--- In stratmat@yahoogroups.com, "donnyj1938" wrote:

> Just wanted some input on the baseball board game.I use to have this
> game about 20 years ago but somehow it was lost not sure how?? I was
> thinking about buying a new one & wondering if any changes have been
> made to the game. Seems Im seeing something about a multi-sided dice
> but I can't remember this type of dice used 20 years ago. I play
> some PC baseball but thought it would be fun once again to roll some
> dice!!
> Thanks donnyJ

Hi, Donny, thanks for writing, and welcome to the group! My apologies
for taking so long to reply; summers and their related vacations have
distracted me from my Yahoo duties for a while. :-)

Yes, the board baseball game has changed a great deal in the past 20
years. The game company's dropping the orange 1-through-20 split-deck
cards in favor of the 20-sided die is the least of it! As everyone in
the group knows, I started playing again in 2003, exactly 20 years
after I had bought my last set. I was shocked at how much the board
game has changed, but if you played the advanced version before, you
should be able to catch up relatively easily.

Some of the more notable changes include:

-- Eight different pitching hitting cards, instead of four.

-- A standard 27-player roster for every team, a necessity given the
reality of roster moves today.

-- Original-team cards for players who were traded to the other league
in midseason. For example, second baseman Ronnie Belliard will get a
Cleveland Indians card in the 2006-season set, even though the Indians
traded him to the St. Louis Cardinals in midseason. The players who
need an original-team card the most will have their respective cards
included in the so-called mixed-player group, which comes standard
with the full-season set. Other such players come with the optional
additional-players set.

-- The super-advanced game has added many optional rules. Among them
is the former "supplementary stealing system," which is now standard.
The rankings are now all on the cards, not listed on a separate sheet
of paper. Also, batting cards now take into account the hitters'
performance in the clutch; the ballpark size; and even the weather.
There are too many other notable super-advanced rules to list here.

One change I don't like is that the cards are now sent on large
perforated sheets, instead of pre-cut and already wrapped in a rubber
band. Including the 27-player mixed-player group, that's 837 cards to
separate! What a pain! Also, the one optional rule I don't use is the
one that allows an outfielder to rob a batter of a home run. This
works relatively well in the computer game, but in the card game,
keeping track of what part of which ballpark can even apply this rule
makes it far more trouble than it's worth.

Playing the board game with all these new rules makes it far more
time-consuming that I remembered, but in my opinion, the game company
has done a good job of balancing the demand for more realism with the
need to keep the board game from becoming too complicated.

The $50 or so to buy the board game and the full season is worth it.
If you enjoyed the game before, you should enjoy it again.

-Gary K.