A Cliff Notes version of my table top sports history.
My first exposure to table top sports was circa 1966. My father was a former professional baseball player and we were a "baseball family". More on that later. A baseball associate of my father's brought over an APBA baseball game, the 1964 season edition. He said he could not make heads or tails out of it. My brother (6 grades older than me) started using it first, but I inherited it not much later. I played it a little (not a lot) but was more interested in collecting baseball cards (more on that later too). I used to arrange the baseball cards with a player for each position spread out on a diamond and have a batter whack a marble or ball or something to simulate a baseball game. Ah, table top gaming was already in my blood. I even used to tear the rookie cards in half so each player was an individual card (like the 1968 Nolan Ryan rookie card).
Sometime in 1968, we visited some family friends, who had a son a year younger than me. He had a Tudor electric football game, the generic version with the yellow and white players. For Christmas in 1968, I had asked for an electric football game and a watch. A few days before Christmas, I noticed two packages with my name on it. A small box, obviously the watch and a larger box, too small to be the electric football game. I was disappointed. I opened the larger box first, there was nothing in there but a bunch of filler. Tucked into one corner was a small box which contained the watch. OK, but what was in the other small box?
Puzzled, I opened the small box next and it had the NFL Browns and Giants electric football players in beautiful uniforms, from the Tudor #620 NFL football game. I was over joyed. Out came the box with all the parts, I thought the removable bases etc. were so cool. I set up the game and on my first play, "Homer Jones" caught a pass and raced 80 yards straight into the end zone for a touchdown. I will never forget it to this day. I will do a separate piece on electric football later.
That same Christmas, I also received the World Series baseball game from Lowe's. Very generic. Any player could hit 4 home runs or strike out 4 times. Not too realistic.
In the spring of 1969, I decided to get serious about a table top baseball game. I took my dad's Sporting News and Street and Smith's and sent away for 4-5 brochures. Not sure if I sent away for APBA as I already had exposure to it. After reviewing the brochures, I had about made up my mind. I was leaning towards Strat-O-Matic. Then I learned another local family had the 1966 season Strat-O-Matic game. I talked to one of the older kids and he told me a lot of good things about it. He also told me they do not order the new cards every year, they just make "cosmetic" changes to the cards. For example, Sandy Koufax retired after the 1966 season and Tom Seaver was a very good rookie in 1967 so they just made Koufax's card now Seaver. That struck me as odd. I decided to get Strat-O-Matic and told myself to order the new cards every year. Not bad for an 11 year old.
I decided to go for the selector set version, thinking all 20 teams plus game parts would be too much to ask for. I settled on 2 teams from each division (it was 1969 and divisional play had just started): Tigers and Orioles, A's and Twins, Giants and Braves, Cardinals and Cubs. I can remember receiving it after school one day. a school chum (not into sports) was over when it arrived.
And that was the start.
To be continued ...
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