: (Note: Not all possibilities are on the disc since those situations did not occur in her 22 plate appearances)



I added number 15 to represent hit by pitch.

Steroids

I was working on this post anyway when the Sammy Sosa situation was made public. With how much pain my knees were in and with a con last weekend, I was unable to finish this until today.

Since my first game in June 1972, I have seen 13 of the 25 people who hit at least 500 home runs live in the fifty or so games I have attended over the years



For some reason, when posting color charts, I lose some of the image quality. I did see Frank Thomas at Comiskey Park and U.S Cellular Field.

Except for Hank Arron who I saw as a member of the Brewers but decided to use the Braves color, the colors of the players I saw reflect the team or teams they were on when I saw them. For those I did not see, I used the color of the team or teams they were most associated with.

Of the 12 I saw play in a game, (Mike Schmidt was a member of the 1983 all star team and I saw him at the workout day before the game) none hit a home run in a game. The player with the most home runs that I remember seeing hitting one was Harold Baines who hit 384.

Busted

While at my mom's last month, we heard a couple of police sirens and rushed outside to see what happened. We noticed two different cars pulled over by police and after they were done, they went back to the corner and pulled over two more cars.

Shortly after between my sister, parents and brother-in-law, we decided to put up a dollar guessing the color of the next car pulled over. From what we could tell, a third officer was a few blocks north of where we were relaying the info upon spotting the situation. Considering how fast traffic can go on Western Avenue, it was possibly a speed trap.



It got to the point where upon a car getting pulled over, one of us would cheer along with the kids as the other four pulled out a single. As the police car returned to the spot, we were cheering it and shouting out what color of car to pull over next. Not wanting to miss out on any action or add to the tally, we decided to order pizza and once it arrived, we stopped betting though more cars kept getting pulled over.

Man of Honor

In a couple of hours, I will need to leave to go to the wedding of my best friend Carrie Dahlby. I then realized that since I met my wife in January 1997, this will only be the fifth time we will both be at a wedding including our own and the first time since I got drunk in Joliet six years ago and during the Cha Cha slide gave a new meaning to the move Charlie Brown by pretending to miss kicking a football, launching my self into the air screaming AAUUGGGH! and falling on my back in the grass outside the dance floor.



Weddings I attended with my wife where I was in the bridal party, I only listed as a member of. + family means when I still lived with my parents, + guest means with my girlfriend at that time, Mr and Mrs with my wife, con attendee means at a con where anyone could watch. The wedding at the first con I attended was unforgettable and I found a picture from it. http://www.generalgeneral.com/ezine/capricon2002/capricon2002.html

Yes, that is Dr. Demento who gave away the bride, and the best man is dressed as Lt. Data from Star Trek and the ring bearer was dressed as a cow. The man in the back performed the ceremony wearing only a diaper and a crown of thorns.

My participation in the wedding was difficult for Carrie and Josh to determine. Ideas ranged from me walking her down the aisle to actually performing the ceremony. There are things done by a maid and matron of honor (both of whom she has and who looked great together at the bachelorette party) that I can't do. Carrie also wanted me to be with her to help when needed. I then realized the term man of honor would describe it best. It might not be listed like that in the program but I don't care.

Having gone through my wedding almost ten years ago when it was almost completely relatives as I really had no friends at the time and the people I worked with and played Scrabble with ignored it, it will be interesting to see my friends there in formal attire mixed with those who really have little understanding of our unique world. From what I have heard it will be 40% us, 60% others.

Since all my up front memories of my wedding are of being upset and angry, I hope that this wedding like the one I attended in Iowa by myself a few years ago will uncover the hidden good memories that are buried inside. At least I know the DJ there will not be subcontracted and won't be playing music for his 23 year old girlfriend who crashed the reception and won't ignore requests from the groom since the mother of the bride instructed him to do so.

Anyway, I just got a call from the bridal party and I have to leave now to drive someone somewhere in the city and then drive back home to get my daughter and back to the city for the ceremony.

The great American Race

Sorry about no post from last week. With my job and the bachelorette/bachelor party I attended last weekend, I had no time to make a chart or post.

Since 32 brave drivers are going to try to avoid getting wrecked by Danica Patrick in Indianapolis this Sunday, I figured this is a good time to post the miles I have driven the last 20 years without doing anything worse than scraping a double parked car while driving a station wagon on a clogged downtown Chicago street.



Yes, I am aware of the potential for irony created by this post.

FYI: (note rant to follow) People may ask why I pick on Danica Patrick. In her rookie year where she finished fourth and started to get all the publicity, she made two major mistakes at slow speed, stalling her engine in the pit and spinning the car while accelerating on a different restart. The first mistake happened under caution so she did not lose a lap. The second one caused two other cars to wreck themselves out of the race. Along with another incident where the car she touched with her tires wrecked, she took out a total of three other drivers and the last incident put her out of sequence with pit stops causing her to take the lead late in the race.

Since then her attitude has caused many unnecessary incidents on and off the track. This is why I don't like her.

NOTE: She ran an incident free race finishing third. Anything can happen

Family Circus style driving, part 5

This situation happened to me twice both times coming home from a long convention weekend. First in March 2006 and second last Sunday. I was so tired, I failed to get in the right lane to turn onto Irving Park Road to get home. Once I realized my error, I made a right turn, turned around my car and got back to the point where I made the error and continued on my way.



This situation happened last Easter Sunday while driving to Joliet (or as I like to say Zombie Jesus day driving towards removed by TMI filter ) Because of the reworked road, the ramp to head south is now the second one when it was the first one the past 10+ years and I instinctively exited off the wrong one. Once I realized my error, I got off the next exit and got my car turned around headed into the correct direction.

Unlike the previous four posts about this subject, the driver turned the vehicle around and proceeded back to the point the error was made and went the correct direction both times only delayed for about 5 minutes. The driver did not aimlessly drive around hoping to go in the correct general direction and end up 20 or more miles away from where they should be.

Maybe it would have been a good thing to drive around aimlessly and get lost last month. Then I would have not gotten sick from my mother-in-law's cooking.