Two managers with identical teams do battle in this sim of the nation's epic pastime.
Designer: Don Greenwood, Thomas N. Shaw
Publisher: The Avalon Hill Game Co
Great baseball action. Thrilling too! Never a dull moment. Captures the psychological battle between pitcher and batter quite well. Experience the excitement of getting a bases loaded, bases clearing double when you anticipated the pitch correctly! There are rules for series play in order to give proper rest to pitchers where the entire pitching staff is used and not just the "Aces". Series play is highly recommended to have a full "baseball fantasy" playing experience. The game now even has variant injury possibilities, video replay challenges, robs of hit opportunities, MLB Defensive "Leather Larceny" Highlight Plays, setting the infield at DP depth and more.
This fantasy is a cat and mouse game (and visa versa) hiding in plain sight where the two gamers enter a complex matrix of decisions that lead to the inevitable think and counter-think out witting duel. Gamers begin by first selecting their lineups from imaginary players or actual players by converting their stats to the game's parameters. (This is easily done from mlb.com on the net or baseball-reference.com.). If you don’t agony, this game isn’t for you!
Enter The Matrix: The Defensive team is the manager and catcher, selecting pitch types (Fast Ball, Off Speed, Pitch out, etc. ) to send batters fuming back to the dugout, sometimes with specific outs in a certain situations. Batters attempt to get a hit, get on base or at the least make an out that moves runners into scoring position/score. Each tries to anticipate the other's tendencies throughout the game in order to "exploit" them.
After a pitch card is played the offensive manager and batter must then select a type of offense/ball in play strategy (Steal, Bunt, Hit and Run, Long Ball, etc.)The defensive team commits first with a "Pitch" card. The offensive team then orally calls its strategy. The results of the two choices are found by cross indexing them on a result matrix table. Players can decide on the size of ballpark before the game.