Favorite Baseball Game Pre OOTP!

[sparky]

I would have to say High Heat 2002 on PC or Triple Play '96 on sega.

[rogmax11]

The progression, more or less in order:
1. Coleco ALL-Star Baseball ( I may have the name wrong; its the game with a spinner and circular player disks. I made my own disks for fantasy players--had to customize even waaay back then ).
2. APBA (board version); yeah, made my own player cards for this one too, and tried to GM a league with some buddies who werent as fanatical as I was at 13.
3. Another board game ( the name is lost to me ) that featured a game board stadium with hexes that attempted to show the path of a ball in play. It had a cool feature that altered the configurations of the "walls" to model various real or fictional ballparks, but was tedious in its play.
4. - 6. Various permutations of dice-based games that didnt really improve on APBA.
7. Statis-Pro ( again, the board version ).
8. Earl Weaver ( the first foray into computer ball )
9. BBPro 96-98 - loved the complexity, hated the slowness.
10. APBA ( computer version )- along with the $200 of extras needed to fully flesh it out-- still my favorite up 'til now.
11. Statis-Pro ( computer version ) never grabbed my heart
12. Lance Haefner- REALLY bare bones, but dead-on stat reproduction, and a cinch to customize.
13. Diamond Mind- loved the developers' obvious passion/dedication, didnt have the customization qualities I wanted.
14. Baseball Mogul-AHA! Not perfect by any means, but a huge step closer to what I was seeking.
15. HHeat- A brief side trip into the mirage of graphics-driven baseball, but not able to deliver on the promise.
16. OOTP- And here we are, still chasing the dream.

It would have been a helluva lot cheaper if I had actually possessed sufficient skills to PLAY the game beyond high school, and thus gotten the bug out of my system. Oh well, too late now.

[EdsHalo]

Originally posted by DMN
Board games:

APBA - first season was 1960
Replay Games
Statis Pro

I was addicted to Statis Pro Baseball for most of the 80s!! I did get a chance a few times to play the computer version on my friend's computer a few time but most of the time I was flipping cards, creating lineups, planning out starts for my rotation, dragging out my big notebook to keep score and much more. I was definitely an addict.

Also enjoyed Micro League Baseball playing as the early 70s A's and then eventually got season/G.M. disks to play with current players. Played that a lot. Also played Hardball 5 quite a bit as well as a couple LaRussa games. Played Diamond Mind 8 but thankfully found STB and then OOTP a year later and haven't gone back to DMB since. Love the OOTP career mode especially being able to draft (fantasy or rookies).

Never played the Weaver games accept being part of a fantasy league that used I think v. 2 (could be wrong). First experience with fantasy ball but didn't last long.

[Tib]

"All-Star Baseball, with the individual player cards and the spinners. Its been over 20 years and I still remember those cards: 1=hr, 5=triple, 11=double, 7/13=single, etc."

Holy Crap! Someone else who remembers that game! I used to wear out the spinners on that game. Don't forget, 3/10 was a strikeout and 9 was a walk. Some players, like Babe Ruth, had two homer sections. In fact, I used to try to set the spinner at a certain angle because I knew if I flicked it just right, it would land on HR. God, that brings back memories.

After that, it was Statis-Pro Baseball for years (remember that it was designed using base 8 and PB:9-12 and 31-34 was usually a homerun?). Then the APBA computer game (all 8 floppies), where I used the Wizard utility religiously to update player stats. After that it was OOTP4. In fact, my solo fictional OOTP league is based on that original APBA league.

Ahh, baseball games. In all their incarnations they never cease to captivate and amuse us, giving us so many warm, everlasting memories. I can't remember my sister-in-law's birthday, but I remember that Kirk Gibson's 1989 APBA card had him as an A/A basestealer.

[EdsHalo]

Originally posted by Vida Blue
I started out with Intellivision Baseball

Loved Intellivision Baseball and Football. Would beg my brother to play them with me and then run up the score!

[Rizon]

What was that handheld game from the 80s? The one with the red dots. I remember going to my friends house and playing that for hours.

[EdsHalo]

Originally posted by Rizon
What was that handheld game from the 80s? The one with the red dots. I remember going to my friends house and playing that for hours.

I remember wearing out my fingers playing that and the basketball and football variations of it.

I'm also having this flashback of sitting in my grandmother's living room with my friend playing a baseball game based completely on results from the backs of 1978 Topps baseball cards. Each card would have a result like fly out, single, double, etc. and we'd play out a game based completely on those results.

Thankfully I found Statis Pro soon after!

[wireman]

I had great fun with Old-Time Baseball and Nick Keren's utilities. Ultimately, it got frustrating that I seemed to be able to take any team I wanted to the pennant more or less right away.

High Heat was fun and frustrating at once. It drove me to OOTP (thank God).

Of course, I go back to the 14th century or so, so I've played a lot of baseball games, including the pre-computer variety.

The first computer baseball game I played was for Apple II, called simply "Computer Baseball." It was made by SSI. I was in heaven when I got that.

[Claybor]

Anyone ever play the Sherco baseball boardgame? It was a very interesting game that actually used a playing field with grids that determined where the ball would end up in specific parks and such. Was a lot of fun.

[cdheer]

Originally posted by wireman
The first computer baseball game I played was for Apple II, called simply "Computer Baseball." It was made by SSI. I was in heaven when I got that.

So I wasn't the only one!

Embarrassingly, I occasionally fire up an Apple IIe emulator and play that game still.

On another note, I can't find my Season Ticket Baseball 2003 CD. I never did have OOTP5. So I scrounged up OOTP2 (!) just to satisfy my cravings until 6 comes out.

What a Jones I am having.

--chris

[Cooker]

I played a lot of APBA in the late 60's. I liked it better than Strat-O-Matic. I kept all my statistics by hand and used a slide-ruler to refigure batting averages after every game. (No one under 50 has probably ever seen a slide-ruler.) I loved rolling those dice!

In the 90's I found Baseball Stars for Nintendo and played it incessantly. My wife actually got it for our son. Soon I was playing it more than him. Great little game!

FPS Baseball Pro 98 was a godsend. I played some Earl Weaver, Tony LaRussa and Hardball. None of 'em ever quite measured up (though one early Tony LaRussa version was pretty decent). The Sammy Sosa version of HighHeat was the best of the bunch.

Last spring I decided to find the best of the latest generation of baseball games. So I bought MVP, All-Star Baseball and World Series Baseball. They were all okay but ultimately not satisfying. I liked All-Star Baseball the best, I suppose. But then one day I was browsing BaseballSimCentral's boards and saw lots of people ranked something called "Out of the Park Baseball" as their favorite baseball text sim game of all time. I wasn't even sure what a "text sim" was and I'd sure never heard of OOTP. But the more I read the more excited I got. I visited the OOTP site, downloaded OOTP5, and the rest (as they say) is history.

Now I'll never buy another baseball game!

[RANGER11JP]

Originally posted by Gastric ReFlux
Hey, I can dream of the best of both worlds. Further and better detailed PbP, working in conjuction with some flying pixels.

Maybe it's because I grew into my love for baseball while watching the Phillies on Channel 17 in the late 1970's. I enjoy radio broadcasts as well, but some of my fondest memories are watching those games come in on the UHF. Let's face it, as human beings we are primarily visual creatures, it is our most frequently used and evaluated sensory input.

"I'll believe it when I see it"

"I saw it with my own eyes"

Usually when we praise radio announcers, there is some mention of how their words let us "see" the game. And now that I finally found a baseball game that generates good stats, now I wish to see one that generates good visuals from those.

If we could only get the audio of "Broadcast Blast"! I would set it up on the computer and listen to a game while doing something else. OOTP would kick butt with a feature like this. From what I understand, this technology is available.

JP

[Modern Relic]

Originally posted by wireman
I had great fun with Old-Time Baseball and Nick Keren's utilities.

That's the guy I was thinking of. I used to use those utilities myself. I think he still makes them.

[Modern Relic]

dola...

I just checked and he's stopped making them. The website is still up and the utils are still posted, though. He has them for almost every incarnation of the LaRussa series as well as OldTime Baseball.

If anyone wants to fire up the oldies, his utils can be found here. Good stuff!

[tward13]

Originally posted by Claybor
Anyone ever play the Sherco baseball boardgame? It was a very interesting game that actually used a playing field with grids that determined where the ball would end up in specific parks and such. Was a lot of fun.

YES. Check back nearer the beginning of this thread. I spent a lot of time playing Sherco back in the 70's

[Yaz1961]

I played a bunch of baseball games. Earl Weaver, Microleague, Pete Rose Pennant Fever and a bunch more. I would say my favorite first ones were Earl Weaver and Front Page Sports Baseball. I played a full season with Earl Weaver and had a great time with it.

[marklaker]

Started out with my own imaginary leagues (had countless notebooks filled with stats) and eventually graduated to:

- Cadaco
- Sports Illustrated
- Negamco
- Big League Manager
- Stat-O-Matic
- FPS
- OOTP

Mark

[lencombs]

Strat-o-matic board game when was a kid

Some baseball game on the Oddysey game system

Earl Weaver Baseball first cpu baseball game I played around '91 or 92 on a Zenith 286. Loved the design your own park feature, and historical players. 8 of us in the Navy on a 6 month west pac cruise drafted from an all-time historical roster and played head to head a full season. I won around 116 games then lost in the Series.

Couple versions of Tony Lasussa

Couple versions of High Heat

OOTP last few years

[Yaz1961]

Actually, in my opinion, the best pre-computer baseball game was APBA. It seemed to be the closest to being accurate to real baseball and was a lot of fun to play. I'd like to buy the game again and see if i can get a league going.

[edm]

if you loved all those old mattel handheld games (football, baseball) check out this little program. they're a little boring to play, compared to what we're used to these days, but it's pretty cool just hearing what they sounded like again.