Roster Sheets

I think (not sure) when I first started gaming in the late 60s and early 70s, I used to treat the SOM roster sheets that came with the game the same way I treated checklists with baseball cards. I either ignored them, discarded them, and definitely undervalued them.

Later, when I became a serious collector, I realized their true value and recognized they are a MUST HAVE for collecting teams and sets.

I even now don't want any old roster sheet, but ones that are clean, crisp, with no rips or tears (common) and definitely no ink, felt pen, or highlighter markings.

Maybe 10-12 years ago (or maybe longer than that), I even bought 8.5 x 14 protector sheets (and an accompanying 8.5 x 14 binder) to store those roster sheets that were that size, starting with the 1977 season roster sheet and also including many recreated roster sheets.

I keep my main set of roster sheets in a normal 8.5x11 binder and of course the larger ones in the larger binder.

The Oldtimers (I think) started out as 6 or 12 team sets. I have roster sheets for 20 teams, 28 teams, 34 teams (very rare) and of course 42 teams. Every time they added more teams, they just crammed them onto the same 2 page oldtimer roster sheet. The 20 team sheet had 10 teams on each side of the sheet. When they went to 28 teams (my first set)  they went to 14 teams on each side, somewhat reducing the size for each team. In 1974 they added the 6 1900-1910 teams and now with 34 teams they went to 14 teams on the front but a whopping 20 teams on the back. The teams are so tiny on the back you can hardly read them. This roster sheet was only available in 1974 and 1975 and is very rare, I was looking for one for YEARS until I finally found one on eBay 2-3 years ago. At this point, they should have expanded to 3-4 pages, not cramming 34 teams onto just 2 pages. And then in 1976, with the 1920-30B set of 8 teams they went to 42 teams. They kept 14 teams on the front page (but changed the page from portrait to landscape). And they stuffed 28 teams on the back page, also going from portrait to landscape. They EASILY should have decided to go to at least 4 pages. Sheesh. 

I currently have roster sheets going back to the original 1963 season and my collection includes the original roster sheets for the 1968-69 expansion set (ultra rare) and the 1976-77 expansion set (somewhat RARE).

Up until about the 1990 season, the roster sheets would have the "sales" year listed on top of the roster sheet instead of the statistical year. For example,  the 1968 stat season would have a roster sheet that said "1969 rosters". This can get confusing especially for novices or those not familiar with the game. It is very common to see eBay listings for example that say "1973 Strat-O-Matic teams" when they are in fact 1972 teams.

Even the game company does not get it right. The roster sheet archive on their website has many of the same errors, for example the "1989 roster" is actually for the 1988 stat season. When they started matching the actual year on the roster sheet to the actual stat year (apparently starting with the 1990 stat season) this ended the confusion. And they actually would say "1990 season roster" instead of the previous "1990 roster". As it is they do not have a 1989 season roster on the site. In addition, most of the 1960s and 1970s roster sheets on their site are the newer recreated advanced or super advanced versions ... seeing/getting an original version that came with the original versions are basically nil.

I recently wrote them a letter advising them of these "mistakes" and offering my original roster sheets (and the 2 expansion roster sheets) if they wanted them, have not heard back yet.

They may not be interested in these as they may want to market towards games and sets they can still sell and I acknowledged that in my letter.