https://baseballgames.dreamhosters.com/BbDiceHome.htm bg image(bgDice02e.jpg) +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |---Home----Intro----Games ----Articles---- Forum Policy----Forum----Links----Awards----Contact----| +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +--------+ | DICE BASEBALL | +--------+ |BASEBALL| | A Tabletop Tradition | |BASEBALL| | GAMES | .... | | .... | GAMES | |HOMEPAGE| | -- text copyrighted 2016-19 by the Baseball Games front office staff -- | | FORUM | +--------+ | | +--------+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |[dice07e] | | "Dice baseball" -- now there's a great American tradition. Yeah, what ever happened to that? | | | | Well, there's a story there, or possibly several stories. Bear with us for just a few moments | | while we sort those out. We're talking about the "home version" of dice baseball here, not a boxed, | | commercially-produced game -- although commercial games were undoubtedly the source of the | | many different home versions, and their influence and historic connections are an important part | | of the discussion. That is, y'know, if we're going to have a discussion and not just jump right in | | to playing. | | Dice baseball, for any visitors here who may not be aware, was played by untold thousands | | upon thousands of kids -- and a few adults too -- over the course of more than a century, and | | seems to have faded as a popular pastime only since around the early 1980s. Sadly, any version | | of this delightful game is utterly alien to almost every youngster nowadays, and even most gamers, | | among the throngs of tabletop baseball enthusiasts today who avidly enjoy far more sophisticated | | baseball simulations involving dice, are oblivious to the debt their games owe to a simpler form | | of dice baseball. | | | | A pair of standard dice. A scoresheet and a pencil. A little imagination (the more the better). | | That's all you need. Fun ensues. Adults, you can teach it to the kids. Kids, you can learn it here | | yourselves. | | Pull up a chair. We're going to give you a little background on all of it, and then we're going | | to show you how to play it. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ The Professional Game of Base Ball -- Parker Brothers, c1896 The Game of Base Ball -- Parker Brothers, 1890s The College Base Ball Game -- Parker Brothers, 1906 The Professional Game of Base Ball, The Game of Base Ball, The College Base Ball Game, Parker Brothers, c1896 Parker Brothers, 1890s Parker Brothers, 1906 +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | A word, first, if we may, about the disappearance of tradition, and, in particular, traditional | | entertainments... we interrupt your regularly-scheduled programme for a brief rant... | | | | The cranky old buzzards who run this website and Forum also frequent many other game, card, | | antique, and sports memorabilia forums -- and when we see a post in any of them, as we often do, | | titled something like "Question about ancient baseball game" or "Help me identify antique card," | | we naturally get a little revved up, expecting that we can either provide the answer, or that someone | | else will have an answer we don't and that we ourselves will thereby actually learn something. | | Most of the time, the "ancient baseball game" or "antique card" turns out to be something from | | the 1980s or '90s, which makes the cranky old buzzards here feel just a little older and crankier. | | We're all bifocal-wearing longtime AARP members here, but down deep we're just superannuated | | adolescents. That may go some ways toward explaining our fascination with tabletop baseball, | | which we first encountered as boys back in the 1950s, and with "dice baseball" in particular, to | | which we were introduced in the 1960s. You know, the '50s and '60s, which for most Americans | | under the age of 40 means the Dark Ages, something around the time General Washington and | | General Lincoln led the US and our Japanese allies to victory over President Hitler of England | | during the Civil War. | | Hey, now before you jump to the conclusion that this is just another tired, cliche-filled "why, | | back in my day..." dirge about how things nowadays ain't the way they usedta be, by cracky, and | | that we're completely out of touch with anything that's happened since Coolidge was President, | | well, hold yer horses there, missy. Dag nabbit. No need to send us telegrams or ring us up on | | our rotary-dial phones to complain. We're presenting dice baseball, but we'll stipulate that we | | have in fact played computer baseball games, and sports games on the Wii, and the latest version | | of Halo and whatnot, and we've quite enjoyed them, amongst ourselves or playing with our | | nephews and nieces and grandkids. There's a great deal to be said for the graphics and sound | | effects and the bells and whistles and blinkenlights. We would contend, however, that whatever | | entertainment they provide -- and that's no small thing, of course -- they all lack the intellectual | | stimulation offered by a good boardgame. But then again, why wouldn't kids prefer to spend | | their entire afternoon all alone playing Warcraft on their iPads instead of wasting as much as | | two minutes listening to family stories or insights from grandpa or grandma, let alone half an | | hour playing some boring old game with them... | | | | Beyond that, we find a disturbing ignorance of, even an active contempt for, anything that | | happened longer ago than last week among too many otherwise intelligent young people, raised | | on computers, babysat by video-game consoles, and miserably addicted to texting and twittering. | | Forget events and figures of world history -- even major pop-culture icons of sport, music, film, | | and television might as well be unrecognizable 18th-century obscurities if they didn't make | | headlines in the past year. And that, sadly, extends to the modern disregard for traditional | | pastimes, and in particular traditional games. | | Kids and young adults today have so much access to, and so much familiarity with, so much | | high-tech entertainment, most young people, tragically, are wholly unacquainted with boardgames | | of any sort and regard the very idea of boardgames and paper-and-pencil games as impossibly dull, | | fusty, and unappealing. The very idea that boardgames were, for generations, an enormously | | popular activity for kids as well as adults -- and especially for kids and adults together, as a family | | entertainment -- is something they find literally difficult to picture, indeed difficult even to believe. | | But it turns out -- we've discovered to our astonishment -- that if you can lasso the young'ns and | | actually get them to sit down for a good boardgame, they will in fact enjoy it and yes, want to | | come back for more. For kids who already have an interest in "real" baseball, dice baseball can | | be a revelation -- something so simple, yet replicating the sport right there on the tabletop, and | | providing some pleasurable exercise for those woefully atrophied muscles of imagination. | | | | Pardon our digression. We now return to the matter at hand... | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Double Game Board -- Parker Brothers, 1926 Baseball Football and Checkers -- Parker Brothers, 1957 Double Game Board ~ Football Baseball and Checkers, The National-American Base Ball Playing Field -- Parker Brothers, 1926 Baseball Football and Checkers ~ 3 Games in 1, Parker Brothers, 1926 Parker Brothers, 1957 +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Dice baseball was our absolute favorite as kids -- despite growing up in households full of | | commercially-produced boardgames, most of them highly entertaining, well-loved, and repeatedly | | played. Dice baseball, though, wasn't a store-bought tabletop baseball game from a big-name | | game publisher, no -- no need for that. All we needed was a pair of dice, an easily-memorized | | table of results, scoresheets, and a pencil. | | The game was handed down to us in the 1960s from our dads and uncles, who'd played it as | | boys themselves in the 1930s. Whence they got it will never be known -- none of them knew of | | any source other than another boy at the time, one of their neighborhood pals, who'd taught it to | | them. Decades later, as we became fascinated with antique tabletop baseball games and busy | | developing our own game, we wondered about how that 1930s game came to be. The source of | | the game, its true origin, became something of a Holy Grail quest for us -- because the game's | | history, its lineage, its geneology if you will, was a thread that ran through time and place and | | connected generations.... Depression-era boys on the front porch of a home in their urban | | neighborhood, on a rainy summer day when they couldn't play sandlot ball, or in the cellar on | | a winter afternoon, imagining Ott or Mize or Foxx or DiMaggio at the plate with each roll of | | the dice... years pass, and the boys, now men, teach the game to their sons and nephews in | | their pre-fab suburbs and play it with them, and those kids teach it to their friends and play it | | on patios and in rec rooms, visualizing Mantle or Killebrew or fictional players from their own | | imaginations as the dice bounce on the table... and the years roll on, and those kids of the '60s, | | now grown as well, try to pass the game along to yet another generation... and 21st-century boys | | engage in a pastime among boyhood friends, a father-son bonding ritual, a tradition, learned and | | played a lifetime earlier by boys who'd learned it from and played it with dads and uncles, all | | gone now, all gone, who'd played it another lifetime before that, having learned it from... | | Well, that was the mystery. Generations connected back, but eventually, far enough back, | | the ultimate source hid behind some opaque haze. In the early '90s, we finally tracked down | | that neighborhood pal of our forebears' boyhood but, alas!, although otherwise still sharp as a | | tack, he had no memory of how or where he'd learned the game. | | | | It's likely, though, that the original source, perhaps through someone of a generation or two | | even earlier, was one of several Parker Brothers' baseball games published between the 1890s and | | 1920s. Parker Brothers produced numerous versions of dice baseball, all fundamentally similar | | to one another, for more than seventy years -- The Professional Game of Base Ball (circa 1896), | | The Game of BaseBall (circa 1899), The College Base Ball Game (1906), The National-American | | Base Ball Playing Field in their Double Game Board (1926 and 1948) and Baseball Football | | and Checkers (1957 and 1962) game medleys, and the last three editions (1954, 1957, and 1961) | | of Game of Peg Baseball. | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Game of Peg Baseball -- Parker Brothers, 1954 |Game of Peg Baseball -- Parker Brothers, 1957 |Game of Peg Baseball -- Parker Brothers, 1961| | Game of Peg Baseball, Parker Brothers, 1954| Game of Peg Baseball, Parker Brothers, 1957| Game of Peg Baseball, Parker Bros, 1961 | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | All these games were themselves derived from Our National Ball Game, designed in 1885 | | by Edward K McGill. That game is a landmark in the development of tabletop baseball. It was | | not the very first baseball game to employ dice for play results -- League Parlor Base Ball by | | R Bliss Manufacturing preceded it by a year. But the Bliss game was an odd, rudimentary thing, | | using only a single die (we'll show you that one, too, in a few moments). A handful of single-die | | games followed in both commercial and folk versions in later years, and McLoughlin Brothers, | | with their 1886 Home Base Ball, was the first of many companies to produce a two-dice game | | using just the eleven totals produced by a pair of dice (many a "homebrew" version also uses | | that method). McGill's game, however, obtained results from the 21 different combinations | | possible with the dice. This made for a larger variety of play results -- including "strike," | | which added a bit of suspense to each roll and some pacing to the game -- and a much more | | satisfying game overall. | | In the 130 years since Our National Ball Game made its debut, dozens of manufacturers | | have produced hundreds of other dice-driven baseball games, with varying degrees of simplicity | | and complexity, among the more than a thousand different tabletop baseball games employing | | cards, spinners, miniature implements, spring-loaded mechanical elements, electronics, and any | | number of other methods and devices in various combination ranging from the ingenious to the | | inane. But it seems certain that McGill's creation was the basis for many of the hugely popular | | folk-versions of dice baseball as well as for the far more complicated dice-based baseball | | simulations that evolved through the years -- and it's somehow deeply pleasing to know that | | some version of McGill's invention thrived for so long as a homemade entertainment, and still | | survives more than a century and a quarter down the road. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Our National Ball Game Our National Ball Game Our National Ball Game -- McGill & Delany, -- McGill & Delany, -- McGill & Delany, 1886 1886 1886 +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Many folks we've encountered who played dice baseball in their own childhood or | | adolescence remember playing a version very similar to the one we knew. That may lend | | some credence to our guess that a popular commercially-produced game had provided the | | basis for so many homebrew versions of dice baseball. Dozens of other versions can be | | found on the internet, and in any number of books titled something like "Games for Kids" | | and "Games You Can Make at Home" -- but the traditional, most widespread version has | | become curiously tough to locate. Full marks, to be sure, to those many clever boys who | | devised a dice baseball game on their own without having had the benefit of an older | | game taught to them by a family elder, and we'll include several such inventions below. | | But it's the versions of dice baseball handed down through one or more generations, and | | the stories they hold, that most intrigue us. | | Most "folk-game" variations of dice baseball use two standard dice, but we should | | mention that while most entries on the 130-year-long long list of commercially-produced | | dice baseball games likewise employ a standard pair, there have been and are others that | | use a single die, some that use three, and still others have involved four, six, and more, | | or require ten-sided or 20-sided dice or other "special," uniquely-marked dice, rather | | than the standard "d6" with which everyone's familiar. And not only the commercial | | games, but also a few homebrew versions and several variations available in print or | | on the internet involve considerably more complex and detailed rules, edging into the | | realm of simulation games with results individualized for each player in the line-up. | | We're concerned here with only "basic" dice baseball -- a simple set of rules, no more | | than three dice, and uniform, generic odds for all players. A "starter" game, if you will. | | | | One last thing before we roll the dice: any version of dice baseball -- or for that | | matter, any tabletop baseball game regardless of the method of play -- presents a great | | opportunity for adults to teach kids the strategies and subtleties of baseball, and for kids | | to exercise their underutilized imaginations, rather than having the images and results | | spoon-fed to them by computerized graphics. We strongly recommend, for you adults | | who'd like to teach kids how to play any tabletop baseball game, you first take them to | | see an actual ballgame -- any level of play, major leagues, minors, the local high school | | team -- or at least watch a game on TV with them, and see if it generates some interest | | in them. If it does, then help them picture the action in their minds when you play the | | tabletop version. Muster up your best Vin Scully impression! Be the play-by-play man, | | announce it and describe the action as play proceeds. A little hand-drawn playing field | | with coins or buttons to indicate baserunners helps them visualize the play as well. | | The kids' line-ups and yours are limited only by the imagination, too. You and they | | can insert the names of major league stars past or present, or those of the players on the | | local minor pro team, or your kid's Little League teammates, or create fictional players | | out of whole cloth (still more imagination required there, and we think more fun). | | If you know how to score a game (another lost art -- maybe we should do an article | | on that) and want to keep a proper scoresheet to record the result of every at-bat (yesss!), | | rather than just tallying the runs in each inning, it's easy enough to draw your own, or | | you can just do an internet image search for "baseball scoresheet" and find hundreds of | | different templates you can print out. Seriously, how else can you know who's up next? | | | | All right, we've kept you waiting long enough. Without further ado, then, we're going | | to present several variations of dice baseball for you right here, with a little additional | | annotation. First we'll trot out just a few of the earliest commercially-produced games -- | | a selection of the most popular and most noteworthy -- and show you how they worked. | | Then we'll present a variety of homebrew versions, as described to us by the guys who | | actually played them -- and along with that, we'll provide some of their reminiscences | | of playing and developing more complex versions of dice baseball. And we'll conclude | | with a sampling of dice baseball games we've seen on the internet. | | For each of them, we'll give you the total of hits and outs to give you an idea of | | how much offence each game affords. We feel a game with an overall batting average | | between about .260 and .290 provides the most realistic and satisfying results, so | | keep that in mind when choosing a game to try. | | Let's roll! | | | |[aniDice02] | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | League Parlor Base Ball. | | | | R Bliss Mfg, 1884 | | | | The first tabletop baseball game to | | | | use dice -- well, one die, anyway, | | | | a unique die marked 1, 2, 3, and 4 | | | | and on the two other sides "O." | | |League| Rolling an O ends the half-inning. | 1 -- single | |Parlor| You can give this stunningly | 2 -- double | |Base | simple game a go just by using | 3 -- triple | |Ball | a standard d6 and counting a roll | 4 -- home run | |-- R | of 5 or 6 the same as O. | O -- three outs | |Bliss | The printed rules suggest the | O -- three outs | |Mfg, | option of having the O represent | ------------------ | |1884 | two outs or just one, which would | 4 H, 6 O -- .400 | | | boost the offence to .500 and | | | | .667 respectively. | | | | | | | | Special thanks to Tom Shieber, | | | | Senior Curator at the Baseball | | | | Hall of Fame and Museum, for | | | | providing us the rules sheet. | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | 1 / 1 double | | | 1 / 2 single | | | 1 / 3 single | | Our National Ball Game | 1 / 4 single | | McGill & Delany, c1886 | 1 / 5 base on error | | A G Spalding & Bros, c1887 | 1 / 6 base on balls | | This is really the one that started it all, the first | 2 / 2 strike | | tabletop baseball game to utilize the 21 different | 2 / 3 strike | | combinations possible with a standard pair of dice, | 2 / 4 strike | | the inspiration for hundreds of both commercial | 2 / 5 strike | | and homemade dice baseball games that followed. | 2 / 6 foul out | | It's still seriously heavy on offense, although | 3 / 3 out at 1st | | not as insane as the Bliss game, and the seven | 3 / 4 out at 1st | | strikes will add a few more outs in gameplay. | 3 / 5 out at 1st | | One oddity: it's twice as easy to hit a triple as it | 3 / 6 out at 1st | | is a double. Never mind! McGill and Delany | 4 / 4 fly out | | were geniuses to realize you could make a pretty | 4 / 5 fly out | | good ballgame with just two dice, and for what | 4 / 6 fly out | | their invention bestowed upon tabletop sports | 5 / 5 double play | | gaming, they belong in the Hall of Fame. | 5 / 6 triple | | | 6 / 6 home run | | | ---------------------------| | | 10 H, 17+ O -- <.370 | | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | The Professional Game of Base Ball | | | | Parker Bros, c1896 | The Professional | The College | | The Game of Base Ball |Game of Base Ball | Base Ball Game | | Parker Bros, c1899 | 1 / 1 strikeout | 1 / 1 strikeout | | The College Base Ball Game | 1 / 2 out at 1st | 1 / 2 out at 1st | | Parker Bros, 1906 | 1 / 3 out at 1st | 1 / 3 out at 1st | | Game publishing giants Parker Brothers began producing | 1 / 4 out at 1st | 1 / 4 out at 1st | | their own two-dice game, clearly derived from McGill's | 1 / 5 out at 1st | 1 / 5 out at 1st | | design, perhaps as early as 1890, although 1894 or 1896 | 1 / 6 base on error | 1 / 6 base on error | | dates are more reliably ascribed to The Professional | 2 / 2 double | 2 / 2 double | | Game of Base Ball. The same game, retitled simply The | 2 / 3 single | 2 / 3 single | | Game of Base Ball in order to disassociate itself with the | 2 / 4 single | 2 / 4 single | | unsavory gambling scandals that riddled 19th-century | 2 / 5 single | 2 / 5 single | | pro ball, debuted around 1899, and, with only the subtlest | 2 / 6 single | 2 / 6 single | | changes to gameplay, was reintroduced with an even purer | 3 / 3 triple | 3 / 3 triple | | amateur cachet in 1906 as The College Base Ball Game. | 3 / 4 fly out | 3 / 4 strikeout | | The game(s) enjoyed widespread popularity for years | 3 / 5 fly out | 3 / 5 fly out | | thanks to the engaging method of play and the massive | 3 / 6 fly out | 3 / 6 fly out | | reach of Parker Brothers' distribution, and influenced | 4 / 4 double play | 4 / 4 double play | | the creation of even more homebrew versions. Hitting | 4 / 5 walk | 4 / 5 walk | | was only a bit less torrid than in McGill's original. The | 4 / 6 balk | 4 / 6 balk | | dice results for the first and last editions are at right, the | 5 / 5 double play | 5 / 5 strikeout | | only revisions changing both the 3/4 fly out and the 5/5 | 5 / 6 foul out | 5 / 6 foul out | | double play into strikeouts. One unwelcome feature, | 6 / 6 home run | 6 / 6 home run | | common to so many tabletop baseball games over the | ---------------------------| ---------------------------| | years, is the inclusion of a "rare play" -- here, the balk | 11 H, 21 O -- .344 | 11 H, 21 O -- .344 | | -- as a frequent occurrence among the play results. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Parlor Base Ball | Parlor Base Ball 1 - single 4 - home run | | | American Parlor Baseball / | 2 - double 5 - out | | | American Play Games, 1903 | 3 - triple 6 - out | | | Peg Base Ball | ------------------------------------ | | | Parker Brothers, 1908 and 1936 | 4 H, 2 O -- .667 | | | In 1903, Frank Honeck introduced Parlor | | |Parlor | Base Ball, a graphically gorgeous if | Peg Base Ball Team at bat (offense) rolls once, then | |Base Ball| childishly simplistic and utterly awful | team team in field (defense) rolls once | |-- | single-die game. A specially marked die | to allow or negate roll by offense. | |American | indicated 1 (single), 2 (double), 3 (triple), | | |Parlor | H (home run), and on two faces O (out). | 1 - single if defense rolls 2, 4, or 6, | |Baseball,| That was the whole game. It remained | out if defense rolls 1, 3, or 5 | |1903 | inexplicably popular for over a decade. | 2 - double if defense rolls 2, 4, or 6 | |Peg Base | Parker Brothers countered in 1908 | out if defense rolls 1, 3, or 5 | |Ball -- | with their own single-die game, Peg | 3 - triple if defense rolls 2, 4, or 6 | |Parker | Base Ball, likewise a beautiful thing to | out if defense rolls 1, 3, or 5 | |Brothers,| behold and only slightly less awful as a | 4 - home run if defense rolls 2, 4, or 6 | |1908 | game. The roll / counter-roll method of | out if defense rolls 1, 3, or 5 | | | play debuted with Peg -- gamers alternate | 5 - foul out if defense rolls 2, 4, or 6, | | | rolling the die, and the team in the field | strike if defense rolls 1, 3, or 5 | | | gets a chance with each throw to negate | 6 - ball if defense rolls 2, 4, or 6, | | | a successful throw by the team at bat. | strike if defense rolls 1, 3, or 5 | | | A popular item into the late 1920s, this. | --------------------------------------------- | | | | 4 H, 5+ O -- <.444 | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | 2 stolen base if runner on; | | | | batter out if bases empty | | | | 3 strikeout | | | | 4 foul out | | | The Champion Base Ball Game | 5 sacrifice, runners advance | |The | New York Games Co, 1913 | if less than two out; | |Champion| Prior to World War I, inventors and | if two out, batter out, | |Base | game companies seemed still to be | no runner advance | |Ball | having trouble figuring out how to | 6 runner on 1st picked off; | |Game -- | design a baseball game that yielded | if no runner on 1st, | |New York| realistic results using only dice. The | batter grounds out | |Games | unusual formula in The Champion | 7 fly out | |Co, 1913| Base Ball Game, using the eleven | 8 single | | | totals possible with a pair of dice, | 9 double | | | did not get them any closer. | 10 triple | | | | 11 home run | | | | 12 base on balls | | | | ------------------------------------| | | | 14 H, 11-21 O -- .400-.560 | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | 1 / 1 single | | | | 1 / 2 strike | | | Armstead's Play Ball | 1 / 3 hit by pitch | | | J I Austen Co, c1920 | 1 / 4 ball | | | And... closer, but still no cigar, for | 1 / 5 out | | | this effort. It's a safe assumption, | 1 / 6 out | | | though, that many companies aimed | 2 / 2 single | | | less for realism than they did for | 2 / 3 strike | | | overheated scoring, ostensibly to | 2 / 4 out | |Armstead's| entertain younger gamers. | 2 / 5 out | |Play Ball | Armstead's provided unique dice | 2 / 6 out | |-- J I | marked with one bat, two bats, a pair | 3 / 3 single | |Austen, | of crossed bats, four bats arranged | 3 / 4 strike | |1920s | in a diamond shape, a baseball, and | 3 / 5 ball | | | a glove, which easily translate to | 3 / 6 out | | | the 1 through 6 spots, respectively, | 4 / 4 double | | | on standard dice. The game was also | 4 / 5 out | | | produced in spinner format, titled | 4 / 6 single | | | Armstead's Play Ball Junior, with | 5 / 5 triple | | | all 36 combinations represented, | 5 / 6 out | | | accurately replicating the dice. | 6 / 6 home run | | | | ------------------ | | | | 8 H, 16 O -- .333 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Double Game Board / | Game of | | Double Game Board | Baseball Football | Peg Baseball | | Parker Brothers, 1926 and 1948 | and Checkers | (1961 edition) | | Game of Peg Baseball | 1 / 1 strikeout | 1 / 1 strikeout | | Parker Brothers, 1961 | 1 / 2 out at 1st | 1 / 2 out at 1st | | Baseball Football and Checkers | 1 / 3 out at 1st | 1 / 3 out at 1st | | Parker Brothers, 1957 and 1962 | 1 / 4 out at 1st | 1 / 4 out at 1st | | In 1926, Parker Brothers revived, and significantly revised, | 1 / 5 out at 1st | 1 / 5 out at 1st | | their earlier two-dice game, reissuing it as part of their new | 1 / 6 base on error | 1 / 6 base on error | | Double Game Board medley. Just four changes to the 21 | 2 / 2 double | 2 / 2 double | | original results turned a slugfest into a pitchers' duel -- the | 2 / 3 single to LF | 2 / 3 single to LF | | 2/4 and 2/6 singles and the 4/6 balk turned into outs, with a | 2 / 4 strikeout | 2 / 4 strikeout | | lone out replacing the 4/4 double play. Identical play results | 2 / 5 single to RF | 2 / 5 single to RF | | saw the offense remain stifled on "The National-American | 2 / 6 foul out | 2 / 6 foul out | | Base Ball Playing Field" despite revised graphics (1948) | 3 / 3 triple | 3 / 3 triple | | and a title change (Baseball Football and Checkers, 1957 | 3 / 4 strikeout | 3 / 4 strikeout | | and 1962). | 3 / 5 fly out | 3 / 5 fly out | | The single-die Peg Base Ball was revived in 1936 as | 3 / 6 fly out | 3 / 6 fly out | | Peg Baseball Game, retitled Game of Peg Baseball for new | 4 / 4 out at 1st | 4 / 4 out at 1st | | editions in 1954, 1957, and 1961. The 1936 reissue uses | 4 / 5 base on balls | 4 / 5 base on balls | | the 1908 rules, as do most examples of the 1950s editions, | 4 / 6 infield fly | 4 / 6 infield fly | | although a few instead contain the 1926 rules for two-dice | 5 / 5 strikeout | 5 / 5 strikeout | | play. The 1961 edition plays according only to the Double | 5 / 6 foul out | 5 / 6 foul out | | Game Board two-dice rules. | 6 / 6 home run | 6 / 6 home run | | | ---------------------------| ---------------------------| | | 7 H, 27 O -- .206 | 7 H, 27 O -- .206 | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | 1 / 1 strikeout | | | 1 / 2 out | | | 1 / 3 out | | | 1 / 4 out | | | 1 / 5 bunt single | | | 1 / 6 out, runners advance | | | 2 / 2 double | | | 2 / 3 single | | The Great American Game ~ | 2 / 4 single | | Pocket Base Ball | 2 / 5 hit by pitch | | Neddy Pocket Game Co, 1920s | 2 / 6 out, runners advance | | Someone finally devised a | 3 / 3 triple | | pretty satisfactory system here | 3 / 4 fly out | | -- alas, the little-known Neddy | 3 / 5 fly out | | company did not generate much | 3 / 6 fly out | | in sales, the game languished | 4 / 4 double play, batter and | | in obscurity, and only a very | most advanced runner out | | few examples of it survive. | -- if bases empty, strikeout | | | 4 / 5 base on balls | |The Great American Game ~ Pocket Base Ball -- Neddy Pocket Game Co, 1920s| 4 / 6 strikeout | | | 5 / 5 double play, two most advanced | | | runners out, batter safe -- | | | if only one runner or none, | | | strikeout | | | 5 / 6 foul out | | | 6 / 6 home run | | | ---------------------------------------------| | | 9 H, 23 O -- .281 | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | And there we're going to cut short the parade of early commercial dice games. | | There were, of course, many others we've left out, but the games above were | | among the earliest and either most influential or best designed. Now, though, | | it's time to move on to the real point of this exercise -- showcasing some of | | the many homebrew games undoubtedly derived from those early commercial | | efforts... and, we hope, encouraging you to give one or two of them a whirl, | | and teaching them to some young baseball fan of your acquaintance... | |[aniDice02] | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | original 1930s | 1960s | 1960s | | |dice baseball |variation 4 |variation 9 | |dice baseball as we were taught it | 1 / 1 home run | 1 / 1 home run | 1 / 1 home run | | This was the Sacred Formula handed down to us by the Ancient Ones | 1 / 2 strike | 1 / 2 strike | 1 / 2 single | | -- er, no, sorry, got carried away there for a second. But it was indeed | 1 / 3 double play | 1 / 3 double play | 1 / 3 double play | | the system taught to us by the previous generation of our family, the | 1 / 4 fly out | 1 / 4 walk | 1 / 4 fly out | | game they'd played as boys in the 1930s. We, as boys in the 1960s, | 1 / 5 ball | 1 / 5 ball | 1 / 5 fly out | | were immediately fascinated by it and played it incessantly well into | 1 / 6 stolen base | 1 / 6 strikeout | 1 / 6 strikeout | | our teens. | 2 / 2 triple | 2 / 2 triple | 2 / 2 base hit * | | In many aspects, it's an amalgam of several of the commercial | 2 / 3 ground out | 2 / 3 ground out | 2 / 3 ground out | | games we've shown. One thing we particularly liked about it was the | 2 / 4 foul out | 2 / 4 foul out | 2 / 4 foul out | | presence of balls and strikes among the dice results, an element seen | 2 / 5 strike | 2 / 5 strike | 2 / 5 strike | | in only the McGill and Armstead games above -- for us, those added | 2 / 6 ball | 2 / 6 ball | 2 / 6 ball | | more suspense to each roll and each at-bat, and a more baseballesque | 3 / 3 double | 3 / 3 double | 3 / 3 double | | flow and pace. Some gamers prefer the instant gratification of hit | 3 / 4 ball | 3 / 4 ball | 3 / 4 ball | | or out with each roll and hate balls and strikes as unnecessary | 3 / 5 ball | 3 / 5 ball | 3 / 5 ball | | time-killers. They are wrong. | 3 / 6 strike | 3 / 6 strike | 3 / 6 strike | | As the months and years rolled along, we did on occasion become | 4 / 4 single | 4 / 4 single | 4 / 4 single | | annoyed with some results, and, having no grasp then of the laws of | 4 / 5 strike | 4 / 5 strike | 4 / 5 strike | | permutations, we tinkered ignorantly with the outcomes, a subtle | 4 / 6 ball | 4 / 6 fly out | 4 / 6 strike | | tweak or two blindly changing, for a few games here and a month or | 5 / 5 walk | 5 / 5 single | 5 / 5 base on balls | | two there, the overall BA from as high as .353 (6 H, 11 O) to as low | 5 / 6 ground out | 5 / 6 ground out | 5 / 6 ground out | | as .211 (4 H, 15 O). Two variations that did work are at far right. | 6 / 6 base on error | 6 / 6 base on error | 6 / 6 base on error | | | ------------------ | ------------------ | ------------------ | | | 4 H, 11+ O -- <.267 | 5 H, 13+ O -- <.278 | 6 H, 15+ O -- <.286 | | | | | | | | | | * roll again -- single | | | | | if total 8 or less, | | | | | triple if 9 or more | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | 1 / 1 home run | | | | 1 / 2 single * | * With less than two out, | | | 1 / 3 out -- batter out if bases empty; | runners on base advance | | | double play if runner(s) on base, | by only as many bases as | | Baseball Games basic dice baseball | most advanced runner and batter out | the batter gains on a hit; | |Kerm, Fred, Butch, & Win | 1 / 4 out | with two outs, runners | | The game we'd played as kids had evolved, | 1 / 5 ball | advance by as many | | in fits and starts, into a more involved and | 1 / 6 strikeout | bases as the batter | | more frustrating thing, and was set aside | 2 / 2 base hit * -- roll both dice again: | gains on a hit, plus | | for many years. We blame the distracting | if total is 8 or lower, single; | one additional base. | | presence of young women. | if total is 9 or higher, triple | | | A lifetime or so later, after a long hiatus, | 2 / 3 out | To try for a steal of 2nd | | our fascination with tabletop baseball was | 2 / 4 out | or 3rd, declare your | | rekindled, and we set to work designing | 2 / 5 out | intention, then roll | | and playing the rather complex homebrew | 2 / 6 out | both dice -- if the total | | game we now play, which involves pitcher, | 3 / 3 double * | is 2 through 7, or 12, | | hitter, and fielder ratings, lefty-righty splits, | 3 / 4 ball | attempt is successful; | | multiple charts and so on. Its foundation, | 3 / 5 ball | if total is 8 through 11, | | though, is a version of the dice baseball | 3 / 6 strike | runner is thrown out. | | game we learned as kids -- and so we went | 4 / 4 single * | To try for a steal of home, | | back to basics, too, putting a fresh coat of | 4 / 5 strike | declare your intention, | | paint on the original source material, and | 4 / 6 strike | then roll both dice -- | | turned out a relatively simple version that | 5 / 5 base on balls | only if the total is 2, 3, | | adds just a few more rules to our boyhood | 5 / 6 strike | or 4 is the attempt | | pastime. We're trying to pass it along to | 6 / 6 ground ball -- roll both dice again: | successful; if total is | | our grandkids. See if yours like it. | if total is 6 or lower, out; | 5 or higher, runner is | | | if total is 7 or higher, base on error | thrown out. | | | ------------------ | | | | 6 H, 15 O -- <.286 | | | | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | 2 - triple | |Aruba dice baseball | 3 - double | | Longtime Baseball Games Forum contributor | 4 - single (if 2/2, any runners | | Henri Roca remembers a Caribbean version he | advance two bases) | | played as a boy. Despite using only the eleven | 5 - out | | totals available from a pair of dice, it looks like | 6 - out (if 3/3, base on error) | | it should provide a remarkably good game. | 7 - strike out | | Henri recalls: "I was nine years old and in | 8 - out (if 4/4, double play, | | my first year at St. Stanislaus (Bay St Louis, | most advanced runner out) | | Mississippi) about to enter the 4th grade... 1944. | 9 - out (if 4/5, sacrifice fly) | | "The Rodriguez brothers from Aruba taught | 10 - walk | | me [this] dice baseball game." | 11 - single | | | 12 - home run | | | --------------------------- | | | 9 H, 23-24 O -- ~.281 | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | We posted at the esteemed Net54 Baseball forum, asking the | | baseball fans, historians, and memorabilia collectors there | | what experiences and memories they had with dice baseball, | | and what versions of the game they played. | |---------------------------------------------------------------| | Net54 | |---------------------------------------------------------------| | We were gratified to receive a number of detailed responses, | | and we now present just a sampling of those here... | |[aniDice02] | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ +-------------------------------------------------------+ +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Dan V | | | Eric Harrington | | | Dan V recalled his game, | | | Eric Harrington remembered his single-die game: | | | similar to Parlor Base Ball | | | "My good friends and I would play after school and on | 1 - hit * | | of 1903: | | | weekends in the 1983-1985 timeframe. Six-inning games. | 2 - hit * | | "Mine was exceedingly simple. | | | One die. If a hit, one more roll of the die. | 3 - out | | One die. I used baseball cards | 1 - single | | "We played hundreds of games and there was one | 4 - out | | to make my teams and would | 2 - double | | perfect game by Matt Young. We had some great times. | 5 - out | | lay them out in their positions | 3 - triple | | "We used to argue about the legality of dice rolls. | 6 - strikeout | | each inning. Had simple little | 4 - strikeout | | One of my friends (we had four in the league) had a way | | | scorecards I kept. Games were | 5 - out | | of holding the dice with his thumb and index and middle | * roll again: | | high scoring, obviously, given | 6 - home run | | fingers (kind of like a knuckleball) and flipping it in a | 1 - single | | the possible outcomes. By the | ------------------| | way where it would rotate one time and land on a 1 or | 2 - single | | end, I had ten teams playing | 4 H, 2 O -- .667 | | a 2 (i.e., a hit). He would do it over and over again. | 3 - double | | 14-game seasons against each | | | We finally had enough and after one string of hits it got | 4 - double | | other. I still remember how | | | so heated the altercation got physical (the other two | 5 - triple | | dominant this Aaron Myette |Aaron Myette | | quickly jumped in and broke it up). After that, he went | 6 - home run | | card was in my 'league.'" | | | back to a conventional roll. We took our dice baseball | ------------------| | | | | seriously!" | 2 H, 4 O -- .333 | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------+ +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | 1 / 1 single | | | 1 / 2 strikeout | | | 1 / 3 out * | | | 1 / 4 out * | | Pennsylvania dice baseball | 1 / 5 out * | | Mike Knapp shared these memories: | 1 / 6 single | | "My Dad played this game when he was a kid | 2 / 2 double | | in Pennsylvania in the '40s and '50s. He was born | 2 / 3 out * | | in 1940. He said he played the game alone more | 2 / 4 out * | | often than not. He had other friends who played | 2 / 5 single | | the game as well. He said he occasionally played | 2 / 6 out * | | against his friends. There were four or five of | 3 / 3 triple | | them that all played using the same rules. He | 3 / 4 single | | believes one of them introduced him to the game | 3 / 5 out * | | when he was nine or ten. | 3 / 6 out * | | "I was ten and living in Washington State. My | 4 / 4 home run | | father was in the military so we played it all over | 4 / 5 out * | | Europe and the Middle East. I was an only child | 4 / 6 out * | | and he spent hours with me playing this game. | 5 / 5 walk | | Ironically I had no idea he was teaching me math | 5 / 6 out * | | by playing dice baseball. | 6 / 6 double play / | | "We would select eight rosters and play about | sacrifice fly | | 50 games. We saved all of the stats and then | ---------------------------| | would use them to identify two all-star teams and | 10 H, 24-25 O -- ~.290 | | play a best of seven series... Merv Rettenmund | | | was an absolute beast." | * fielder's choice | | | if runner(s) forced | | | | | | Runners advance only | | | as far as forced. | | | No base-stealing. | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | | | 1 / 1 home run | | | 1 / 2 double | | New Jersey dice baseball | 1 / 3 single | | Bruce Garland provided these reminiscences: | 1 / 4 pop out | | "We lived just outside Trenton New Jersey. My | 1 / 5 ground out (double play | | father's name was Roger. He devised the game | if a force available) | | around 1958 or '59 -- I was nine or ten. | 1 / 6 strikeout | | "His goal was for a quick, easy game that could be | 2 / 2 single | | played by a nine- or ten-year-old, by himself or with | 2 / 3 pop out | | others, that approximated what might occur in a real | 2 / 4 ground out | | game. My friends and I thought he succeeded and we | 2 / 5 strikeout | | played thousands of games. We played constantly | 2 / 6 ground out | | with lineups etc., kept stats and everything. This was | 3 / 3 single | | mostly late '50s, early '60s, although I must confess | 3 / 4 strikeout | | there were a few games in college also. | 3 / 5 ground out | | "I still marvel at how real the games and stats | 3 / 6 fly out | | seemed. Believe it or not Vern Law once pitched a | 4 / 4 walk | | perfect game. I still associate dice rolls with the | 4 / 5 fly out | | baseball game meaning. | 4 / 6 fly out (sacrifice fly | | "I think what made it so great was you could play | if runner on 3rd) | | alone, against a friend, or as a tournament. We've | 5 / 5 base on error | | passed it on to our families, but it is not played as | 5 / 6 single | | religiously. We even had a football version. Fun | 6 / 6 triple | | memories." | --------------------------- | | | 10 H, 24-25 O -- ~.290 | | | | | | Runners advance only as far | | | as forced. No base-stealing. | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | Interesting thing to note, perhaps, about the last two games | | described above: despite differences all throughout in what | | each throw of the dice indicates, the hit and out totals match | | exactly -- in two games both from roughly the same general | | region. Eh, maybe just coincidence. | | | | Some guys had less crystalline memories of precisely | | how their games played, but shared nonetheless highly | | entertaining recollections of it all. Still others provided | | some fascinating insights on their own efforts to refine the | | generic game they'd begun playing and develop a far more | | detailed simulation game, with results individualized for | | each player, a la APBA, Strat-O-Matic, and many other | | commercially-produced dice-based sims. | | Those are included next, below, and we can't let it go | | without mentioning (and strongly recommending, in case | | you haven't read it) The Universal Baseball Association, | | J. Henry Waugh, prop., the staggeringly brilliant novel | | by Robert Coover. Grand -- indeed universal -- themes | | play out within and against the backdrop of the tabletop | | world created by one man's obsession with his self-made | | dice baseball game. Magnificent. | |[aniDice02] | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Bob McCartha | | "My brothers and I played dice baseball during 1963-64, sometimes against each other, | | sometimes individually. We used three dice. The game was simple, and lots of fun. | | "I was 11 in 1963 when the only big league games I ever saw -- in black and white | | -- were courtesy of the Saturday TV Game of the Week. So, there was plenty of time | | during the week to be creative with the love of baseball. | | "We pencilled lineups onto index (score) cards... kept score and stats. A doubleheader | | could be played in about 30 minutes. The dice game was entertaining even when playing | | alone. My favorite team back in the day was the Chicago White Sox and I pitted them | | against the mighty Yankees, Tigers, or Twins. Best as I can remember, rolling 18 was | | a homer and rolling 3 was a triple. I think rolling 17 or 4 equaled a double; 16 or 5 | | a single; base on balls and K's -- can't remember those; all other numbers were outs. | | "For some of my favorite players (like Pete Ward), I'd give him a 'mulligan' roll, | | or two, hoping to roll an 18. Somehow, the Sox always won those dice games. For me, | | the dice game was simple but lots of fun. Once or twice, I pretended to be a broadcaster | | and recorded the 'game' on a portable tape recorder." | | | +----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Doug Chamberlain | | "Got the idea from my neighbor back in high school -- pair of dice with the rolls | | meaning the same result for everyone (e.g., double 4's = HR). | | "When he mentioned that his current HR leader was Mark Belanger I thought, | | well, that ain't right! | | "So I eventually took the idea a bit further, creating eight A.L. team rosters with | | each player having their own results for each possible roll of the dice. | | "Drawing vertical lines on steno pad sheets (just happened to be about the perfect | | size), I created a table for each team's roster with the table headers being Player, | | 1/1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, etc, thru 5/6 (double 6's was reserved for 'miscellaneous'). | | "It took some time, but filling out the table allowed you to increase the odds of, | | say, Jim Rice leading the league in HR's as opposed to Mark Belanger. In this case | | (yes, I still remember) a roll of 1/5 was a HR for Rice. For Belanger to hit a HR, | | a roll of double 6's and then a second roll of one die with a 5 or 6 (3 or 4 could be | | a triple and 1 or 2 reached on error ... whatever you wanted to make it). | | "The table also allows you to add an extra single in the possible rolls for the better | | hitters, maybe replace one with an out for the 'glove only' type players. Add an extra | | K in there for those who fan a bit more than average, etc, etc. | | "Tweaking over time led to a third, different colored die for pitchers, that overrode | | the other pair if applicable. This helped separate the better pitchers from the others. | | "Next to the pitcher's name would be one, two, or no asterisk. No * (average | | pitchers) meant the single die was to be ignored. One * (above-average pitchers) | | meant if the single die came up a 1, the batter was automatically out, ignore the other | | pair of dice. Two * (Cy Young-calibre pitchers) meant if the single die came up a 1 | | or 2... same as above. If that single die came up a 1 for, say, Nolan Ryan, then the | | out was a K." | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Todd Schultz | | "Ah yes... I devised a three-dice game when I was ten and then revamped it to four dice | | when I was 12 or 13. I wish I knew where the 'codes' were these days -- I had them | | memorized down to each play, but had them written down so the two or three neighbor | | kids who challenged me could either test my honesty or look for themselves. Outs | | were simply listed as groundout, fly or foul out, and line out. | | "In the three-dice game walks and Ks had to be earned one roll of a ball or strike | | at a time, with no HBP that I recall. In the four-dice game I used three red dice and | | one white die, and I had a few changes if the white die came up a specific number -- | | for example, 1-2-3-4 was an infield single, but if the white die was the '1' it was | | a strikeout. All I remember about the three-dice game was that 1-1-1 and 6-6-6 were | | home runs and the other threes of a kind were extra-base hits. It was all random, with | | no weight for greatness. Mays could bat .125 and Gus Gil .300. | | "My game was tied to baseball cards -- you had to field a team at each position using | | the Topps cards, and no multi-player cards were allowed. Guys like Bobby Heise were | | especially valuable, because his card just said 'infield' so you could plug him in | | throughout the various positions -- a few guys even had the designation 'inf-of,' which | | of course was a manager s dream. I also remember the 1973 Yankees having four | | 3rd-basemen -- Allen, Sanchez, Nettles, and Lanier, which greatly hampered their | | bench. Lanier and Allen were not true 3rd-sackers, but had played there the year | | before because Nettles had not yet been acquired. Thanks, Topps. What also was | | really cool was that one of the neighbors had only 1968 cards, so it was possible | | through trades that we would have the same guy playing for each side. | | "I remember that Joe Foy led my league in homers by a landslide in the three-dice | | game. Foy was on the 69 Royals, who also had Luis Alcaraz leading off for me just | | because I liked his card. I kept a written account of all games, but again there was | | no recording of defensive outs, just 'O' for out. I remember a star was used for RBI, | | a check mark for run scored, and X for SB -- symbols I still use today if scoring | | a game. Same for the four-dice game, which used all my 1972 Topps, and where | | the Brewers beat the Cardinals in the World Series, led by sparkplug Brock Davis | | (I remember I hated playing 'capless' players, but didn t have outfield depth at the | | beginning and Davis just kept hitting all season). | | "Great memories." | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Mark Satterstrom | | "When we were about ten years old, living in a suburb of Minneapolis, we came up with a simple game -- | | our own invention -- that used one die. We made a chart on a piece of paper with batting average / at-bats | | combinations. The idea was that a guy with a ton of at-bats who hit .300 was better than a guy with only 200 | | AB. For each combo we had the result line. So, for example, 500-550 AB and .250-.299 BA might be: | | 1 - single | | 2 - ground out | | 3 - strikeout | | 4 - double | | 5 - fly out | | 6 - pop out | | "Obviously there was very little precision, so the next increment (either more AB or higher BA) might just | | turn a double into a homer, or an out into a walk. | | "For stealing bases, another chart was simple, with outcomes based on a player's SB total, like 0-5, 6-10, etc. | | If a player had more than 50 SB, die rolls 2-6 were safe, only one was out. | | "When we used 1971 cards, with 1970 stats, Lou Brock was the beast. He had over 650 AB, hit over .300, | | and had over 50 SB. So when he got on base, the general strategy was to clear the bases in front of him (even | | if it meant stealing Harmon Killebrew into a certain out) and then stealing Brock all the way around. | | "What was nice is that all we needed was one die, a piece of paper we could easily fold into our pockets, and | | we could make a new one whenever necessary, and our baseball cards. Once, at the lake, we didn't have a die, | | so instead we used a deck of playing cards, just the A through 6s, and the guy batting would choose a card | | after the other shuffled. | | "What was really fun, when I got older, was making baseball cards of myself and all my teammates. Using | | the APBA method that uses two dice and gives 36 equally likely outcomes, I went through our game scorebooks, | | compiled detailed stat sheets, and then correlated every plate appearance to an outcome. When a player had | | fewer than 36 PA, I'd put a dash next to that dice roll, meaning the dice needed to be re-rolled. So in my game, | | if a kid had 4 singles, a double, and 6 strikeouts in 25 plate appearances, I could replicate those odds exactly. | | "When players had more than 36 plate appearances, I divided the stats by 2, and when there was an odd | | number, I put two outcomes with a "/" which meant another roll was required -- a single die and 1, 2, 3 meant | | the first result, 4, 5, 6 the second. So it looked like: | | 2 / 1 fly out | | 2 / 2 strikeout | | 2 / 3 single | | 2 / 4 double / ground out | | 2 / 5 walk | | 2 / 6 strikeout | | 3 / 1 --- | | "And so on. It was neat because it was a precise statistical representation of the batting stats. However, | | pitcher strength wasn't factored in, or defense, and I don't think stolen bases had a very sophisticated mechanism. | | "I contacted a couple of coaches of other teams to see if they had well-maintained scorebooks, but none did. | | That would've been cool, to have cards of all the kids in the whole league. | | "This concept stayed in the back of my mind and later, in graduate school (software engineering) I played with | | the idea of developing such a program to basically determine optimal batting lineups. In other words, run 1,000 | | simulated nine-inning 'games,' rotate the lineup to the next configuration, run a thousand games with that lineup, | | and so on. Kick the program off before going to bed, and in the morning see which lineup produced the highest | | number of runs. | | "I pitched (that's a pun) the idea to the baseball coach at the school, and right away he said: 'Some of my guys | | get hot, some can't hit left-handed pitching, some can't hit the good fastball, some can't touch a curve... so I have | | to weigh factors like that into setting my lineup on any given day.' | | "And... I realized he was right. A manager has to set his lineup based on the people on his team, not just their | | stat lines. | | "Also, with college teams in Minnesota, the dataset is just too small to be reliable. At the major-league level, | | when guys get 500 at bats, it's a different story. | | "Anyway, statistics-based simulated baseball is a fascinating topic, and really the only way that Rod Carew | | can take some cuts against Grover Alexander... " | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | It was only in the summer of 2019, long after we wrote and compiled the | | original version of this article, that we found another memory of homebrew | | dice baseball written long before -- this 2007 reminiscence (including rules | | of play!) from someone on the staff of WNST sports-talk radio in Baltimore: | |-------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Dice Basebell -- A Memory | |-------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | | | Somehow the 4-6 result has been omitted from the results list there, and | | since what's shown produces an overall .344 BA (11 hits, 21 outs), we'd | | strongly recommend making 4-6 an out if you're going to try to play it. | | Nonetheless, a charming walk around the basepaths of memory lane, | | thanks to that anonymous WNST intern. | | | | There are still more versions of dice baseball to be found on the internet, | | although one of the reasons we put this page together is because most of | | those other versions are, in our opinion, markedly inferior to the version | | we played and to those described by the contributors above -- and mainly | | that they have a sterile, arbitrarily-concocted feel, devoid of any sense of | | dice baseball's heritage and oblivious to the vital element of imagination | | that actually makes any version of the game, y'know, fun. Several of | | these other internet versions are presented as lessons or "fun exercises" | | in math, assembled by math teachers who seem to have little grasp of | | either baseball or math (our long-ago experiences as students leave us | | unsurprised). Nonetheless, merely in the interest of a more complete | | presentation, we relay a few of the least awful or most unusual versions | | here... | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | "Dice Baseball" | Each player rolls one die. | | State of Washington Public Instruction | The total shown by the | |http://www.k12.wa.us/cisl/pubdocs/DiceBaseballRules.pdf | two dice gives the result. | | "What is it: A long-played math baseball game using dice. | | | "It's a fun at-the-end-of-class or at-home game. | 2 - strike | | "What you need: Two participants, two dice, four place | 3 - fly out | | markers, a sheet of paper with a baseball diamond drawn on it. | 4 - single | | "Object of lesson: Having fun with math and giving | 5 - ground out | | students a possible math game for the summer. | 6 - strike | | "What they'll learn: Basic multiplication, decimals | 7 - fly out | | and fractions, and baseball rules. | 8 - double | | "Source: Special thanks to teacher-advisor Bob Krech, | 9 - ground out | | who actually put this game to paper for scholastic.com | 10 - triple | | a few years back. While this dice game exists in many | 11 - foul ball | | forms, we drew a lot from Bob's version of Dice Baseball." | 12 - home run | | | ------------------ | | | 12 H, 16+ O -- <.429 | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | eHow Hobbies' | Lots of Kid Games | Jon Simonds' | John Dejong's | | Baseball Dice | Dice Baseball | Dice Baseball | Dice Baseball Game | | http://tinyurl.com/z45ufcf | http://tinyurl.com/zo7x972 |http://tinyurl.com/jlrez2u | http://tinyurl.com/jx2jsdz | | Runners advance on hit | "This is not only fun, | Each player rolls one die. | http://tinyurl.com/hn742jr | | only as many bases as | but kids can hone their | The total shown by the | 1 / 1 home run | | forced. | math skills as they | two dice gives the result. | 1 / 2 three outs | | | add up their points | | 1 / 3 single | | 2 - home run | each inning." | 2 - strike -- roll again, | 1 / 4 three outs | | 3 - strikeout | | if 11, foul ball | 1 / 5 single | | 4 - strikeout | 2 - home run | 3 - fly out | 1 / 6 three outs | | -- if 2/2, | 3 - triple | 4 - single | 2 / 2 home run | | base on balls | 4 - single | 5 - ground out | 2 / 3 three outs | | 5 - ground out | 5 - out | 6 - strike -- roll again, | 2 / 4 single | | 6 - ground out | 6 - out | if 11, foul ball | 2 / 5 three outs | | -- if 3/3, | 7 - out | 7 - fly out | 2 / 6 single | | base on error | 8 - walk | 8 - double | 3 / 3 home run | | 7 - fly out | 9 - out | 9 - ground out | 3 / 4 three outs | | 8 - fly out | 10 - single | 10 - triple | 3 / 5 single | | -- if 4/4, | 11 - double | 12 - home run | 3 / 6 three outs | | base on balls | 12 - home run | ------------------ | 4 / 4 home run | | 9 - single | ------------------ | 11 H, 16+ O -- <.407 | 4 / 5 three outs | | 10 - double | 12 H, 19 O -- .387 | | 4 / 6 single | | 11 - triple | | | 5 / 5 home run | | 12 - home run | | | 5 / 6 three outs | | ------------------ | | | 6 / 6 home run | | 11 H, 23 O -- .324 | | | ------------------ | | | | | 18 H, 54 O -- .250 | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | dice baseball | Simple Baseball Dice Game | | The Official World Encyclopedia of Sports and Games | http://www.sportsreplays.net/downloads5.htm | | (c) Diagram Visual Information Ltd 1979 | Play with two dice of different | |http://www.diagramgroup.com/diagram_sport.htm | colors, or play as roll and | | One-die Baseball | re-roll. | | 1 - single | | | 2 - double | First roll, or die one: | | 3 - triple | 1 - 2 batter safe | | 4 - home run | 3 - 6 batter out | | 5 - out, runners do not advance | | | a) if one man on the bases, he is out; | Second roll, or die two: | | b) if men on all bases, the man on base 1 is out; | if safe: | | c) if he has men on bases 1 and 2, the man on base 2 is out; | 1 - walk | | d) if he has men on bases 1 and 3, the man on base 1 is out; | 2 - single | | e) if he has men on bases 2 and 3, both are safe. | 3 - single | | 6 - strikeout | 4 - double | | | 5 - triple | | Two-dice Baseball | 6 - home run | | 2 - home run | | | 3 - triple | if out: | | 4 - single | 1 - strikeout | | 5 - out, all runners advance one base | 2 - ground out, | | 6 - out, no advance | all runners advance | | 7 - double play, runner nearest home is out | 3 - ground out, | | 8 - out, except 4/4 base on balls | forced runners advance | | 9 - out, no advance | 4 - ground out -- double play | | 10 - single | if runner on 1st, | | 11 - double | all others advance | | 12 - home run | 5 - fly out, runners hold | | ------------------------------------ | 6 - fly out, runners on | | 12 H, 24 O -- .333 | 2nd and 3rd advance | | | --------------------------- | | Three-dice Baseball | 10 H, 24 O -- .294 | | Each player throws the dice in turn, scoring one run | | | for every 1 that is rolled. When he fails to throw a 1, | steal of 2nd or 3rd: | | a player's half-inning is ended, and his opponent takes over. | 1 - 2 out | | | 3 - 6 safe | | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | One last version of dice baseball must be mentioned here, although copyright concerns, | | as well as its relatively lengthy rulebook, filled with specifications on baserunner | | advancement, dissuade us from presenting it. That game, though, is semi-legendary -- | | titled simply "Dice Baseball," it's a chapter in The Second Fireside Book of Baseball, | | the thoroughly excellent 1958 anthology edited by Charles Einstein. The game is the | | creation of Einstein, writing rather coyly under his "D. J. Michael" pseudonym. Ask | | your local library to obtain a copy if they don't have it on their shelves -- it's a fine | | and worthwhile read. | | | | There ya go. A little history, a little nostalgia, and, hopefully, somewhere in that mix, | | the recipe for some fun you can have with your kids or your grandkids or your friends | | or all by yourself. Give one a try! And if it doesn't satisfy, pick one that yields a | | different proportion of results and try that. And of course, you're totally at liberty to | | customize to your own taste any of the systems presented and alter what any roll of | | the dice means. Make it your own! Make it a tradition. | | | |[dice07] | | Thanks again to Doug Chamberlain, Robert Coover, Bruce Garland, Eric Harrington, | | Mike Knapp, Bob McCartha, Dave Newman, Henri Roca, Mark Satterstrom, Todd | | Schultz, Tom Shieber, Dan V, and Ed Voss for contributions large and small, up front | | and behind the scenes. | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | Play, collect, or deal in tabletop baseball games? Visit | | the BASEBALL GAMES Forum | | | | A Resource for Players, Collectors, and Dealers | | | | - Antique, Vintage, and Modern Baseball Games - | | | | Discussion Forum, Photos, Files, Links and More | | | | https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/baseballgames/ | | | | -- Registration is completely free and takes only seconds -- | | Please consult our Forum Policy page before posting | | | | | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | BASEBALL GAMES | | ---Intro----Games----Forum Policy----Forum---- | | Articles----Links----Awards | | | | -- technical problems with this site? contact webmuensters -- | | all other questions or comments, visit Baseball Games Forum | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+