 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(February 2024) |
All Star Baseball is a 1941 baseball board game designed by baseball player Ethan Allen. [1] The game, manufactured by Cadaco-Ellis, was the best-selling baseball board game of all time. [2] It has been honored as one of the fifty most influential American board games of all time.[ by whom? ]
Ethan Allen had formulated the idea for a baseball-themed board game while playing for the Chicago Cubs, and brought the idea to Charles Mazer, head of Cadaco-Ellis. The first edition of All Star Baseball was released in 1941 and sold for $1.25. [2]
Unlike more simulation-focused competitors, most notably Strat-o-Matic Baseball, ASB is aimed at a younger audience and is simpler to play. [3] The initial target audience was boys 9–12 years old. It simulates batters' performance well, but makes no attempt to model the performance of individual pitchers.
It was the only such game to have been distributed through mass market channels and toy stores for any extended period of time.[ citation needed ] The annual versions of the game were discontinued in the mid-1990s due to the loss of market share to video games and greatly increased player licensing costs, but a commemorative version was issued in 2003.
Nevertheless, many fans passionately bought each year's cards and collected statistics from neighborhood leagues, some amassing as many as 2,500 games worth of paper box scores and comparing those totals with the actual players' statistics.[ citation needed ]
The game board for ASB has two spinners on top of a diagram of a baseball field. A hole for a baserunner peg is cut at the location of each base. A cardboard back panel is inserted into cut-out slots in the board, displays the key to the game cards and cardboard wheels that can be turned to display the correct inning, the number of outs and the score.
Each circular player card has a series of lines and numbers arranged in a circle around its center. The card is placed on a spinner, which the batting player spins. (Aficionados would spin the metal pointers with rubber bands to avoid blisters.) Once the spinner came to rest between two lines, the number for that section defined what happened to that batter.
If one or more runners were on base, the pitching player would spin the other spinner, which displayed zones that defined whether runners advanced, scored or were out on the play.
Some special plays, as well as attempted steals, required the use of two special pink situation cards, which went on the pitching player's spinner and indicated the result when spun.
There were no pitching cards nor fielding cards, although pitchers' batting statistics were present on their cards. This made the game inherently less mathematically accurate than its older-audience rivals.
The chart for the meaning of each number on the cards is below. The earliest versions of ASB utilized this list:
Later versions featured a simpler chart, augmented by second spins on the fielding player's side (presumably to give that player more to do), with only the "3" section fundamentally changed:
For the 1975 release, the batting chart was reduced to the eight possible results:
All other rules of the game match those of regular baseball.
Until about 1980 ASB had a mix of current Major League stars and Hall of Fame players. As more athletes (and their estates) asserted licensing rights over the use of their names the old-time players were dropped from the game, although a handful of individuals were included occasionally in an annual set.
Each of the then current players were asked to sign off on a release form granting permission to include their batting statistics in the game. This practice continued for almost 50 years after the introduction of the game. Although a few declined, most agreed despite the fact that they were not compensated for being included.
In 1995 the game came under the MLBPA license, which made the design of the game cards more sophisticated but also added significantly to the cost of production. Since the change in its business model to absorb the MLBPA royalties Cadaco has stopped issuing regular annual updates to the game, and its publishing future remains unclear.
Although numbers have varied, the typical ASB boxed set contained 40 player cards for early sets, and 63 player cards for later sets.
During most of its history ASB has had annual updates of its boxed board game with new players and updated stats. During some eras Cadaco-Ellis has also sold older cards by mail, and in recent years the cards have become popular on eBay.
As part of the special 2003 commemorative version, Cadaco also issued separate individually packaged sets of player cards for an All-Star Player Pack, the 2003 Ultimate Series (New York Yankees vs. Florida Marlins) and the 2003 Fantasy Series (Boston Red Sox vs. Chicago Cubs). These held action photos to further identify them as being collectible baseball cards.
There is a significant collectors market for older cards, which are broken down into several eras (all years are approximate) as printing technology evolved:
The published 1941 game was considered only a first draft. In 1975, Cadaco did try a version with 8 categories instead of 14, but the cards were already collected by dedicated players and the re-design was abandoned by Cadaco. Despite the increases in complexity, the game was intended for boys, not adults.
A base on balls (BB), better known as a walk occurs in baseball when a batter receives four pitches during a plate appearance that the umpire calls balls, and is in turn awarded first base without the possibility of being called out. The base on balls is defined in Section 2.00 of baseball's Official Rules, and further detail is given in 6.08(a). Despite being known as a "walk", it is considered a faux pas for a professional player to literally walk to first base; the batter-runner and any advancing runners normally jog on such a play.
Softball is a sport similar to baseball, and it is played with a larger ball on a smaller field and with only underhand pitches permitted. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hancock.
Cribbage, or crib, is a card game, traditionally for two players, that involves playing and grouping cards in combinations which gain points. It can be adapted for three or four players.
A baseball card is a type of trading card relating to baseball, usually printed on cardboard, silk, or plastic. In the 1950s, they came with a stick of gum and a limited number of cards. These cards feature one or more baseball players, teams, stadiums, or celebrities.
The infield fly rule is a rule of baseball and softball that treats certain fly balls as though caught, before the ball is caught, even if the infielder fails to catch it or drops it on purpose. The umpire's declaration of an infield fly means that the batter is out regardless of whether the ball is caught. The rule exists solely to prevent the defense from executing a double play or triple play by deliberately failing to catch a ball that an infielder could catch with ordinary effort.
In baseball, a foul ball is a batted ball that:
Throughout the history of baseball, the rules have frequently changed as the game continues to evolve. A few common rules most professional leagues have in common is that four balls is a base on balls, three strikes is a strikeout, and three outs end a half-inning.
Pesäpallo is a fast-moving bat-and-ball sport that is often referred to as the national sport of Finland and has some presence in other countries including Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, and Canada's northern Ontario. It is similar to brännboll, rounders, and lapta, as well as baseball.
Baseball scorekeeping is the practice of recording the details of a baseball game as it unfolds. Professional baseball leagues hire official scorers to keep an official record of each game, but many fans keep score as well for their own enjoyment. Scorekeeping is usually done on a printed scorecard and, while official scorers must adhere precisely to one of the few different scorekeeping notations, most fans exercise some amount of creativity and adopt their own symbols and styles.
DeWayne Allison Buice is a former professional relief pitcher. Buice played two seasons for the California Angels and half a season for the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball (MLB). He officially announced his retirement and played in his final game on June 27, 1989, but he continued to make appearances in the minor leagues into the 2000s, exclusively for teams in which he had an ownership stake.
In the sport of baseball, small ball is an informal term for an offensive strategy in which the batting team emphasizes placing runners on base and then advancing them into scoring position for a run in a deliberate, methodical way. This strategy places a high value on individual runs and attempts to score them without requiring extra base hits, or sometimes without base hits at all, instead using bases on balls, stolen bases, sacrifice bunt or sacrifice fly balls, the hit-and-run play, and aggressive baserunning with such plays as the contact play. A commonly used term for a run produced playing small ball is a "manufactured run". This style of play was more often found in National League game situations than in the American League due in large part to the absence of the designated hitter in the National League until the universal adoption of the Designated Hitter.
Statis Pro Baseball was a strategic baseball simulation board game. It was created by Jim Barnes in 1970, named after a daily newspaper column he wrote for an Iowa morning newspaper, and published by Avalon Hill in 1978, and new player cards were made for each new season until 1992. A licensing dispute with Major League Baseball led Avalon Hill to cease production of new cards. The game, however, came with instructions for players to create their own cards, so each year many people produce their own player cards, and some even sell them online.
This is an alphabetical list of selected unofficial and specialized terms, phrases, and other jargon used in baseball, along with their definitions, including illustrative examples for many entries.
Baseball is a card game simulating the sport of baseball, played with special cards and a diagram of a baseball diamond. The game was created by Ed-u-Cards Manufacturing Corporation, New York.
Challenge The Yankees was a popular baseball board game, sold only in 1964 and 1965 by Hasbro of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The game and many of its components, especially the player cards is now a popular eBay item, consisting of 25 New York Yankees player cards, 25 All Star player cards (non-Yankees), a baseball diamond game board, cards representing different plays 4 pegs to move around the bases, manager strategy cards, and other accessories. The player up at bat rolls the dice, and refers to that "batter's" card, to check to see what that dice roll represents for that particular ball player, and moves a pegs accordingly. Each player's card is different, for example, a dice roll of 3 when Yogi Berra is at bat represents a home run, while a 3 rolled for Bill Mazeroski represents a base on balls. The object is to score the most runs at the end of 9 innings.
The Game of Life, also known simply as Life, is a board game originally created in 1860 by Milton Bradley as The Checkered Game for Life, the first ever board game for his own company, the Milton Bradley Company. The Game of Life was US's first popular parlour game. The game simulates a person's travels through their life, from early adulthood to retirement, with college if necessary, jobs, marriage, and possible children along the way. Up to six players, depending on the version, can participate in a single game. Variations of the game accommodate up to ten players.
Michael Meyers is an American scout for the Arizona Diamondbacks, and a former professional baseball outfielder.
Diceball! is a board game in which two players roll dice to simulate a baseball game, one representing the visiting team and the other the home team. Both players use the dice to throw the baseball from the mound to the plate and field the ball on defense. Diceball! was designed to mirror the statistical reality of baseball. A regular game of Diceball! without extra innings lasts about 45 minutes.