29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great game + sloppy writing = great book, July 2, 2005
This review is from: Strat-O-Matic Fanatics: The Unlikely Success Story Of A Game That Became An American Passion (Paperback)
Obviously, you're not going to read this book unless you've already invested hundreds of hours of your life in playing Strat-O-Matic Baseball. I got the game as a birthday present from a cousin when I turned ten, and again from my mother when I turned 14. With the occasional lapse along the way, I've been a regular player for over 20 years now, and was even fortunate enough to get my name in the computer game credits for two of those years. Therefore, I was destined to buy and read this book, even if it was written by, oh, let's say, the editorial staff of the Washington Times.
Glenn Guzzo, newspaper editor and long-time Strat-O fan, is the man who refused to use the corporate name for the new Mile High Stadium in Denver in his old paper. I therefore had high hopes for the writing of this book. Basically, I was disappointed with the end result, but not enough to prevent me from finishing. Maybe the problem is in the editing -- game creator Harold "Hal" Richman is called by his full name on almost every other page. Other details, such as the circumstances of Hal's first "intimate encounter" with a woman, just don't belong here.
However, the star of this book is the Strat-O-Matic game, the history of which would be enthralling no matter what. The stories from celebrity Strat-O players are quite welcome, especially Spike Lee's. I'm actually going to have to watch "Crooklyn" now. So Guzzo's done what a team of wild horses haven't been able to do.
The first two thirds of the book detail the game's creation, and its survival by creative evolution in the competitive board-game and video game markets. One upside is that, since I finished the book, I've been playing my computer version in dice mode, the first time I've rolled dice to play Strat-O in almost a decade. Not that the results have worked out very well for my retro-league 1934 Boston Braves. Wally Berger, stay out of the 3 column!
The final third of the book details the derivation of the annual fielding ratings, and also includes numerous personal stories, such as a weekend at a face-to-face Strat tournament, and biographies of representative Strat players. As with any game that requires such a time commitment in order to become proficient, Strat draws its share of troubled personalities for whom the game defeats real life. I had to set the game aside in college when it came time to graduate, and didn't get back to it for two years, until my academic future stabilized. The book covers the down side as well as the up.
A book about Strat-O-Matic is going to have a built-in audience and is not going to have much crossover appeal. Therefore, it need not be written by David McCullough or Simon Winchester (though that would be nice). I doubt that a significant portion of the target audience is going to be put off by simplistic writing or the occasional awkward literary device ("That is why the boys' discovery...nearly killed Strat-O-Matic before its birth"). Go read the book, then pick up the dice and cards for a few hours, and see if you can't manage to lose a few to my lowly '34 Braves.
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Insiders Look At Table-Top Baseball, February 18, 2005
This review is from: Strat-O-Matic Fanatics: The Unlikely Success Story Of A Game That Became An American Passion (Paperback)
This is a fascinating look at the life of Hal Richman,the creator of the Strat-O-Matic game company. It follows him from his introverted childhood to the ultimate success of his business. Table top sports games and their computer based successors have been enjoyed by many fans of all ages. This book affords the reader an inside view on the whole process of this particular games evolution and its statistical accuracy.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The game that changed baseball, March 5, 2005
This review is from: Strat-O-Matic Fanatics: The Unlikely Success Story Of A Game That Became An American Passion (Paperback)
Hal Richman figures prominently in Alan Schwartz's "The Numbers Game," a history of the evolution of statistics in baseball. Schwartz interviewed fifty current baseball executives and found HALF of them had played SOM as a child. On a simple "guilty pleasure" level, there is no way that anyone who played SOM wouldn't buy this book to relive their childhood for a few hours. But it is a meaningful work in many other ways: a young man overcoming a painful childhood. A passion becoming a career. A primer in how to succeed in small business. An example of a "perfect" product reaching its audience.
In "Moneyball" you will find some fleeting references to SOM, its statistics and its impact upon baseball people such as Beane, DePodesta, Epstein, etc. In "The Numbers Game" you will find how this game - a box game, for crying out loud - played as important a role in understanding baseball games as box scores and scouting reports. This book puts you inside the company.
Any baseball fan should own all three books.
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