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

[digdugdig]

Got the idea from my neighbor back in high school, pair of dice with the rolls meaning the same result for everyone (i.e. 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 teams roster with the table headers being Player, 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, etc, thru 5-6 (double sixes was reserved for misc.).

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 sixes 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 3rd, different colored die for pitchers, that overrode the other pair if applicable. This helped seperate the better pitchers from the others.

Next to the pitchers 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 caliber 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.