Where did you all get started (first Basball Sim)

[Claymore Cut]

Hey Guys,

I was curious to ask to get a feel for where you started in terms of Baseball Sims (we have an introduce your self thread, a Movies thread, why not a what was your first BB sim thread)?

This doesn't only include text based sims, any baseball sim counts (but no pure arcade games, Nintendo Baseball doesn;t count! [;)] )

Mine was Earl Weaver Baseball for the Commodore Amiga. I actually had my Mother buy me the Computer just to play that game after seeing it on my Friend's PC.

I set up what I called an Imperial League, which was an All-Time Great's League which I played for many years.

The game featured the first 1-pitch mode (now the stable of text sims) a stadium builder (you could actually see the stadium as it was built) and the first player announcer (Amiga version only). You could also create your own players (I think but am not 100% sure that this was the first sim to allow this). It is by far my favorite Baseball Sim (my first) and the one I hold every other up against.

What was your first Baseball Sim?

[RandyChase]

For sims in general, I started playing Strat-O-Matic in the late 60's.  My first computer sim was Roy Wagner's "Computer Baseball" by SSI for the Commodore 64.  I'm not certain, but I think that was the the first real sim available on the computer.  (I've always wondered what ever happend to Roy.  I corresponded with him for years, but eventually lost touch with him.)
 
Earl Weaver Baseball was a great product.  (I was a journalist way back then, and did an interview with Earl at a trade show in Las Vegas when the game was being announced.  The only two things I clearly remember was being surprised at how short he was.  And how smashed he was.  [:)])
 
I also spent a lot of years playing Lance Haffner's games. 
 
And since you mentioned the Amiga, do any of you remember the TV-Sports line that Pat Cook did for Cinemaware before he did the Front Page products?

[Claymore Cut]

And since you mentioned the Amiga, do any of you remember the TV-Sports line that Pat Cook did for Cinemaware before he did the Front Page products?

Football and Basketball if I remember, and yes I had both. I remember the cut scenes that would occur during the action. But my main passion was for EWB. I can't figure to this day how EA started so strong and has turned their sports games intot he arcade twitch fests they are today (guess that is where the big bucks are).

[motnahp]

Avalon Hill's Statis-Pro Baseball (board version) back in the early 80's. I eventually bought a Commodore 64 specifically so I could play SPB.

I tried every sim I could get my hands on for the C-64. Microleague Baseball and Microleague II were pretty good. Earl Weaver Baseball by Electronic Arts looked promising, but it proved to be a royal pain to input past players and teams. Lance Haffner Baseball seemed to have the most potential for statistical accuracy, but it took forrrrrrrrrever to get all the teams set up.

I gave up sims for a few years, then stumbled upon Commodore 64 emulators for my PC. I fumbled and bumbled through a few things and eventually got the C-64 version of Statis-Pro to run on my PC. I spent many hours putting in hundreds of teams. Statis-Pro had no "Auto-Play" feature, so I guess I got tired of hitting the space bar and searched the net for baseball sims.

I took a chance on Puresim, but also ordered the PC version of Lance Haffner and downloaded a demO Of an ofT-mentioned comPetitor. The demo didn't allow me to do the type of replay I wanted to test, so I did not consider buying it. Haffner's game didn't arrive in a timely manner. I had to call the company and get them to check their incoming mail (no joke).

I've had a few peaks and valleys with PS, but Shaun has always been there to build bridges across the valleys. His recent addition of the almanac feature leaves no doubt about his ability and dedication to this program. Good things continue to happen with PS, and I'm glad to be on board.

[DandricSturm]

Earl Weaver Baseball for PC for me. Played it for hours balancing my infant son on my knee.

[orton1227]

OOTP 4.   I always played the EA Sports series on the Genesis, then moved to World Series in 1998.  I then went to the High Heat series on the PC for 1999 and 2000, then found the greatness of OOTP 4, 5 and 6.

[JimboJ]

I started off with Hardball back in the early 90's.  From there it was Tony Larussa, then Front Page Sports (still my all-time favorite), then High Heat Baseball.  At the same time I started dabbling in text sims.  I think the first one was Strat-O-Matic, then Baseball for Windows, Diamond Mind, OOTP, and now Puresim.

[Beach23BoyP]

I started off with Strat-O-Matic in 1963! I still remember the day I came home and found it on my doorstep. I rolled those dice for years and years! I loved those 1962 Phillies!

[markprior22]

ORIGINAL: Beach23BoyP

I started off with Strat-O-Matic in 1963! I still remember the day I came home and found it on my doorstep. I rolled those dice for years and years! I loved those 1962 Phillies!

Haven't play SOM in years but I remember the tremendous anticipation when the delivery date for the new cards arrived. When they actually arrived, it was like Christmas. I had a buddy I'd call and we would go through the cards together like they were gold. God, those were fun, carefree times.

[Beach23BoyP]

ORIGINAL: markprior22

ORIGINAL: Beach23BoyP

I started off with Strat-O-Matic in 1963! I still remember the day I came home and found it on my doorstep. I rolled those dice for years and years! I loved those 1962 Phillies!

Haven't play SOM in years but I remember the tremendous anticipation when the delivery date for the new cards arrived. When they actually arrived, it was like Christmas. I had a buddy I'd call and we would go through the cards together like they were gold. God, those were fun, carefree times.

I had the original edition. I couldn't afford APBA -- so I had to buy SOM. I played both quite a bit and I guess over all I like SOM the best. However, I loved Ernie Harwell's Broadcast Blast which was based on APBA.

But, I perhaps have played more OOTP than any other BB sim over the years. I started out with version 3.2.

[DandricSturm]

ORIGINAL: DandricSturm

Earl Weaver Baseball for PC for me. Played it for hours balancing my infant son on my knee.

Ah, I took it to mean computer baseball sims. I first started playing a dice game I devised myself which was very simple. I moved on to SOM. Earl Weaver was my first computer sim and I have also played a lot of Miller Baseball and some OOTP.

[SirWolf1960]

My first baseball game of any type was All-Star baseball, where you placed a player card in a slot and used a spinner for the result. My first computer sim was Lance Haffner's baseball game. Then I moved on to APBA Baseball For Windows.
 
For some reason, I never bought FPS Baseball, but I played Football Pro, and I got to know the name of Shawn Sullivan. So naturally, when I stumbled upon PureSim, I just knew it would be a quality product. And he didn't let me down.
 
Steve

[dneely]

My first game was a spinner on a wood base that I created with outs and hits and I used baseball cards as the players. I was very young but I remember that John Roseboro was my HR champ. From that I moved to the APBA board game in 1960 and I was in heaven. Old time players, leagues, replays it had everything. I had a group of friends and we drafted teams and would play a series of games and then redraft and make trades. We even created ourselves as players for the game.

Once the computer came out for the average consumer I bought one so I could play the new APBA dos game with StatMaster. From there I have played SOM, DMB, PC Action, OOTP (since ver 1) and PureSim. I play in online leagues with PC Action and DMB and play PureSim for the fun. For me playing online vs a live opponent is the most fun. It can be very frustrating with the scheduling problems and the odd guys (only a very few) you get in every online league (of course I am not odd!!). I don't play SOM anymore because of the horrible customer service and the invasive copy protection scheme they imploy. But DMB and PC Action are great games in a draft league format and playing online is real fun and not that time annoying. While they are considered by most to be "replay" games, what makes them special is these online leagues. You are the manager, GM and owner so you deal with other real people, make trades, draft and construct your roster each year. It is fun!

The next step for PureSim is to be able to play the game onlive vs another person. With all the features and advances Shaun has added that step will take this game to the top.

DNeely

[Sonny]

Spinner Baseball as we called it (it was All-Star Baseball) was what my brothers and I started with (we also played the football version too). Then we discovered APBA and the first season we got was 1961. Ah - Roger Maris had 1-1-1 in the power numbers. Couple years later we tried Strat-O-Matic but were too far entrenched with APBA.

[Taz0713]

For me it was a step father that introduced me to APBA board game.  I actually set up a small league with a couple of friends to go with my solo league.  From there it I went on to Avalon Hill Statis Pro (Baseball and Football).
 
As for the PC, Tony LaRussa, High Heat, OOTP and then Puresim.
 
Still learning the text sim games, but they are proving to be more fun and interesting than their video game counter parts.

[KG Erwin]

My first baseball game was the APBA boardgame (with the the 1984 season cards). Still have it.
 
The first computer game was called Pure Stat,  a pretty good sim for the C-64.  For the later PCs, I also tried out Baseball Mogul and OOTP 2.  

[captskillet]

Start-O-Matic......then APBA DOS version..........then BBW all the way up to ver 5.5 Broadcast Blast.

[DreamTeams]

Hardball was my first.  Next came Tony Larussa, then Front Page Baseball, next was Oldtime Baseball, then High Heat Baseball.  High Heat led me to BBMogul and Mogul led me to OOTP and eventually Puresim. Right now I play both OOTP and Puresim.

[Jliven61]

Christmas of 1972 at the ripe age of 11, I got the complete set of "Sports Illustrated Games." This included Major League Baseball for the 71 season/Old Timers Baseball (which had 18-20 mlb teams with their all-time all-stars), NFL Football, again 71 season, College Football (which featured about 30 historic teams), Golf and lastly Decathalon. The games played from charts and you had 3 9-sided dice that you rolled. As a Cardinal fan I still remember Joe Torre on the 71 Cards, he was a beast in the game. MVP the 71's season as well.

WOW! That started it all for me. I was soon getting into Avalon Hill baseball/football/basketball games all through the 70's/80's.

I think Avalon Hill bought out SI games. Since then I have played about every baseball sim, board game, video game, pc game, or text-sim out there.

Jliven61

[Amaroq]

Back about age 12 or 13, my best friend Greg got a Baseball Encyclopedia, which included the major-league career stats of anybody who'd ever had a career at bat or inning pitched - and it also had a 'wins created' VORP stat, which translated the value of having that guy on your team that year (as opposed to the average player in the league) into 'wins'.

We put together 'draft years', and came up with some mathematical calculations which would let you translate an assembled team into a real win-loss total, and spent hours happily doing this with pencil and paper...

... but eventually, that got tedious, so we learned how to program BASIC - at first we just made an exact duplicate of what we had on paper, but then we discovered pseudo-random number generators and started cranking out games of our own...

... so here I am now, about twenty years later, with a CS degree drawing a paycheck as a game programmer. [:D]