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How to begin?
Aug. 1st, 2010 04:27 pmI was born in the shadow of Ebbets Field in 1952. The silent 8mm home movies of my infancy often included Brooklyn's Green Cathedral as a backdrop...hence a life long fascination with baseball. My first memory of actually watching a full baseball game on TV (in glorious black and white) was the Fall Classic of 1960. There was only one MLB team in NYC from 1958 until 1962, the Yankees, as both the Dodger and Giants had abandoned New York for the Left Coast. The 1960 World Series, between the Yanks and Pittsburgh Pirates was a 7-game affair that came down to a walk-off shot by Buc second baseman Bill Mazeroski. The Yankees demolished the Pirates in games 2, 3 and 6 by scores of 16-3, 10-0 and 12-0. the Pirates won games 1, 4 and 5 by scores of 6-4, 3-2 and 5-2. Game 7 was one for the ages with the Bronx Bombers taking a 7-4 lead into the bottom of the 8th inning. The Pirates scored 5 runs in the bottom of the 8th to take a 9-7 lead. The Yanks tied it up with 2 runs in the top of the 9th before Maz's shot off Ralph Terry cleared the left field fence of Forbes Field and left fielder Yogi Berra could only watch it. This frustration, as an eight year old, prepared me well for 48 years as a NY Mets fan.
The next baseball season, 1961, was my first full season as a fan. The American League expanded from 8 to 10 teams, as Washington moved to Minnesota to become the Twins and MLB granted expansion franchises to the Los Angeles Angels and Washington Senators. The Angels played their inaugural season in Wrigley Field (LA not Chi), later the home of the TV series "Home Run Derby"
The 1961 season saw a power surge in the Bronx, as both Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were chasing Babe Ruth's record of 60 homeruns accomplished in 154 games in 1927. Maris' 61 HRs and Mantle's 54 weren't the only slugging seen at the big ball orchard in the Bronx. Moose Skowron hit 28, Yogi Berri 22, Johnny Blanchard and Elston Howard each had 21 dingers. Whitey Ford was 25-4 with Ralph Terry 16-3 and reliever Luis Arroyo winning 15 games and saving 29. Casey Stengel had been fired after the loss to Pittsburgh with Ralph Houk taking over the reins for the 61 season.
This blog will chronicle my replaying all 162 games for the 1961 Yankees on my tabletop. I will be utilizing a variety of dice driven, statistically accurate old-fashioned board games. To keep from going totally schizo, I will play the games in blocks of 8-10 games alternating among APBA, Strat-O-Matic, Replay and Statis Pro Baseball games. I am using the actual starting lineups and pitchers courtesy of RetroSheet. I'll keep score and statistics using a neat shareware computer program called BallStat/BallScore. At the same time I'll be using a text based computer baseball game called Diamond Mind Baseball to compare and contrast the computer experiences to old-fashioned cards and dice. I will be analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of all the games from the vantage point of a board game reviewer and student of board game design.
I'll also try to weave in a little of what was happening in the real world of 1961 as well as introduce my readers to some of the friends who will assist me in my quest.
K-ban
The next baseball season, 1961, was my first full season as a fan. The American League expanded from 8 to 10 teams, as Washington moved to Minnesota to become the Twins and MLB granted expansion franchises to the Los Angeles Angels and Washington Senators. The Angels played their inaugural season in Wrigley Field (LA not Chi), later the home of the TV series "Home Run Derby"
The 1961 season saw a power surge in the Bronx, as both Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were chasing Babe Ruth's record of 60 homeruns accomplished in 154 games in 1927. Maris' 61 HRs and Mantle's 54 weren't the only slugging seen at the big ball orchard in the Bronx. Moose Skowron hit 28, Yogi Berri 22, Johnny Blanchard and Elston Howard each had 21 dingers. Whitey Ford was 25-4 with Ralph Terry 16-3 and reliever Luis Arroyo winning 15 games and saving 29. Casey Stengel had been fired after the loss to Pittsburgh with Ralph Houk taking over the reins for the 61 season.
This blog will chronicle my replaying all 162 games for the 1961 Yankees on my tabletop. I will be utilizing a variety of dice driven, statistically accurate old-fashioned board games. To keep from going totally schizo, I will play the games in blocks of 8-10 games alternating among APBA, Strat-O-Matic, Replay and Statis Pro Baseball games. I am using the actual starting lineups and pitchers courtesy of RetroSheet. I'll keep score and statistics using a neat shareware computer program called BallStat/BallScore. At the same time I'll be using a text based computer baseball game called Diamond Mind Baseball to compare and contrast the computer experiences to old-fashioned cards and dice. I will be analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of all the games from the vantage point of a board game reviewer and student of board game design.
I'll also try to weave in a little of what was happening in the real world of 1961 as well as introduce my readers to some of the friends who will assist me in my quest.
K-ban