(Chicago, IL, August 6th & 7th, 2006)
by R. Joshua Shapiro, aka "Wolfman Shapiro")
PART I
(Early background, what is the Star Tournament,
and how to draft your team for it.... )
(Notes
before the article: For my 50th birthday my wife Desy (who is
Dutch) agreed to buy for me the Strat-o-matic Computer Game on CD and
the printed cards for the 2005 set (2004 MLB Season). I played
Strat-o-matic when I was younger. I received my first game in 1967 and
went on to play in various leagues and tournaments. I came back to
Strato via the trial baseball leagues offered on-line at the Sporting
News website where I played in three leagues of 21 games each. Now,
enclosed with the CD and the cards from Strat-o-matic, was a flyer about
these tournaments that were being held all over the country. This is how
I heard about the Star Tournaments.)
When I was younger
I loved Strat-o-matic Baseball and I was truly a SOM Fanatic. The idea
of being a manager and in charge of the professional players thrilled me
to no end. So much so that as I have gotten older I have a dream that
one day I will pitch for the Chicago Cubs and manage them for a game.
Why the Cubs? Well, I grew up in Chicago and have been a Cub fan ever
since.
In the early days,
back in the 1970's through the efforts of Del and Warren Newell of
Kalamazoo, Michigan, the publisher of the "Strat-o-matic Review", they
organized the first tournament for SOM, the first of its kind at a local
school in 1972. And I remember taking a bus from Chicago to go to this
tournament. I don't think I did so well but it was just the idea of
meeting other gamers from all over the country. Later on, I remember
going to a tournament at a department store in Brooklyn (or NYC, 1973?)
that the game company itself had set up. I played in the baseball
tournament and I think I made it to the semi-finals. In this tournament
you had to switch teams with your opponent so the idea was to take a
team you could do well with but another player would have great
difficulty to do so.
But then, all of a
sudden, it was announced in 1974, there wouldn't be a national
tournament at all. (Well no wonder, it does take a lot of work and
effort!!) And of course there was a great outcry in the land of SOM! But
as we all know, there is the old motto, “If you want something done
right, then you better do it yourself.” At this point in time I was
attending the University of Illinois and getting my degree in computer
sciences. I had a good friend named Bob Anderson (I wonder where old Bob
is now?) who I met at the U of I and we had organized some baseball
leagues around the Chicago area. So Bob and I found out that if we
created a club at the University we could use a room at the Student
Union to hold a tournament plus the participants could stay in the
dormitories. So we decided to go for it, and we offered a conference or
convention for four years there from 1974-1978 (I graduated in '77). The
people who participated, really enjoyed it as they kept coming back.
One day I hope I can find people who went to these tournaments and maybe
do a report about what happened. I believe in 1979 we were able to host
another tournament at Northwestern University in Evanston near Chicago
and then I just found some old newspaper articles that we created the
“Chicagoland SOM Club” in 1979-1980. We had a number of concurrent
baseball, football and hockey leagues going plus we did local
tournaments at shopping malls and even had some ex-baseball players
(from the Cubs and the White Sox) join us. As I recall we continued to
follow the format of the tournaments where you would switch teams with
your opponent (at the half for football and basketball, or play two
games in baseball).
However, towards
the end of 1980 and into 1981, my life went in another direction. I
started to pursue a more spiritual life. I studied things of the
paranormal that led me on a whole new adventure traveling the world,
giving lectures, and writing books. And, I dropped Strat-o-matic for
about 25 years. But the love and joy of participating in a tournament
and that someday I would come back to this game I loved was always in
the back of my mind.
In 2005, after
Desy bought me the computer game and I could once again play in a league
(using the computer version via the internet), that old tournament bug
creeped up on me once again. I looked at the flyer I received about the
Star Tournaments and I saw that, lo and behold, a tournament was being
held in Chicago, my old hometown. I was living in Holland (the
Netherlands, not Holland, Michigan) at the time. But, I usually will
visit my father in Chicago at least once a year as I have a room at his
condominium there. In March and April (2005) I was involved in two
computer-based leagues (the CBA and EABL) (btw, it looks like both teams
will make the playoffs, not too bad) and my blood was boiling with Strat
fever again. But, there are no strat players in Holland. And, you all
know there is a huge difference in playing the game live versus via the
computer. So inside my brain, I heard the words "Tournament --
Tournament -- you need to play in a Tournament Wolfman!!"
I noticed on the
flyer, which talked about the Star Tournaments, there was an email
address for Bill Fenlon, the Star Tournament Director in Chicago. I was
already planning to visit Chicago in July and August. But, I wasn't
exactly sure how I could do it financially. However, I thought since I
was asking God to help me with this trip, the least I could do was to
learn more about how this tournament was run and see what I needed to
prepare for it, just in case God granted my request.
So, I sent Bill an
email on June 1st and he answered it right away. He told me that any
strat player was welcome to come and participate. He suggested I study
the website for the Star Tournaments. My God, these guys were pretty
darn organized. They had complete statistics and stats on all the
previous tournaments and had just about every kind of information or
analysis of the player's cards which could help anyone be prepared to
play in such a tournament. There was so much information that I felt
like I had gone back in time 35 years and I was in school again. The
website also had a wonderful document that completely explained all the
rules and regulations connected to the tournament including rules for
how to play the SOM baseball game (and which super advanced rules were
not used). And, last but not least, it seemed like some of the best
players on the planet were coming to Chicago. Well folks that is for me!
Well, now that I
was sold, the next question was: "How the heck do I pay for this trip to
Chicago?" I really didn't realize how expensive the flight was going to
be (Flying from Europe to America in high season, the price was
unbelievable, you don't want to know!) But, fortunately (as God did
listen to my prayer), I was able to do a few things (I sold some books,
did a lecture in Memphis during my visit, and got help with my plane
fare from people supporting a conference we are organizing in Holland
for next year.) and the trip was on. Chicago, here I come. So I
immediately went to the SOM game website and ordered what is called a
"Game Setup", which is all the things you need to play the game
face-to-face. Unfortunately, as most of you know, the computer game
version doesn't have images of any of the strategy charts, it just takes
care of the results for you, and if you want to learn how to play the
super advance game with all the new rules, then you need to see these
charts. So I did order this and it was waiting for me when I arrived in
Chicago.
Next, I will
discuss my experiences related to my first Star Tournament and what I
did to prepare. My hope is that this article might be of assistance to
other players, who have never played in a Star tournament and perhaps
even give a few helpful hints to those who have played. I will share my
own personal experiences and include two interviews I did via email with
Bill Fenlon, the organizer of this tourney (who I mentioned before) and
another wonderful gentlemen I met, Hank Smith, (who I happened to be
sitting next to at the White Sox game that a few of us went to thanks to
Bill), who I didn't realize is “The Proud Papa”, who started the Star
Tournaments from the very beginning in 1996.
--------------------------------------------
How are the Star
Tournaments Played?
--------------------------------------------
For those
not familiar with how these tournaments are conducted let’s take a
quick look. The tournaments use the latest set of cards (for ours
the 2004 season) and you draft your team before you play any
games. I thought this was a really cool way to play, because it
means each participant ideally will have a team of players they
like. You draft 25 players and a stadium. Then, depending upon how
many participants there are, you will have one or more divisions.
Everyone plays the same number of games in a division (for our
tournament it was 22, 14 games on the Saturday and 8 more on
Sunday). You only play the people in your division during
the normal play to determine playoff position.
Then,
the top four teams of the tournament, play a semi-finals and
championship series which is called the 1st place bracket. This way
everyone is able to play a lot of games during the weekend and have a
lot of fun (rather than have some players play a few games and be
eliminated early). There is also a consolation bracket so teams that
don't make the championship round can still compete in and try to win
3rd place bracket.
For those not
familiar with how these tournaments are conducted let’s take a quick
look. The tournaments use the latest set of cards (for ours the 2004
season) and you draft your team before you play any games. I thought
this was a really cool way to play, because it means each participant
ideally will have a team of players they like. You draft 25 players and
a stadium. Then, depending upon how many participants there are, you
will have one or more divisions. Everyone plays the same number of games
in a division (for our tournament it was 22, 14 games on the Saturday
and 8 more on Sunday) and then the top four teams play a semi-finals and
championship series. This way everyone is able to play a lot of games
during the weekend and have a lot of fun (rather than have some players
play a few games and be eliminated early). There is also a consolation
bracket so teams that don't make the championship round can still
compete in and try to win 3rd place.
A player qualifies
for the championship round by either finishing first in their division
or qualifying as wild card team from the second place finishers. In our
tournament we had three divisions so the first place team of each
division qualified and the three-second place teams had to do a shootout
(which I will explain here momentarily) to determine the fourth and last
team for the 1st place bracket. There is an entry fee to play in the
Star Tournament which is $25 (just to play) or $100 (if you want to
compete for the big prize money). A portion of the proceeds pays for
the various expenses connected to the tournament (such as the game room
rental, money contributed to the regional and national tournament prize
funds, dice, dice towers, the player card set used, etc.) and of course
the top performing participants do win the lion’s share of the money as
a prize. So there is an added incentive to win.
Actually in my
division, there were three teams who where tied for first so they all
had to do a shootout. The shootout match-ups are decided by a roll of a
20-sided die by each participant to see who plays each other the first
round. Then the two remaining players have a shootout with the winner
advancing to the final four competing for first and second place. In a
shootout you have to change your pitcher after each inning. The team who
is winning at the end of an inning is the winner of the game (so the
game can go from one to however many innings it takes until someone is
ahead). Also, because we had three divisions, there were three-second
place teams who had to do a roll-off to see which one goes into the
championship round.
For the 3rd place bracket, any of the other teams in the tournament, who
did not qualify for the championship round, can enter and compete. Also,
the teams in the first round of the 1st place bracket who were
eliminated then drop down into this third place bracket. In Chicago, the
top six teams of the tourney received prize money. In the championship
round the semi-final is best of five and the championship is best of
seven. In the third place bracket it is single elimination.
Related to the
player’s cards who qualify for the draft, the rules are a hitter must
have 300 plate appearances (although a catcher just needs 250). A
pitcher must have pitched 125 innings to start (and be listed as a
starter) and/or 40 innings to relieve (and be listed as a reliever) to
be eligible to draft. If a player is injured they are just injured for
the remainder of the game. However, if a starting pitcher is injured
they stay in the game tired and must be removed after five innings and
can be removed before that only if they give up four runs. A relief
pitcher may pitch no more than a total of four innings each four games.
And, a relief pitcher can’t pitch more than three consecutive games. To
start a pitcher must have three days rest.
The preceding was
a brief overview of the key rules for the Star Tournaments. This should
help the readers who are not familiar with these tourneys and provide an
idea of the type of team a person can draft. Also, which ballpark you
pick can be very very important (far more important than I realized just
playing the computer game) and can really affect your performance in the
tournament, as I quickly learned being a newbie.
Another aspect of
the tournament that was new for me was the use of dice towers plus the
tournament director provided for each of us, four new die (3 dice to
roll and a 20 sided). I didn't know what a dice tower was prior to
playing the tournament. One of my old strat buddies (Steve Fixler) from
my early days brought over to my Dad's place, a dice tower so I could
practice using it in our exhibition games. A dice tower is a small
wooden structure that you throw the die into the top opening and they
come out the bottom opening into a tray. The purpose of the dice tower
is to keep the roll of the dice completely random and to equalize the
roll of the dice for all players.
Well sports fans,
this was one aspect of the tournament that I just never got comfortable
with. In my early playing days one of the joys for me was rolling the
dice myself. It allowed me to put that good old energy into it. I can
certainly understand why they are being used. But, it kind of took away
a bit of the fun. If there were an aspect of the tournament I would
change it would be that the dice tower not be mandatory. Certainly
(since I heard at some previous tournaments before the Star Tournament
was born, there was a person who did have loaded dice and was winning
because he knew which players to draft) the idea of providing new die
for all players is fair (although again I would prefer larger die than
the small die that come with the game) but this dice tower really
bothered me. I could never get into a flow with it. But, one thing I
learned from organizing our own tournaments, you can never make everyone
happy no matter how hard you try to make the tournament fair.
-----------------------------------------------------
How do you Decide
what kind of Team to Draft?
-----------------------------------------------------
I’m not sure I can
give the best answer to this question as of course there are infinite
possibilities to what kind of team a person can draft. But I think that
I can offer some pointers based on the preparation I did for the
tournament and also what were my personal results from following my own
plan.
First of all, I
want to compliment the Star Board of Directors for offering to the
participants of their tournament (via their website at
startournaments.com) a ton of information that can help and support any
participant, even newbies such as myself, with enough information that
anyone can prepare and draft a competitive team for tournament play. I
spent countless hours studying these materials to mentally prepare
myself for this first tournament. On the website is just about every
conceivable analysis you can possibly imagine for evaluating the cards
and the players. Additionally I would like to thank Bill Fenlon for his
willingness and kindness to answer all of my many questions (I’m known
to ask questions until I understand how things work.) about the
tournament so I could really be prepared for it. Bill demonstrated the
true spirit of what I think the Star Tournaments are about. That is to
give every person who wishes to participate a chance to do well and not
try to hold back some secret knowledge or tips, which only the best
players know.
Tools that I found
invaluable for my first tournament included:
1)
The Average Pick Sheet -This
is a listing that shows where players were picked on average for the
previous drafts. Several versions of this sheet are available. For
example, there are average pick sheets for the number of players in your
draft/division (8-14 teams). So, in general, for most of the
tournaments, especially as related to the early rounds of the draft, it
was pretty easy to know and to predict where the best players are going
to go.
2)
A
Summary of all the drafts which occurred from the previous tournaments
of this year.
This was very interesting and I was able to see two different types of
teams that were picked in the tournaments that would do very well;
a)
A team with great hitting (very good on base & power), in a
hitters park, who took starting pitchers with little or no home runs
(diamonds) on their card (not super star pitchers) plus six relievers to
cover all situations -- two ace relief pitchers (one left & right), a
pitcher who is very very good against right handed hitters who pitches
right, and the same for the left side, and two reverse relief pitchers,
one left and right.
b)
A team with great pitching, great defense in a pitcher's park
with hitters who hit well (not necessarily for power).
3)
Tables
that rated each eligible player for the draft at every position.
Also the players ratings, based on their performance as reflected by
what is on their card, verses left-handed & right-handed
(pitching/hitting) was provided. These rating sheets made it easy to try
to figure out a system of ranking the players in an order you would pick
for each position. Additionally you could see what positions had a lot
of good players and which ones didn’t. So, perhaps you either needed to
draft that position early or you could wait until later in the draft to
pick a player for that position.
4)
A table showing which particular players had been on the most winning
teams in the tournaments.
5)
Two extra tables: On-base Percentage Ranking for hitters and lack of hit
and walk chances for Pitchers
(in both cases verses the right & left handed pitchers.)
6)
Finally,
the Star Tournaments provided a computer program where you can run your
own simulation of a tournament draft.
This tool was very handy to test out the type of team you might want to
draft (the program is called dsim-Draft Simulator) or just to experience
how a draft will go. When I practiced the tourney rules with Bill before
the real tournament began, we used this program to draft our practice
teams. Many of the players who came to the tournament, brought with them
notebook computers so they could use this program during their draft
(yours truly included) to help them with their selections. Dsim also
will show you the top picks to consider (like the top 15-20) based on
your team when it is your turn to make your next draft pick.
There were a few
other tables and spreadsheets I created for myself working with the data
supplied in all the files that the Star Tournament gives you. But, the
ones mentioned here I think were the most valuable. If nothing else, if
you ever decide to join a draft league once the Star Tournament files
are up on their website, these documents could help you a lot.
Therefore, I can't say enough about the amount of time the Star
Associates have put into making it possible for anyone to play the
tournament and have provided you all the information you need to prepare
ahead. I thought to myself, the art of SOM baseball tournaments has
really advanced since the first days they were offered. But again, there
is an old saying that even if you have all the information in the world,
if you don't know how to interpret it for a real-life situation, it
won't help you.
Therefore in my
opinion, there is nothing more valuable then having real-life experience
too. So if you don't have success in your first tourney, don't worry,
you really can't see how the tournament really works until you are
there. For example, there was a big mistake I made in the selection of
my team for the Chicago Tournament. On paper I would say I had a strong
team. But when I started to play games it became quite clear a key
ingredient was missing which effected my team's performance. I will
discuss this when I move into the section of my report which discusses
the team I drafted and why I thought it would be successful. So if you
can find some friends to practice with, I suggest you create a mock
draft using the dsim program, follow the tournament rules and this will
better prepare you. Another idea is you can also do a mock draft with
the dsim, pick you own team and let the computer pick the rest of the
teams and then make yourself a little league in the computer version of
the game and see what happens in this simulation.
In any case, if
you want to pick a good team, you have to be willing to spend many hours
to study all the materials. Perhaps even find some of the people who
have participated in other tournaments and ask them questions.
One question I did
ask some of the players I met in Chicago just prior to the start of the
actual tournament was if there is a secret for picking a good team. And
they all pretty much gave to me the same answer which was that it has to
be a team you feel comfortable playing with, first and foremost. You
shouldn't pick players just because some so-called expert tells you that
you have to pick those players or the dsim program tells you to pick
them. If you don't like your team or are not comfortable with it then
you probably won't do well.
So, how do you
feel about playing with a team that has good pitching? Or, do you prefer
pure hitting? Or would you wish to play with a more balanced team which
might have not so many superstars but good steady players throughout. I
always like to try to have a squad that has interchangeable parts or
players as I do with one of my league teams, the Montreal Royals in the
CBA. We have a lineup that can go against any type of pitcher and we
have good or decent starters with excellent relievers. Even with the
two teams I discussed before that seemed to do well in the tournaments,
each one has its pluses and minuses. If you take a very good hitting
team with average pitching in a hitter's park, then your opponents could
score a lot of runs too. And if you go for good pitching and defense but
don't have enough hitting in a pitcher's park, you might not score
enough runs to win.
I did have a
chance to talk to the person who eventually won our tournament (Mike
Cohen) and he did mention the word "luck". He said that he was rolling
the dice well. You need some luck because in effect when you play in the
Star Tournaments you are playing against just All-Star caliber teams.
Another answer I
received from a few players was to try to create a balanced team. And
why is this? Because undoubtedly you will have to play at times in a
pitcher's park and you must be able to do well and perform in a hitter's
park to win too. If you gear your team for only one type of park, then
this vulnerability can hurt your chances of success. So somehow you have
to find the best combination of players so your team can adapt to any
type of ballpark. Anyway this concept of being able to play well in both
parks was in the back of my mind while I was drafting.
I like to create a
team that has depth for not only being able to score runs with hitting
and power but at the same time has some pretty darn good pitching with
defense. The best way I know how to explain this tournament further is
to just tell my story and experiences from the beginning.
To
Continue Reading
Part II
(click above)
To correspond with the "Wolfman" feel free to send him an email at:
joshuashapiro@xs4all.nl
To view the leagues that the "Wolfman" is competing
in, feel free to visit:
THE CBA (www.cba-bb.net
-- check out the Skokie Wolfmen)
THE PSBL (www.psbl.us
---- check out the Skokie Cubs)
To read the article entitled "The Wolfman's Return to SOM", which
deals
with his first computer league the CBA (as shown above), please click
on:
http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/WolfmanReturns-PI.html
Good luck everyone with your Strat-o-matic Seasons
................ the Skokie Wolfman
