Slightly OT -- anybody here play dice baseball as a kid?

[71buc]

My Dad taught me to do math by playing dice baseball. We would select eight rosters and play about 50 games. We saved all of the stats and then would use them to identify two all star teams and play a best of seven series. If I remember correctly we used two dice and the following combinations dictated the action. 1-1 and any combo of 7 was a single, 2-2 double, 3-3 triple, 4-4 homer, 5-5 walk, 1-2 strikeout, 6-6 double play or a sacrifice fly depending where the runners were, any other combinations were outs. The lead runner was always out if a force out existed, no stealing and runners could only advance the number of bases the hitter collected. It was a fun and simple way to learn math. Oh yeah I'm over 50 and Merv Rettmund was an absolute beast.

[Butch7999]

Hi Mike -- thanks very much for your input! Follow-up PM sent.

C'mon, guys -- anybody else? Surely there must be more folks here who played some version...

[Mark17]

We had a simple game 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, AB=500-550 and BA = .250 to .299 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.

[billyb]

Butch,
Mine was not a dice baseball game, but an ordinary deck of cards. I figured all spades were hits and 13 out of 52 was a 250 batting average. Ace was a home run, King was a home run if the player was a 20 HR hitter the year before, otherwise the King was a triple. Queens and Jacks were doubles. The Queen, everyone scored, but the Jack, the runners only advanced 2 bases. Tens and nines were singles with runners advancing two bases, the rest were straight singles.
I had two or three walk cards and four strikeout cards , but I do not recall which I used. DP cards and the Aces of Diamonds, Clubs and Hearts were Sac flies. To raise the batting averages somewhat, I removed several of the playing cards. About every card had a meaning, Ground out, pop up, fly out,
With each play, I would shuffle the cards, so there could be a chance for the same card coming up twice in a row.
I do not remember what all the cards meant, as that was a long time ago.
I know there were other meanings.
For teams, (and here is where the rubber bands came in), I would start when I had enough players to have about 4 to six teams. I would sort the players by position and deal them out evenly to each team, but often there were players left over. When I was done with all the positions, I would deal the left over players out to the teams evenly. Once I had my teams, the rubber bands kept them seperate.
When I was about nine or ten, I remember I had over 300 AB for the starters. I kept all the stats, ERA and BA, RBIs, pitching stats as well. and kept up on who were the leaders of those stats.
The leaders were not your everyday players, I believe it was Dick Schoefield who was the HR leader. And yes, I would bench players who were not hitting.
I remember getting a cards game similar to that game. It only had about 10 or 12 cards, "base Hit", double, triple, HR, fly out, ground out, sac. Hit, Double play, Strikeout, and walk. That is the ones I remember, and that would have been in the latter 1950s.
I played that game for several years. Used up many decks of cards.

[nolemmings]

Hey Butch,

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 2-3 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 3 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 third basemen –Allen, Sanchez, Nettles and Lanier, which greatly hampered their bench. Lanier and Allen were not true third 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 HRs by a landslide in the three-dice game. Foy was on the ‘69 Royals, who also had Luis Alcaraz leading off for me 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 spark plug Brock Davis (I remember I hated playing “capless” players but didn’t have OF depth at the beginning and Davis just kept hitting all season) Great memories.

[bgar3]

Yes, my father had a meaning for all the combinations, we played constantly with lineups etc, kept stats and everything. I still associate dice rolls with the baseball game meaning. Interestingly, they were different than the others mentioned. (We even had a football version). Believe it or not Vern Law once pitched a perfect game. I still marvel at how real the games and stats seemed.
FYI there is a great novel involving an extremely complex dice league by Coover, entitled The Universal Baseball Association, recommended if you have not read it yet. If interested in the rules I could give you most of them from memory, but I may need a few days to find my actual , original sheet. I think what made so great was you could play alone, against a friend, or as a tournament. Nice memories, thanks for the question. By the way this was mostly late 50's early 60's although must confess there were a few games in college also.

[Butch7999]

Mark, Bill, Todd, bgar -- big thanks for the input! Seriously, much appreciated.
Some PMs will follow later (pressed for time at the moment).

bgar, yes, that's what we're looking for, the many variations, both drastic and subtle,
in the different "homebrew" or "folk" versions of dice baseball, and the when and where
of their origins.
Also, we're intimately acquainted with Coover's brilliant novel -- one of us (there's three
at this username, for those who don't know us) just did another lecture on the book
at an area college, and we've chatted with Coover in person (really nice guy as well as
a superb writer). The book is about so, so, so much more than dice baseball, of course --
multiple grand themes -- and indeed it should be requisite reading.