Demographics of people playing OOTP 19 - Page 4

dave1927p · 04-19-2018, 07:56 PM

I'm 29, started playing my first stat based game (EHM) at 18 when I was stuck in my bed all summer with a herniated disc in my back. That led to my discovery of OOTP soon after during my recover year. Been hooked ever since. Never really played any computer games prior with the exception of the odd sim city or the sims spurts

Had i never hurt my back in hockey, i would of never discovered how much i enjoy stat based sport sims including OOTP. Had I by chance discovered it, probably wouldn't of given it the time to really enjoy.

kehowey · 04-19-2018, 08:30 PM

I'm 69. I played my first baseball simulation game in 1961. What a year for my Tigers. Damn Yankees. My first baseball game was Ethan Allen's All Star Baseball. I have been playing baseball sims ever since and have gone through Earl Weaver, High Heat and for a short while Baseball Mogul. I have solely played OOTP for the last dozen years. It is by far my favorite baseball game. In 1961 I would have envisioned OOTP19 as pure science fiction

brewers22 · 04-19-2018, 09:01 PM

What a great thread. Thanks for starting this, it is fascinating.

56 - I buy every version of this game and have for at least 10-12 years. It's the one game I buy every year without question.

I also started with All Star Baseball - spinners and round cards. I made my own cards once I figured out the math behind it. There was a paper "GM" game that came out in the early-mid 80's, but I don't remember the name of it. I dissected that and tried to program a computer version on my commodore 64. It didn't work well. First pc game was on a Tandy, I think it was Earl Weaver BB. Been hooked ever since.....

I've never played on-line league. Usually play real MLB, but fictional once in a while for fun.

Cheers, and Go Brewers !

Flanders52 · 04-19-2018, 10:47 PM

I also started with All Star Baseball - spinners and round cards.

Cheers, and Go Brewers!

I spent my teens living by a family of 7 boys and 1 girl, spent most of my time at their house playing different games. They used to have All Star Baseball before I met them and the stories I was told about that game, who'd a thought it would be full contact! God forbid the spinner didn't land clearly on an option.....

Go Brewers indeed!

kehowey · 04-20-2018, 02:23 AM

Since I started my baseball sim career with Ethan Allen's All-Star Baseball and since Ethan Allen played centerfield in the 20s and 30s and later coach George H. W. Bush at Yale. I thought I would put Ethan Allen in my OOTP game. So I did a Facegen.

Shoeless' Socks · 04-20-2018, 09:17 AM

I'm almost 43 and have either played, watched, or gamed baseball all my life. As a young boy, I'd make cassette tapes of me announcing games.

I had a professor in college that had every APBA set, card set, and everything that APBA had ever made in a huge room in his house and I was amazed. I've been playing since Microleague, Pursue the Pennant, Diamond Mind, etc. since computers were popularized.

Surprisingly, I've never picked up APBA as I don't have the patience for the manual record keeping, etc.

Solonor · 04-20-2018, 09:44 AM

I'm 55 and in Maine. I started making up my own baseball games with baseball cards and dice when I was around 10 or so. Then, I discovered Avalon Hill's Statis Pro Baseball and was hooked on that through my teens.

In 1990, I started an online computer baseball league using a BBS to communicate with the team owners and Earl Weaver Baseball to run the sims. We even rented out a Pizza Hut conference room one year for our face-to-face draft! Eventually, I upgraded to EW2, then to Tony LaRussa and Front Page Sports before moving to Florida and dissolving the league.

In 2003, some co-workers and I decided to create a new league, and I went looking for a game that would serve as the sim engine. I found OOTP 5, and we quickly adopted that as our standard.

We were trying to think of the league names when someone suggested that it was Shire vs Mordor, and it stuck. We went whole hog with it and all of the player and teams would have some form of fantasy name, preferrably Tolkien based. And on April 1, 2003 (April Fool's Day), we launched Solonor's Groovy Computer Baseball League.

Unbelievably, we are now in 2018, and the league is still going. We just started Spring Training for our 35th season. We have upgraded to every version of OOTP since 5, and I became a beta tester for several years. We haven't switched to 19, yet, but that will come eventually. I love this game and the people who make it.

drksd4848 · 04-20-2018, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChromEagle

I know and I apologize.

Ah... No need. You're one of the good ones

darkcloud4579 · 04-20-2018, 11:40 AM

In my late 30s, did the pen & paper thing in the 90s, then moved onto FPS Baseball and Football, got into FOF, then baseball mogul. Initially thought OOTP was too much but moved over with OOTP5 and haven't left.

Eugene Church · 04-20-2018, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shoeless' Socks

I'm almost 43 and have either played, watched, or gamed baseball all my life. As a young boy, I'd make cassette tapes of me announcing games.

I had a professor in college that had every APBA set, card set, and everything that APBA had ever made in a huge room in his house and I was amazed. I've been playing since Microleague, Pursue the Pennant, Diamond Mind, etc. since computers were popularized.

Surprisingly, I've never picked up APBA as I don't have the patience for the manual record keeping, etc.

I used to do the play-by-play while watching a game on TV.

Wanted to be a sports broadcaster... when I went into radio as a disc jockey, the owner of a very, very small market radio station sold a playoff package to cover the local high school's football team... he did the play-by-play and was pretty darn good... he MADE me do the color.

I wasn't very good... my desire to be a sportscaster came to a sudden and abrupt halt.

I made my wife do the stats at the game and also spot... which was an impossible task.

I used to do broadcast of my APBA games... complete with crowd cheering I created with my own voice.

Yes, it was embarrassing when an adult asked my why I was making that strange noise.

Eugene Church · 04-20-2018, 02:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solonor

I'm 55 and in Maine. I started making up my own baseball games with baseball cards and dice when I was around 10 or so. Then, I discovered Avalon Hill's Statis Pro Baseball and was hooked on that through my teens.

In 1990, I started an online computer baseball league using a BBS to communicate with the team owners and Earl Weaver Baseball to run the sims. We even rented out a Pizza Hut conference room one year for our face-to-face draft! Eventually, I upgraded to EW2, then to Tony LaRussa and Front Page Sports before moving to Florida and dissolving the league.

In 2003, some co-workers and I decided to create a new league, and I went looking for a game that would serve as the sim engine. I found OOTP 5, and we quickly adopted that as our standard.

We were trying to think of the league names when someone suggested that it was Shire vs Mordor, and it stuck. We went whole hog with it and all of the player and teams would have some form of fantasy name, preferrably Tolkien based. And on April 1, 2003 (April Fool's Day), we launched Solonor's Groovy Computer Baseball League.

Unbelievably, we are now in 2018, and the league is still going. We just started Spring Training for our 35th season. We have upgraded to every version of OOTP since 5, and I became a beta tester for several years. We haven't switched to 19, yet, but that will come eventually. I love this game and the people who make it.

Thanks for sharing you website with us.

Solonor, this is a terrific creation... you are to commended to the highest level.

A very impressive league and website... a very unique and very special league.

I think there are a lot of people on the Dynasty Forum that would love to follow your league.

Qrusher14242 · 04-20-2018, 03:54 PM

I'm 35(almost 36), and been playing since Season Ticket Baseball. I've played every version since.
v4 and v6.5 are ones that hold a special place for me.
I've played every High heat baseball game(and miss them dearly, nothing like them since

All the mods it had with stadiums and being able to edit so much was fun. DangerZ's (?) editor was amazing.
Also played Microsoft Baseball 2000 lol Can't imagine that looks or plays good anymore. Triple play 2000 was also really fun.
I believe the first baseball game i played was 'Major league Manager' in DOS.

Frogwise · 04-20-2018, 07:07 PM

30 year old from the UK. I've been aware of OOTP for over ten years, since it was a part of Sports Interactive, and it always intrigued me. The ability to play any historical season was something that sounded incredibly cool to me, as Football Manager had nothing like that. Problem was I didn't know the first thing about baseball...

Fast-forward to recently and I was again reminded of OOTP and decided that not knowing baseball wasn't a good enough reason not to give it a try, especially when I actually already had an OOTP 18 Steam code from a past Humble Bundle purchase.

I'm still getting to grips with the complexities of it, but the game is everything I hoped it would be, and a lot, lot more. I've started watching some real life MLB games and it's even inspired me to play Super Mega Baseball, which I've been enjoying. I would love to play MLB The Show too, but I don't have a console at the moment. So OOTP is wholly responsible for my new-found interest in baseball.

Aumakua · 04-20-2018, 08:25 PM

38, single white male

oh wait, married with 2 kids, dog and cat

been playing baseball games since the 80s, started on Nintendo, favorites were RBI Baseball, Bases Loaded and I think it was called Baseball Super Stars or something like that (totally fictitious players but fun), in fact that last game was what got me started on in depth games, building up players...

Loved Front Page Sports games and then had to move on to High Heat. took a while off and eventually Mogul got me into this genre, stuck with them for a few years and I think it was the award part of the game that led me to OOTP (wanted more options and to pick myself, simple things in life), I didn't even realize some things like baseball cards could be made and now its one of my favorite features. I can see myself playing this game into old age, cool to see some "old timers" on here. Really looks like the demographic for this game is older (like over 30) compared to most "video games" being teens and 20s.

Will_L · 04-20-2018, 09:21 PM

55 and a wargamer (board & miniatures) since the mid '70's. Had a spinner baseball game that had round cutout cards that you put over the spinners for the pitcher & hitter for the results, it was called All Star Baseball or something like that and had players from the late 50's and early 60's. A neighbors widow gave me this with a bunch of other games when her husband passed away, I was 12 at the time and ran an eight team league and kept stats for a 56 game season several times LOL. Thank you Mrs. Scott!

Played a lot of Pursue the Pennant board game over the years, Earl Weaver on my C64, Cactus League/Baseball Mogul/OOTP (since 14) on pc. (edit to add) Avalon Hill's Baseball Strategy was my first baseball game which I got for Xmas at 11 along with Football Strategy.

Thanks to kehowey for mentioning Ethan Allen's All-Star Baseball up above, I googled it and it is the game that I first mentioned :-D Wish I still had it, would be cool to give it another spin.

DahLZy · 04-21-2018, 04:11 AM

Age 24. Go twins.

Hoiles · 04-21-2018, 10:01 AM

I’m 41 and started playing OOTP3 with the Vlad Guerrero-led Expos. Started playing games like Tony LaRussa and World Series baseball on Sega, then moved on to Hardball, High Heat, MVP baseball and the 2k games. At this point though I like having the simulated players play out the game for in a realistic and immersive game like OOTP rather than my thumbs.

HolyCow98 · 04-21-2018, 11:50 AM

45 years old.

Video games definitely got me into baseball first. I don't remember what age but I remember my best friend had just started playing little league.

First it was Baseball on the Atari 2600. followed by ....

Computer Baseball - C64
Microleague Baseball - C64
Earl Weaver Baseball - C Amiga 500
Front Page Sports Baseball Pro 98 (there was another version of this I played too) - Win 98
High Heat Baseball - Win98
OOTP 3 to current except I missed OOTP 11 & 13 - Win 98 thru 10
There were others but those were the main ones for me.

Around the time of me playing Earl Weaver Baseball I got a book called Total Baseball. I fell in love with the history of the game. Spent countless hours age 11-14 creating teams using that book and all the stats it offered.

While I loved playing the game and controlling the pitchers and hitters, about this time I discovered I was fascinated watching the teams play each other without any input from me.

I rediscovered that feeling and more when I discovered a site called Sport Sim Central (i think that is what was called). That led me to hearing about OOTP 2 at the time. Shortly after OOTP 3 came out I bought it and the rest is history. Reading Tiger Fan's dynasty posts was a huge motivation because it reminded me of what I was trying to do with Earl Weaver Baseball when I was a kid.

Wasn't OOTP 3 the first version that had full Windows support. Before that was a DOS based?

I didn't go to my first game sadly until I was 25-26 years old. I grew up in NW Florida. Most of that time the nearest team was Atlanta. At 24 I moved to New Hampshire. A year or so later, a Family member had 4 tickets @ fenway. It was Cleveland and Orel Hershiser vs Boston and Tom "Flash" Gordon. The one time I get up to go to the bathroom Mo Vaughn hits the only Homer of the game and I missed it lol.

neugey · 04-21-2018, 03:19 PM

I'm 46 and used to enjoy the Ernie Harwell APBA games in the 90's. OOTP is cool, but I'm starting to play it more as a GM and less as a manager like I did APBA. Still - something is missing. I really love card-collecting and role-playing aspects. I'm hoping the Perfect Team scratches that itch.

brewers22 · 04-21-2018, 10:39 PM

"Then, I discovered Avalon Hill's Statis Pro Baseball and was hooked on that through my teens."

Oh geez, I forgot about this. What great memories. I was also into any FB game that was similar, and Front Page Sports Football 98 was the best.

So, did anyone else collect Street and Smiths or other Baseball yearbooks? I also had every version of Baseball Abstract, which just fueled the obsession.

04-19-2018, 07:56 PM	#61
dave1927p FHM Moderator Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Brantford, ON Posts: 2,888	I'm 29, started playing my first stat based game (EHM) at 18 when I was stuck in my bed all summer with a herniated disc in my back. That led to my discovery of OOTP soon after during my recover year. Been hooked ever since. Never really played any computer games prior with the exception of the odd sim city or the sims spurts Had i never hurt my back in hockey, i would of never discovered how much i enjoy stat based sport sims including OOTP. Had I by chance discovered it, probably wouldn't of given it the time to really enjoy. __________________ IN 1964 THE LEAFS WON THE STANLEY CUP :: IT'S ALSO THE YEAR THE CANADIAN FLAG WAS DESIGNED...coincidence? Last edited by dave1927p; 04-19-2018 at 07:58 PM.

04-19-2018, 10:47 PM	#64
Flanders52 Bat Boy Join Date: Apr 2018 Posts: 6	I also started with All Star Baseball - spinners and round cards. Cheers, and Go Brewers! I spent my teens living by a family of 7 boys and 1 girl, spent most of my time at their house playing different games. They used to have All Star Baseball before I met them and the stories I was told about that game, who'd a thought it would be full contact! God forbid the spinner didn't land clearly on an option..... Go Brewers indeed! Last edited by Flanders52; 04-19-2018 at 11:03 PM.

04-20-2018, 09:44 AM	#67
Solonor Hall Of Famer Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Maine Posts: 4,457	I'm 55 and in Maine. I started making up my own baseball games with baseball cards and dice when I was around 10 or so. Then, I discovered Avalon Hill's Statis Pro Baseball and was hooked on that through my teens. In 1990, I started an online computer baseball league using a BBS to communicate with the team owners and Earl Weaver Baseball to run the sims. We even rented out a Pizza Hut conference room one year for our face-to-face draft! Eventually, I upgraded to EW2, then to Tony LaRussa and Front Page Sports before moving to Florida and dissolving the league. In 2003, some co-workers and I decided to create a new league, and I went looking for a game that would serve as the sim engine. I found OOTP 5, and we quickly adopted that as our standard. We were trying to think of the league names when someone suggested that it was Shire vs Mordor, and it stuck. We went whole hog with it and all of the player and teams would have some form of fantasy name, preferrably Tolkien based. And on April 1, 2003 (April Fool's Day), we launched Solonor's Groovy Computer Baseball League. Unbelievably, we are now in 2018, and the league is still going. We just started Spring Training for our 35th season. We have upgraded to every version of OOTP since 5, and I became a beta tester for several years. We haven't switched to 19, yet, but that will come eventually. I love this game and the people who make it. __________________ Solonor's Groovy Computer Baseball League - Making baseball a hobbit since 2003! "Beings will come, Frodo. The one constant through all the years has been baseball. Middle Earth has rolled by like an army of Mumakil. It has been erased like a slate, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Frodo. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... beings will come Frodo. Beings will most definitely come." - Gladden Field of Dreams

04-20-2018, 03:54 PM	#72
Qrusher14242 All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: CA Posts: 1,253	I'm 35(almost 36), and been playing since Season Ticket Baseball. I've played every version since. v4 and v6.5 are ones that hold a special place for me. I've played every High heat baseball game(and miss them dearly, nothing like them since All the mods it had with stadiums and being able to edit so much was fun. DangerZ's (?) editor was amazing. Also played Microsoft Baseball 2000 lol Can't imagine that looks or plays good anymore. Triple play 2000 was also really fun. I believe the first baseball game i played was 'Major league Manager' in DOS. __________________ "Go then, there are other worlds than these"

04-20-2018, 09:21 PM	#75
Will_L All Star Reserve Join Date: Mar 2018 Location: Laurelton, NY Posts: 590	55 and a wargamer (board & miniatures) since the mid '70's. Had a spinner baseball game that had round cutout cards that you put over the spinners for the pitcher & hitter for the results, it was called All Star Baseball or something like that and had players from the late 50's and early 60's. A neighbors widow gave me this with a bunch of other games when her husband passed away, I was 12 at the time and ran an eight team league and kept stats for a 56 game season several times LOL. Thank you Mrs. Scott! Played a lot of Pursue the Pennant board game over the years, Earl Weaver on my C64, Cactus League/Baseball Mogul/OOTP (since 14) on pc. (edit to add) Avalon Hill's Baseball Strategy was my first baseball game which I got for Xmas at 11 along with Football Strategy. Thanks to kehowey for mentioning Ethan Allen's All-Star Baseball up above, I googled it and it is the game that I first mentioned :-D Wish I still had it, would be cool to give it another spin. Last edited by Will_L; 04-20-2018 at 10:24 PM. Reason: to add.

04-19-2018, 08:30 PM	#62
kehowey Major Leagues Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: michigan Posts: 327	I'm 69. I played my first baseball simulation game in 1961. What a year for my Tigers. Damn Yankees. My first baseball game was Ethan Allen's All Star Baseball. I have been playing baseball sims ever since and have gone through Earl Weaver, High Heat and for a short while Baseball Mogul. I have solely played OOTP for the last dozen years. It is by far my favorite baseball game. In 1961 I would have envisioned OOTP19 as pure science fiction

04-19-2018, 09:01 PM	#63
brewers22 Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Land of Cheese and Beer Posts: 32	What a great thread. Thanks for starting this, it is fascinating. 56 - I buy every version of this game and have for at least 10-12 years. It's the one game I buy every year without question. I also started with All Star Baseball - spinners and round cards. I made my own cards once I figured out the math behind it. There was a paper "GM" game that came out in the early-mid 80's, but I don't remember the name of it. I dissected that and tried to program a computer version on my commodore 64. It didn't work well. First pc game was on a Tandy, I think it was Earl Weaver BB. Been hooked ever since..... I've never played on-line league. Usually play real MLB, but fictional once in a while for fun. Cheers, and Go Brewers !

04-20-2018, 09:17 AM	#66
Shoeless' Socks Minors (Double A) Join Date: Jul 2017 Posts: 157	I'm almost 43 and have either played, watched, or gamed baseball all my life. As a young boy, I'd make cassette tapes of me announcing games. I had a professor in college that had every APBA set, card set, and everything that APBA had ever made in a huge room in his house and I was amazed. I've been playing since Microleague, Pursue the Pennant, Diamond Mind, etc. since computers were popularized. Surprisingly, I've never picked up APBA as I don't have the patience for the manual record keeping, etc.

04-20-2018, 11:40 AM	#69
darkcloud4579 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 8,305 Blog Entries: 32	In my late 30s, did the pen & paper thing in the 90s, then moved onto FPS Baseball and Football, got into FOF, then baseball mogul. Initially thought OOTP was too much but moved over with OOTP5 and haven't left.

04-20-2018, 07:07 PM	#73
Frogwise Bat Boy Join Date: Apr 2018 Posts: 17	30 year old from the UK. I've been aware of OOTP for over ten years, since it was a part of Sports Interactive, and it always intrigued me. The ability to play any historical season was something that sounded incredibly cool to me, as Football Manager had nothing like that. Problem was I didn't know the first thing about baseball... Fast-forward to recently and I was again reminded of OOTP and decided that not knowing baseball wasn't a good enough reason not to give it a try, especially when I actually already had an OOTP 18 Steam code from a past Humble Bundle purchase. I'm still getting to grips with the complexities of it, but the game is everything I hoped it would be, and a lot, lot more. I've started watching some real life MLB games and it's even inspired me to play Super Mega Baseball, which I've been enjoying. I would love to play MLB The Show too, but I don't have a console at the moment. So OOTP is wholly responsible for my new-found interest in baseball.

04-20-2018, 08:25 PM	#74
Aumakua Major Leagues Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Flat lands Posts: 421	38, single white male oh wait, married with 2 kids, dog and cat been playing baseball games since the 80s, started on Nintendo, favorites were RBI Baseball, Bases Loaded and I think it was called Baseball Super Stars or something like that (totally fictitious players but fun), in fact that last game was what got me started on in depth games, building up players... Loved Front Page Sports games and then had to move on to High Heat. took a while off and eventually Mogul got me into this genre, stuck with them for a few years and I think it was the award part of the game that led me to OOTP (wanted more options and to pick myself, simple things in life), I didn't even realize some things like baseball cards could be made and now its one of my favorite features. I can see myself playing this game into old age, cool to see some "old timers" on here. Really looks like the demographic for this game is older (like over 30) compared to most "video games" being teens and 20s.

04-21-2018, 04:11 AM	#76
DahLZy Bat Boy Join Date: Mar 2018 Posts: 4	Age 24. Go twins.

04-21-2018, 10:01 AM	#77
Hoiles All Star Reserve Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Canada Posts: 572	I’m 41 and started playing OOTP3 with the Vlad Guerrero-led Expos. Started playing games like Tony LaRussa and World Series baseball on Sega, then moved on to Hardball, High Heat, MVP baseball and the 2k games. At this point though I like having the simulated players play out the game for in a realistic and immersive game like OOTP rather than my thumbs.

04-21-2018, 11:50 AM	#78
HolyCow98 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Douglasville, GA Posts: 2,735	45 years old. Video games definitely got me into baseball first. I don't remember what age but I remember my best friend had just started playing little league. First it was Baseball on the Atari 2600. followed by .... Computer Baseball - C64 Microleague Baseball - C64 Earl Weaver Baseball - C Amiga 500 Front Page Sports Baseball Pro 98 (there was another version of this I played too) - Win 98 High Heat Baseball - Win98 OOTP 3 to current except I missed OOTP 11 & 13 - Win 98 thru 10 There were others but those were the main ones for me. Around the time of me playing Earl Weaver Baseball I got a book called Total Baseball. I fell in love with the history of the game. Spent countless hours age 11-14 creating teams using that book and all the stats it offered. While I loved playing the game and controlling the pitchers and hitters, about this time I discovered I was fascinated watching the teams play each other without any input from me. I rediscovered that feeling and more when I discovered a site called Sport Sim Central (i think that is what was called). That led me to hearing about OOTP 2 at the time. Shortly after OOTP 3 came out I bought it and the rest is history. Reading Tiger Fan's dynasty posts was a huge motivation because it reminded me of what I was trying to do with Earl Weaver Baseball when I was a kid. Wasn't OOTP 3 the first version that had full Windows support. Before that was a DOS based? I didn't go to my first game sadly until I was 25-26 years old. I grew up in NW Florida. Most of that time the nearest team was Atlanta. At 24 I moved to New Hampshire. A year or so later, a Family member had 4 tickets @ fenway. It was Cleveland and Orel Hershiser vs Boston and Tom "Flash" Gordon. The one time I get up to go to the bathroom Mo Vaughn hits the only Homer of the game and I missed it lol. __________________ NPBL Enjoying its 60th season Georgia GM

04-21-2018, 03:19 PM	#79
neugey All Star Reserve Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 805 Blog Entries: 39	I'm 46 and used to enjoy the Ernie Harwell APBA games in the 90's. OOTP is cool, but I'm starting to play it more as a GM and less as a manager like I did APBA. Still - something is missing. I really love card-collecting and role-playing aspects. I'm hoping the Perfect Team scratches that itch.

04-21-2018, 10:39 PM	#80
brewers22 Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Land of Cheese and Beer Posts: 32	"Then, I discovered Avalon Hill's Statis Pro Baseball and was hooked on that through my teens." Oh geez, I forgot about this. What great memories. I was also into any FB game that was similar, and Front Page Sports Football 98 was the best. So, did anyone else collect Street and Smiths or other Baseball yearbooks? I also had every version of Baseball Abstract, which just fueled the obsession.