** Welcome to USBN as the 2017 SOM Baseball Year moves forward with the release in February of the latest seasons of Strat-o-matic Cards, the new version of the computer game, the new SOM baseball card viewer app and more Baseball Daily**

Comments from the Wolfman about this current issue as we continue and begin our fifth year (2017) of operation and publication. This issue is full of new exciting stories, interviews and the latest news. As we strive to continue to provide for our readers the most unique and interesting aspects of Strat-o-matic Baseball with key links to Major League Baseball.  Now it is time, once again, to meet some of the most interesting people who are connected to the game we love. 2017 has already started out as  another amazing year with all the new products and services Strat-o-matic is
offering - so stay tuned as you ain't seen nothin' yet - from your staff at the USBN ....
 

Welcome - Welcome - Welcome - to the March 2017 edition of the Ultimate Strat Baseball Newsletter, as we return with our 2nd issue of this year.  I believe you are going to find this issue to be another exciting one as we have a special guest we were able to interview as well as trying a new experiment this month which we hope you like. But first ....

By now, most of you have already received the new season or seasons of SOM cards (or the computer image of the cards offered) along with the new computer game. Perhaps some of you, no doubt, are even using the new SOM player card viewer app.  There is also, on Youtube, between our channel and Strat-o-matic's video channel all kind of coverage about "Opening Day" including a special interview with Hal Richman we reference on our SOM News page.  So are you excited about the 2017 year of game play that is now upon us yet?

We also see here in March, all the exhibition play going on in MLB as each team prepares for their campaign to vie for a world championship in the 2017 season. Of course, the current champions, the Chicago Cubs are favored to return but many teams via trades and signing of the various free agents have improved.  I look to see the Nationals, the Mets, the Dodgers and Giants to challenge the Cubs and in the American league no doubt the Indians will be back as they are hungry but Boston is also vastly improved so I think it will come down to these two teams.  We shouldn't could out Texas or Houston who could also challenge.  Thus, it will be another exciting season of MLB and its always good to watch the influx of all the new young players and prospects who will be coming up this next season, to see who the new superstars will be.  Also, this month we had the World Baseball Classic with 16 countries involved helping to share the love of baseball globally.  Our newsletter comes out before the winner is announced but it doesn't appear it will be the U.S. team who can't beat the good hispanic teams.

So what do we have for our special members this month?  How about an interview with Ron Shandler, who I would consider the "Father for Advanced Strategies to win in Fantasy Baseball". I am on his mailing list and he agreed to chat with us about his background and his new adventure, which he shares in his new book called the BABS Project.  Next, I have heard from various gamers linked to the Strat Tournament Players Club, that my near neighbor, Mr. Pete Nelson, who we have chatted with many times linked to this club, is a very very good strat player, so what does your editor do, I challenged him to a best of seven game series recently -- so see what happened inside.

Then we have our Columnist and League Commissioner, Marc Wass return to us with his amazing column, "Strat Wise", as he discusses with our members the keys to working with vintage strat-o-matic cards.  The Chuck Stop with Chuck Tinkler returns with Part III of his latest article "Old Guys Rule!!!" - discover the next part of this highly entertaining and thoughtful new creation by CT as I call him, talks more about the veteran players of today and their value over time as related to when they were younger and 1st picked in your league's draft.  The SOM & MLB News Page shares an amazing story from one of our members about how "Opening Day" at the game company got started as well as see another interesting analysis done by Baseball Info Solutions' John Dewan about evaluating Up-the-Middle performances.

Your humble editor, the Wolfman, I return with the next segment of my article series about How to Build your Strat Baseball Keeper's Team linked with your league's draft related to the new 2017 card set. I continue my report about how my very own team, the Skokie Wolfmen did in our league's draft earlier this month. However, this time I have not only provided for you a special written report but I am combining it with a series of highly entertaining videos!! So, you will have to check this out to see what the heck I am speaking about here as I experiment with a new video program I have access to (the early viewers have loved it!).

My new assistant, Harris Jessop, who will be helping me with the League Interviews we do every month, takes his turn to share with us about his special Netplay based league.  And finally, we help to celebrate with our new member, Chris Williams, who is the author of a new and highly entertaining Baseball book. We talk about his strat game experiences and then he tell us all about his new book. Of course, as always we have our two resources pages updated (key books and on-line resources) for your pleasure, to keep all our members very informed.

Once again, just to make sure you had a chance to download these two key spreadsheets, to help you with the new 2017 cards, I have included the link to download the following two Stat spreadsheets that contain the 2016 Hitter and Pitch stats including the Lefty/Righty splits. Just click below on the spreadsheet(s) you wish to download to your selected device. This will be the last time we offer these links, so make sure you get it now. 

Click Here for the Spreadsheet for Hitters vs LHP/RHP 
Click Here for the Spreadsheet for Pitchers vs LHH/RHH