Memories of Strat
For whatever reason, I never played Strat-o-Matic baseball when I was a kid. I played All Star Baseball and Statis Pro Baseball (Bill Castro and Jerry Augustine made for a potent 1-2 punch in the ‘79 Brewers bullpen), but never Strat.
Chad Finn played the game, and he talks about it over at Baseball Analysts. One of the things I love about baseball is the way it connects people. Chad touches on this nicely:
For all of these indulgent flashbacks and anecdotes, though, the truest value I found in the game was both personal and palpable: it brought me closer to my dad. In darker times for my family, when maybe I didn’t see him as much as I’d have liked and my teen angst prevented me from telling him so, the game always seemed to be there as a catalyst for repairing our bond. It is not an exaggeration to say the game made my young life easier.
I can’t claim the same experience, but I do know that I’ve made a lot of friends over the years who shared my interest in and passion for baseball. In fact, I am still great friends with a guy I met in my first Rotisserie League back in ‘84. He eventually became best man at my wedding.
That’s more than I can say for my first team. I finished fourth in a 10-team AL league despite a horrendous pitching staff that featured the likes of Jim Beattie, Ken Schrom, and Milt Wilcox. My buddy won it all.
Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. Sometimes it’s better to gain friends than gain championships.
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POSTED IN: Fantasy Baseball
1 opinion for Memories of Strat
Knuckle Curve » Life Is Just a Fantasy
Feb 16, 2007 at 12:17 pm
[…] The other day I mentioned my first Rotisserie League team from 1984. Fantasy baseball has become a huge industry over the years, but back then it was — well, let’s just say that my job as commissioner mostly involved picking up a USA Today on Tuesdays and adding up stats by hand, recording them on pieces of paper that I kept in a big binder. […]
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