Wolfman: So, Glenn, when did you become interested in baseball, have you always loved this sport? Did you play baseball when you are younger? Did you attend professional baseball games?

Glenn: I became a serious fan when I was 8, in 1959. That's when I saw my first game in Detroit at what was then known as Briggs Stadium. Frank Lary pitched a four-hitter, Charley Maxwell hit a home run and the Tigers beat Kansas City, whose center fielder that night was Roger Maris,
4-0. Since then I have seen more baseball games (majors, minors and college) than I can count in about 35 big-league stadiums. Also have attended hundreds of pro and college football, basketball and hockey games.

1959 is also the year I began collecting Topps cards. I have the complete set and it's the one I'll never part with.

I played ball all my life until my early 40s. I had to change from baseball to softball when I was 18, because every pitcher I encountered was throwing sliders that made me look ridiculous at the plate. I know now that Hank Aaron said there would never be another .400 hitter because of the slider. Mike Schmidt said that if a pitcher got over a two-strike slider, it was "sit down" for him. But for me at the time, I just figured I was going to have to do a lot more work than I was ready to do to compete with those pitchers. It wasn't like I was blessed with elite athletic talent and the work would pay off in a scholarship. I did play third base and shortstop in softball very seriously and was on numerous championship teams.

Wolfman: How did you first hear about SOM Baseball or meet this game? What season did you first start with?  When did you start to play in SOM Baseball Leagues?

Glenn: I was nearing my 12^th birthday in 1963 when I saw an ad in a baseball magazine that sounded like the answer to my dreams. It showed that right-handed, overhand pitcher with a headline saying, "Here's Your Ticket to Hundreds of Big League Ball Games" and described a game that would give a statistically accurate representation of Major Leaguers for all the teams.

At the time, I was playing the All-Star Baseball spinner game and a very simple dice-game of my creation, one that did not distinguish between players. I played them with friends by the hour, but Strat-O-Matic changed everything, beginning with that 1962 season set, the first one with all the teams.

So I asked Mom to get me this $10 game for my birthday and I got it then. I had always been an organizer of team sports in our neighborhood, so league play with Strat-O-Matic began almost immediately.

I grew up in a neighborhood built around a large city park, so we had loads of kids who did everything together, and most of it was sports. We played baseball, football, basketball and hockey year-round. We were very knowledgeable about the pro teams. In our gang, it was OK to root for the Detroit teams, but if you were really cool, you knew everything there was to know about some other team. I adopted the Cincinnati Reds with Frank Robinson and Vada Pinson, the Minnesota Vikings with scrambling Fran Tarkenton, the Chicago Blackhawks with Stan Mikita and Bobby Hull, and the old Cincinnati Royals with Oscar Robertson. Other kids adopted teams like the Pirates, Cubs and Giants, the Philadelphia Eagles, Washington Bullets and Boston Bruins.

Our Strat-O-Matic baseball leagues were usually 60-game seasons. Tom Exel, Chris and Dan Kadar, Jerry DeShong, Keith and Doug LaBoda, my brother Alan and I were the regulars.  Almost always, we drafted two stock teams each and combined them. Playing ball outside all summer day, we'd gather in the evening and play Strat. We'd knock off that 60-game season in a week or so, then begin a new one. This went on for about seven years and we wore out those cards. One very rainy day, we gathered in the LaBoda's basement and played a whole 60-game season in about 12 hours.

Wolfman: Now you told me on the phone you are a professional journalist - is this a journalist who writes about sports - can you discuss a bit more what you do professionally and how this is connected to Baseball or SOM?

Glenn: I began my professional newspaper career as a sports writer when I was 17. Sports always was first love and second nature, but after that, I spent more time as a newsman, in Dearborn, Mich., Fort Worth, Tex., Philadelphia, Miami, Akron and Denver. That first job was in Dearborn. Eventually I became editor of that weekly paper. In Fort Worth, I was a reporter, then an editor over all our governmental and political reporting, then a bit more time as an editor in Sports. In Philly, I was suburban editor, then executive sports editor. I became managing editor in Akron and the top editor of The Denver Post.

Since leaving Denver in 2003, I have trained professional and college journalists around the country, taught journalism at the University of North Florida for four years, consulted with newspapers and other organizations on a variety of communications issues and have testified as an expert witness in libel and defamation lawsuits.

My three books include a journalism textbook in use at various universities, as well as two sports nonfiction books, including Strat-O-Matic Fanatics.

Wolfman: I am a friend of Bruce Bundy (via my computer league the CBA) who told me he knows you very well and said that when you were living in Akron, OH you were working together on SOM projects there including doing a convention in 1996.  For your convention did you model it after earlier conventions? Did you have a chance to attend previous ones? Exactly what type of activities were you doing in Akron?

Glenn: I began publishing STRAT FAN, the magazine, when I lived in Miami, and did so throughout my years in Akron. That's how I met Bruce, who is one of the great people in this hobby. No one is more selfless, or more devoted to the game. I am far better off for knowing Bruce. He was a giant in helping us pull off the STRAT FAN convention in Akron.

I was aware of the conventions run by fans of APBA baseball, but had never attended one. Our convention in Akron had some things in common with all conventions, like guest speakers, including Hal Richman. Like a lot of conventions, we had a group outing, to the AA baseball game in Akron's superb minor-league ballpark. The football tournament at the convention was Ron Brammer's idea. Most of the rest of the activities, including an auction of SOM memorabilia, a game-playing "arcade," and the unveiling of what were then brand-new utilities for SOM football and hockey, were the brainchildren of Dave Scott and me.

Wolfman: What is one of your accomplishments with the SOM Baseball game that you are the most proud of as a gamer? For example in one of your leagues did you create an amazing team that won the championship or something like this?

Glenn: Well, with all the leagues I played in for so many years, I had a lot of championship teams. Probably the best was around the 1987 season or so -- a dominant team with the greatest cards of Eric Davis, Tony Fernandez, Juan Samuel and others. Carlton Fisk and Dave Valle catching, Von Hayes and Paul Molitor at 1B, Samuel's 80-EBH season at 2B, Fernandez at SS, Kevin Seitzer and Molitor at 3B. Davis, Hayes, Dave Winfield, Mickey Brantley (his .302 season) and Billy Hatcher in the OF. And the secret weapon on the bench: Pinch-hitter Sam Horn, with big-time power both ways. Batting average, power, speed (lots of it) and defense. If you look it up, not a single one of these guys went down in the clutch. That team played around .800 ball.

But for "accomplishments" maybe it was serving as the founding commissioner of a league that I did not have a team in -- one that sprang up at The Philadelphia Inquirer after some colleagues overheard me conducting phone interviews for a Sunday magazine article on sports simulation games like Strat-O-Matic. That league included several Pulitzer Prize winners -- Buzz Bissinger, Ric Tulsky, Jonathan Neumann -- and other top-flight journalists. I last saw one of them, Craig Stock, at SOM's 50^th Anniversary convention with his son, Aaron. I wrote the constitution, presided over the drafts, wrote a season-long newsletter, announced the World Series (that recording was presented to the winner) and hosted a post-season party at my place. A lot of great memories came from that league. It lasted for years.

Since then, maybe the part of my game playing I am most "proud" of is completing full-season replays, most of them in baseball. I have done so with the 1930 NL, 1951 NL, 1956 AL, 1958 NL, 1959 AL, 1961 AL and NL, 1962 NL and 1964 AL and NL.

Wolfman: I also understand for a time after the Strat-O-Matic Review finished its publication you created a new newsletter the one you mentioned before called the STRAT FAN? Can you tell us more about this newsletter and what kind of information it shared - was it an on-line newsletter. Is there a way for people to get copies of old issues?

Glenn: I had been a long-time subscriber to the Review and had an idea for a different, larger publication, one with statistical analysis, historical context, playing tips and interactivity -- including access to Hal Richman and company officials -- that went beyond what the Review was providing. As it turns out, the Review's publisher, Del Newell, was looking for a graceful way to stop publishing after 20-25 years of beloved devotion to the hobby. So STRAT FAN arrived at a good time. Gamers did not have to go a month between the time the Review stopped publishing and STRAT FAN debuted.

From 1991-99, we published hundreds of issues, some devoted solely to each of Strat-O-Matic's four sports, some devoted to all sports. We began by including unique card sets in the magazine as a premium. Eventually, we made the card sets separate products. The card sets are still quite popular in the secondary market. The playing tips published in STRAT FAN represent some of the most innovative thinking of Strat-O-Matic's most dedicated gamers. In fact, the game company adopted a couple dozen of the game improvements first advanced in STRAT FAN, because those usually were accompanied by statistical analysis that demonstrated their validity.