Vol. V, Issue #2 - March 2017
**
Recommended On-line SOM and Baseball Resources
**
(suggested resources by the newsletter team
as well as to honor
our guests who have appeared in issues of the newsletter
as well as groups and individual who support the newsletter)
{
Wolfman:
This
webpage contains various on-line Strat-o-matic Game resources
(predominately for the Baseball game) as well as other
resources related to MLB baseball that can help you in your game
play. It has been my experience linked to my league
play that there are many on-line tools one can use to help build
their teams or to supplement their game using historical tools.
This page will change over time as we have more and more
additions.
If you have know of other resources that you feel should
be added to this list please feel free to contact us with your
suggestions. Our policy is to list those resources or
organizations which we personally know of or have had direct contact with
(the groups or the individuals). Further, the
spirit of this newsletter is about supporting our community and
finding others who are open to work together. The more we share
and work together, our community can only be enhanced. Such cooperation
(such as the existence of the Strat Alliance or our recent merger to work
closely with Stratogists.com and Bruce Bundy or the Evaluation
Team that came together our new draft guide) only helps to create
a stronger environment for the SOM Baseball Game and all of us
involved. This does not indicate
however, if one of your favorite resources is not listed here
that we do not approve of such. It just means that either we are
unfamiliar with this contact or that they may have a
differently philosophy and approach about how to create
partnerships and affiliations then we do. Of course, no one is
perfect and we don't make any judgements of others. Having
variety and different forms of special information and
activities helps all games and we see it as being very good for
our community! Or in other words, we remain in the neutral and
do not take any sides.}
Resources that we Recommend
(special on-line websites we have uncovered of great
value)
http://www.strat-o-matic.com
(Website for the Strat-o-matic (SOM) Game Company. This is the
website where you can purchase the Baseball game (board game or
computer game); all of the various baseball printed cards and
the computer teams plus various accessories. Of course the
game company offers various other sports games like football,
basketball and hockey. For 2017, besides releasing the new
version of the computer game and cards based on the 2016, 1949,
the 2017 version of the Hall of Fame Cards and Baseball Heroes
II (cards and rosters); then they also released
computer rosters on the Negro Leagues: 1914, 1924, and 1944; and
two Japanese Leagues, 1961 and 2016 plus the 1872 National Association.
And finally last year (2016) they released the add-in system for
Baseball Daily, so a new version will be available for 2017 that
you can play along with your favorite team in MLB, day by day.
To read the all of the announcements of the new SOM
products (including 3 mobile apps to support game play coming
out in 2017 and the new Video Studio to add videos to their
Youtube channel) click on the link below:
Strat-o-matic's Winter Newsletter (in a PDF format)
Further, the new Ratings Booklet which lists the
complete rankings of all the cards that will be part of the 2017 MLB set (based on
MLB 2016), is available at the link below for the
spreadsheet (also is a printed book):
http://www.strat-o-matic.com/products/2016-baseball-ratings-download
http://www.strat-o-matic.com/products/2016-baseball-ratings-book
Also, you may want to check
out their on-line baseball leagues and tournaments which is
called Baseball 365 where they offer
you the opportunity to play with different sets of players from the 1870's
through the new set for the 2016 MLB season that includes the Negro
League players. We have covered this version of playing
the game in various issues of the newsletter starting in 2014 and
will continue going forward. To read more about the
on-line gaming play please go to:
http://365.strat-o-matic.com/
Finally, we also recommend
to check out the announcements that SOM makes on Twitter,
go to:
https://twitter.com/StratOMatic
And also
on their Facebook page at:
https://www.facebook.com/StratOMaticGames/
Note - we are not
directly connected nor fully endorsed by the Strat-o-matic Game Company
although we do have conversations with them at times and they
will share via their website or social media sources some of our
events and activities. We have done interviews with individuals
work at (or have worked at) the game company
at times. But
primarily, our newsletter is offered as a labor
of love by the newsletter support team to enhance the game playing of our members
and the SOM Baseball Community. We do our best to be as
supportive as possible for the success of the game company and
when we can, help share special news they release. We
do publicly thank Strat-o-matic for their occasional support of some of
our projects and sharing with their members and customers about some of our
more interesting activities.)
http://www.ultimatestratbaseball.com
(Home page for the Ultimate
Strat Baseball Newsletter, discussing the various information we
offer through our newsletter and various well known gamers who
support us. Also on this page is how to sign-up and become
a member of our free newsletter. In addition, our group has
released a special baseball tool, in cooperation with Strat-o-gists, a newly developed
and enhance drafting guide of 300+ players evaluated within the 2017 SOM Baseball
Card Set (based on the 2016 MLB season) that will receive their
first Strat card (printed or computer image) and could be
eligible to be drafted in your Keeper
League using this set. To read more about this special draft
guide head over to:
http://www.ultimatestratbaseball.com/2017USBN-Essential-Draft-Guide.htm
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC93h4fGGI7ibBUuTxrwDrzw
("The Ultimate Strat Baseball Newsletter Youtube Video Channel"
- here is where you can find dear members the live videos we
have taken from Opening Day at Strat-o-matic to the "Billy
Sample Challenge" and much much more. As no only do we
share special reports and articles via this special Strat
Baseball newsletter but we expand our coverage with live
interviews and interesting strategy videos. Don't wait for
announcements via the newsletter or our bulletins to know what
videos are contained here, check it out as we do our best to
cover all aspects of the game we love with the written word and
through video!! Check out our channel, we added several
new videos in December, 2015.)
http://stratomaticbaseballvillage.lefora.com/
("The Stratomatic Baseball
Village" -
a friendly
and supportive online forum community for Strat Baseball
enthusiasts. The key individuals who offer this wondrous forum
includes Ken "rezzdogg" Dunning, founder/admin and Michael McLaughlin ("67mantle2-7"), admin/moderator.
We also thank Ken and Michael for their initial help, advice and
support last year (2013) as our newsletter was first starting
out.)
www.cba-bb.net
(The website for the Cyber
Baseball Association, a 24 team baseball league using the
computer game which has existed since 1997. Wolfman Shapiro is
the 2012 champion after seven years of hard work, Marc
Wasserman, our so called "secret consultant" and author of the
League Commissioner Column is the commissioner. The CBA is the
first league to officially support our newsletter. The website
contains the up-to-date standings of the league during the
season which normally begins in March and goes through
September/October. The free report by Wolfman you received
when you signed up gives his history in this league.)
Ultimate
Strat Baseball Collectibles and Sporting Goods Store
(To help our members who are
interested in Baseball Collectibles, uniforms and sporting gear
we have worked out a deal with Amazon to provide for our members
some amazing items linked to baseball that you can't find any
where else. So we encourage you to visit our store
periodically and check out these special items. Instead of
charging a monthly fee for the newsletter we rather keep it free
for everyone but your purchases will help to compensate for our
time and dedication to allow the newsletter to continue and come
out each month. Also the banner at the top of each page
for the Amazon sports collectibles will also take you to our
store - thank you!!)
http://users.wowway.com/~faust05/index.html
(The website linked to the
genius of Bruce Bundy, who has developed and shares his formulas
that can help a person create their own SOM baseball cards. On
his website he additionally shares his advice how to improve
your play in the baseball game, interviews with key people in
our community and is a tester for the game company. In
this issue we have an interview through Bruce with Steve Barkan
of the Game Company and also Bruce acts as an advisor for the
newsletter and is one of regular columnist with his "Strat
Thoughts" column.)
In December of 2013, Bruce Bundy agreed to allow our newsletter
to help in the release of his "SOM Projection
Sheets" to forecast the new baseball cards coming out by
Strat-o-matic in the next year. Once again in October of 2014
and October 2015
Bruce Bundy released his next projection sheets for the 2015
cards and 2016 cards respectively. To read more about the
Projection Sheets or to obtain your own copy of the "2016 SOM Projection Sheets" visit Bruce's page on our site at:
http://www.ultimatestratbaseball.com/Bundys-SOMProjectionSheets-November2015.htm
www.moonlightgrahamsmarketplace.com
(Moonlight Graham's
Marketplace is the place to be to find any Strat-o-matic
Baseball card ever printed by the game company. Chris Rosen is
the man behind the scenes and with our special project with
Billy Sample, he shot out the cards we need for Mr. Sample's
article and the chance for Mr. Sample to play SOM against one of
our members and learn about Strat-o-matic Baseball. Chris is the
man you want to work with for your SOM Baseball card needs and
dreams. We once again thank Chris, Mr. Moonlight Graham, for his
help to provide a team to face Billy Sample in the "Billy Sample
Challenge" for his opponent {this series will be announced in a
future newsletter) plus getting to us a copy of "Tony Brizzolara"
1979 card to use in his interview in this issue.)
http://StratTPC.com
(Strat-o-matic Face to Face
Tournament Association known as the Strat Tournament Players
Club (STPC) which offers a series of live and on-line SOM
Baseball tournaments (via Skype and Netplay). Started in 1996,
this group formerly known as the Star Tournaments took over for the TBA
group and has numerous tournaments each year with their champion
tournament called the Worlds, held in January of each year.
The section of the U.S. covered by these tournaments is in parts
of the Midwest of the U.S., the western states and west coast
and several southern states in the U.S. The tournaments
use a format of draft a team of 25 players from the most recent
released SOM Baseball card set with a stadium.
http://www.purestrat.com
(Purestrat is in the western
region of the Strat Tournament Players Club and handles the on-line tournaments utilizing
Skype and an electronic dialer.
http://somers.activeboard.com
(SOMers is a Strat-o-matic
Baseball based forum which their members are discussing all
kinds of aspects about the game as well as Major League
Baseball. According to founder Mark Heil, its a very friendly
place to be with some great and very knowledgeable members. Mark
was interviewed for USBN in our October 2014 issue.
http://www.strat-o-matic.net/
(This is another premier SOM
forum developed and the brain child of Alex Redovian with 2400
members that covers all of the various strat-o-matic games. In
addition, Alex, who is a programmer has developed an on-line
dice roller for both the baseball and football game which is
available for free. The tournaments done on Skype by Pure Strat
(western division of the Star Tournaments) uses his dice rollers.)
http://www.fodmoviesite.com
(The official "Field of
Dreams Movie Site" website to learn about the Baseball Field,
which still exists in Dyersville, IA, where the "Field of
Dreams" movie was filmed. On this website is directions how to
get to the field, a 3D photographic overview of the field, the
special events which take place at the Baseball Field, its
history and much move. The farm and baseball field were
purchased from the Lansing family in late 2012 and is now being
taken care of by "Go the Distance Baseball, LCC". Part I of
Wolfman Shapiro's report linked with the Baseball Field is given
in the July 2016 issue. To learn more about their Project, which
is run by Go the Distance Baseball, called Allstar Baseball Park
Heaven visit:
http://allstarballparkheaven.com/ )
http://www.stratfanforum.com/
http://www.stratfanforum.com/forums/forum.php
(Welcome to the
Strat-O-Matic Fan Forum. A dedicated online community who have
been discussing Strat-O-Matic's board and PC games since
February 2001. This forum covers all of the sports games offered
by Strat-o-matic. We interview the founder Dan Patterson in
Issue #2 of this newsletter)
http://www.stratdraft.com
(The #1 and best on-line
system for easily and effectively conducting any type of draft
for your Strat-o-matic League that exists from a straight draft
to auctions and it doesn't matter what season of strat cards you
are using. You input the players for all the teams and
then it is easy to see which players are left for the draft. The
draft can be held live or done over time, and you can even
program players to be picked if you are not available at the
time of your pick. There is a fee to use this service.)
http://www.oneforfive.com/category/strat-o-matic/
(Paul Dylan, WA, U.S. - blog site that contains all kinds of
articles about Strat-o-matic in this part of his site with some
powerful ideas and insights about the game, Paul is a member of
our newsletter as well and is doing an interview about us for
his site.)
http://flory.net/twsl/
(Ted William Strat-o-matic League, founded in
2002, 24 team netplay draft baseball league, one of several
baseball leagues supported by
Nick Flory
on his website. Mr. Flory doesn't have a main page for his site
that lists all the other 67 baseball leagues he supports but you
can see a list of them by going to the Ted Williams league and
go to the menu on the left hand side of the page and click on
"Other Sites" and a list of all the baseball sites pop up. We
wish to thank TWSL heads Mike and Larry for introducing us to
Nick, who has our newsletter logo shown on his sites and shared
the newsletter with all the different leagues which saw a
substantial growth in our membership - thanks Nick, Mike and
Larry.)
(Fox Valley Strat-o-matic League, a face-to-face league of six
gamers from Wisconsin, supports of the newsletter, founded in
1988. They offer free copies of any of their newsletters
from their league (MS excel format) but they do not have a
league website, featured in the November 2015 issue of the
newsletter.)
http://latorrer0.tripod.com/sombb/home.html
(Rob's Strat-o-matic Decade Keeper Leagues, an e-mail/Computer
based league currently has 12 members and started in 2012.
They play seasons by decade and keep the players for that
decade. They start with the 1950's decade and now are into the
1960 decade. A supporter of this newsletter, they were featured
in our November 2015 issue. Rob also has a system to show live
on the internet, the playoff games for their league.)
http://nasoma.homestead.com/
(North American Strat-o-matic Association is a league that
combines face-to-face, Netplay and Computer Manager play.
This league has existed since 1980 and currently has 16 teams.
Key meetings for the league are done in person even though their
members are all over the U.S. This league fully supports
the newsletter and has a strong interest to partnership with us
in the future. We featured this league in our November 2015
issue of the newsletter.)
colleary@prodigy.net
(Bob Colleary, represents both the Bill
Veeck Leg League (BVL) and the Barefoot
League (BFL), a computer mananged
league. The BVL has been around
since 1999 and the BFL is starting its
1st season in December of 2015. These
leagues were featured in our December
2015 issue of the newsletter.)
http://www.wblcheshire.net
(In
our March issue of 2016, we met both
Jeff Chaput, the commissioner and the
2015 champ, Ted Wesley of the World
Baseball League {WBL}, it is a computer
based league which has been around since
1977 with 14 teams, all the managers
live in the same area, they do their
drafts live.)
http://flory.net/bigs/
(Rob Stricker is the commissioner of
this dual league known as BIGS, a 10
team netplay league with a 12 team
computer league. Started by our
contributor's writer Chuck Tinkler in
2010. This league was featured in
our January 2016 issue of our
newsletter.)
http://mmdaonline.com/
(We
heard about this league MMDA (Masters
Memorial Draft Association) via our
interview with Matt Eddy, who is in
charge of the leagues blog and helps
with their website. This is 20
team league with four divisions using
the computer game. We interviewed Matt
in the January 2016 issue of the
newsletter).
http://flory.net/egml/index.phpc
(The
Eric Gregg Memorial League (EGML) is our
first retro league we are reporting on
through the commissioner Vinny Mancini
which started with the 1951 MLB Season
and at the time of the interview in our
May 2016 issue is playing the 1959 MLB
season. This is a computer based
league and another league which is
utilizing the services of Nick Flory to
host the league on the web.)
http://flory.net/cof/index.php
(Charles O. Finley SOM Baseball League - started in 2007,
starting with the 1970's season of cards and progressing forward
with each season, Mark Simon is the commissioner. This league
follows the constitution done by the Smiley League, discussed in
the July 2016 issue of our newsletter, one of four leagues that
Mark is the commish.)
http://flory.net/mml/index.php
(Marvin Miller SOM Baseball League - the second league Mark
Simon created using the same rules as the Charles O. Finley
League starting with the 1980's season of Cards. This
league was discussed in the July 2016 issue of our newsletter.)
http://flory.net/camelot/index.php
(Camelot SOM Baseball League - the third league Mark Simon
created using the same rules as the Charles O. Finley League
starting with the 1962 season of Cards (remembering the "Age of
Camelot" when Kennedy was President. This league was
discussed in the July 2016 issue of our newsletter.)
http://flory.net/selig/index.php
(Bud Selig SOM Baseball League - the fourth league Mark Simon
created using the same rules as the Charles O. Finley League
starting with the 2000 season of Cards. This league was
discussed in the July 2016 issue of our newsletter.)
http://www.marykwright.com/marykwright/jemstrat/jemstrat_home.cfm
(Jack Edwards Memorial
League, with the commissioner Gary Davis, a face-to-face league
working with the current card set. This league was
featured in the August of 2016 issue of our newsletter.)
http://netplaybaseball.com/index.php?l=OSBL
(Old School Baseball League,
with their commissioner Jim Murphy is a netplay retro league at
the time of the interview, in our November 2016 issue were
finishing their 1975 season. Jim also offers to our members a
special page with various resources he has developed that could
help other leagues, go to:
http://netplaybaseball.com/stuff.php
)
http://www.sombilla.x10.mx/
(Strat-O-Matic Ivy League League with their commissioner Arnie
Pollinger is a face-to-face keepers league that appeared in our
December 2016 issue that has existed for 37 years and is based
out of Eastern Massachusetts.)
http://lumpygravytubby.wixsite.com/halifaxstratoleague
(Halifax Strat-o-matic Baseball League with
their commissioner Blair Conrad is a face-to-face keepers league
that appeared in our December 2016 issue. This league has
existed for 33 years and is based out of Halifax, Nova Scotia,
Canada.
http://www.hitterish.com
(Hitterish is the name of
the company held by Sean Plouffe who is a professional hitting
consultant who is helping various minor and major league
players. Sean was interviewed in our December 2016 issue. For
those members who are active in physical baseball leagues you
may wish to visit Sean site where he has a great deal of
information how to perfect your hitting swing.
www.somhoops.com
(A
Fan's Guide to Strat-O-Matic Basketball created by
Jason. Somhoops offers a rating guide for Basketball with the
permission of the game company. We recommend Somhoops as a great
site to visit for our members if you like Basketball plus we are
grateful for their support to announce our newsletter to their
members who similarly love the baseball as much as we do.)
http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/tournament/19
(The 2014 Barnstormers
Tournament, which is a yearly tournament held that utilizes the
SOM Baseball Online gaming system and uses what is called the
All Time Greats card set. This card set comprises the best MLB
players who have received a card in any season printed by
Strat-o-matic including those who had printed cards and those
players who have just a computer image. Barnstormers plays six
draft leagues choosing to begin with 25 players and a stadium.
There gamers qualify for the playoffs by points and play one or
two more leagues to find their champion. This tournament has
existed since 2001. By viewing this particular tournament, you
can get in touch with the Barnstormer's commissioner how to join
for future tournaments as they offer one each year. Even though
this tournament started in 2014, the champion is not crowned
until early 2015. A new tournament for 2015 is expected to start
in April.)
http://www.strat-o-matic.com/community/glenn-guzzo-column
(Column by Glenn Guzzo - periodic articles by "Strat-o-matic
Fanatic" Author Glenn Guzzo shared on the SOM Website that
covers all the different games. We interviewed Glenn in our
first issue.)
http://www.strat-o-matic.com/community/podcast
(Podcasts done with well known SOM figures by Steve Reiter
shared on the SOM Website, in a future issue we will share an
interview we did with Steve.)
https://www.facebook.com/billy.sample.75
(This is Billy Sample's facebook page, where you can chat
with this ex-Major Leaguer. I have found him very friendly and
open to discuss his experiences as a ball player for Texas, the
NY Yankees and Atlanta as well as a sportscaster, interviewed in
our April 2013 and October 2014 issue - accepted our challenge
to have a member of USBN play him in Strat vs. the 1983 Texas
Rangers, a team he played for. Also Billy has a movie he
made about his baseball experiences he put out in 2013 called
"Reunion 108".)
http://pastpros.com/willie-mays-aikens/
(This is Willie Mays Aikens
official website. There is a bio about Mr. Aikens here as well
as a way to send him an email. He is open to be interviewed or
make public appearances. In the December 2014 issue of our
newsletter we did an interview with Mr. Aikens and we also did a
review of his book, "Safe at Home", which you can also order via
this website. Mr. Aikens is known as the 1st major league player
ever to hit two home runs in two different games in the same
world series, in 1980 with the K.C. Royals.)
http://www.danielokrent.com
(The official website of
Daniel Okrent, the creator of Rotisserie League Baseball. Mr.
Okrent is also an author of various baseball books which you can
obtain copies of via his website. However, based on his
interview in our December 2014 issue, he claims there are much
better website which support fantasy gamers for Rotisserie
Baseball which you can easily find by doing an on-line search.)
Column and Blog
by Jeff Polman
http://mystery58.wordpress.com
(his current blog postings, been involved with SOM since
1964. Is one of the few people to have a column on the
SOM website, along with Glenn Guzzo, is also a member
now of our newsletter)
http://www.strat-o-matic.com/community/jeff-polman-column
(Jeff's column on the
SOM website, writes about all kinds of ideas and stories linked
to the SOM Baseball Game)
---------------------------------
Special Friends we Recommend on Youtube
(other Strat-o-matic Baseball Channels ... )
https://www.youtube.com/user/StratOMaticStrategy
(The Youtube channel for Matt Beagle, who is a contributing
writer for Baseball HQ and these SOM Baseball Strategy videos
are listed on the Strat-o-matic Game website. Matt has over 30
years of experience playing Strat Baseball and won a number of
league championships. He shares keys to winning and intriguing
strategies to play SOM Baseball in these videos.)
Strat-O-Matic Delaware
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn_7kbP3FuZCsmY7aRuk8PQ
)
Tabletop Baseball Channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL2h7-gq6_mt0or7MvvooHw
Tenacious Strat
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrZ9rHKXe3EWYQAlPjPcEuA
---------------------------------
Special On-line Tools that are Available
(different newsletters and special reports )
http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/Secrets-of-the-Wolfman-d.htm
(The Wolfman's first e-book
to discuss his secret strategies, for time after time, placing
his league teams into the playoffs. This is part one of his
report, about how to win fast! He uses his experiences in
his current league the Cyper Baseball Association {CBA} and his
2012 Championship to hold nothing back. If you have been
struggling in your draft league (face-to-face or computer) or
draft tournament, this document will help you tremendously.
It comes as PDF. This document could be the difference between
another year (or tournament) of frustration or a chance to get
to the top. Mostly geared for league play but could be
helpful with the current tournaments who use a draft. In
honor of the September 2013 On-line SOM Baseball Convention this
e-book is offered to anyone by a donation.)
http://www.ultimatestratbaseball.com/Bundys-SOMProjectionSheets-November2015.htm
(The 2016 SOM Projection
Sheets by legendary Bruce Bundy created through the special
formulas that Bruce has developed with a 95%+ accuracy on
creating the cards that Strat-o-matic will release for 2016. The
Sheets are in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet format, one (or
more) for the
hitters and one (or more) for the pitchers and Bruce also includes
articles (in PDF format) that discusses his formulas.)
http://www.ronshandler.com
(Ron Schandler is considered
the authority on Fantasy Baseball. His website is where he
shares all his new strategies, products and services. Some
of the materials he shares are available for free but there is a
tremendous advantage to be a member and have access to all of
Mr. Schandler's materials including his new book called, The
BABS Project which helps their readers win in their fantasy
baseball leagues with a new way to draft players. To get a
chance to know Mr. Shandler a bit more, he is ffeatured in an
interview, Part I of a two part interview in our March 2017
issue. Mr. Shandler also is the creator of the Baseball HQ
website shown next and the originator of the amazing yearly
baseball guide called "Baseball Forecaster" which gives advice
for the current season of Fantasy Baseball, the 2015 edition was
reviewed in our March 2015 issue.)
http://www.baseballhq.com/som
(A free weekly newsletter,
which you receive via email, from Baseball HQ, which provides
information about MLB. Our special guest, Matt Beagle, who we
interviewed in December of 2014, helped to arrange with their
editor, this free newsletter for our members. This will
give you some idea of what Baseball HQ offers if you might
decide to go for their full services. They have a number of
contributing writers who have various levels of Baseball
expertise as well as information that help you with the building
of teams in your SOM leagues using the latest card sets.
Also if you could to Baseball HQ main page (click
here)
you can see the tremendous amount of information they offer if
you become a member or subscribe to their newsletter. In the
March 2015 edition, we interview General Manager Ray Murphy and
also reviewed their book "Baseball Forecaster 2015" with Ron
Schandler.)
http://www.baseballinfosolutions.com
(The premier baseball
website by John Dewan and his team, to analyze and record every
baseball statistic that one can think of. This company provides
Strat-o-matic key data needed in order to create the baseball
cards each season as well as works with and supports every team
in Major League Baseball. They were originally known as Stats,
Inc. but have evolved into a new company. To follow "John
Dewan's Stat of the week" go to:
StatOfTheWeek.com
or follow John on Twitter at: @FieldingBible -- also
Baseball Info Solutions works closely with Bill James and helps
him publish his Baseball Handbooks each year, see our page on
recommended books. Also they are helping Bill James with his own
website, shown next ...)
http://www.billjamesonline.com
(A new website started in
2015, which is directly connected to the genius of Bill James.
This website has a free component and for a very reasonable
monthly fee, allows you to have access to the full information
which Mr. James shares linked to his different perspectives to
look at baseball via various information analytics. The
website is being helped by Baseball Info Solutions. This
site could provide insights about MLB players that can be
helpful for draft leagues using the latest cards printed by the
game company each year.)
http://MLBPipeline.com
(This website is part of
MLB.com, and focuses mostly on young players coming up,
prospects and foreign players being signed and entering MLB for
the first time. Jim Callis, who is one of the writers for
this site, was interviewed in the March 2015 issue discussing
this website and his opinions about some of the best young
players coming up.)
http://www.baseballamerica.com
(Baseball America is an
organization dedicated to tracking young baseball talent
throughout high school, college, the minor leagues and the major
leagues. They offered a website filled with all kinds of timely
information and several publications. In our January 2016 issue,
one of their writers, Matt Eddy who is a strat gamer, an expert
of MLB prospects was interviewed.)
http://www.sabr.org
(Society of America Baseball
Research, with over 6000 members and has existed since 1971.
There is a membership fee to join - gives you an opportunity to
share and discuss anything about the game of baseball with its
members. Also SABR prints its own books and journals and has
members from people who have been personally involved in
professional baseball as well as fans.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/
(Another website that
focuses statistically on many aspects of the game of baseball
including the best and most talents major league prospects that
are coming up with all kinds and tables and charts. Major League
Ballclubs hire this group to help them with their various
strategies for their teams. Their website has all kinds of
articles and blogs plus the group publishes their own guides. In
our July 2013 issue, we will be sharing an interview with Joe
Hamrahi, the President who is an avid SOM baseball gamer and
credits SOM for starting him on the path to work with baseball
statistics. Look at our March 2014 issue for a review of the
annual guidebook that publish called "Baseball Prospectus 2014".)
J.G.
Preston's Baseball Blog Posts
http://sabr.org/author/jg-preston (on the
SABR website)
https://prestonjg.wordpress.com (on his personal
wordpress website)
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Contained inside this exciting issue of Ultimate Strat
Baseball Newsletter:
(to view the various interviews, articles, columns and special sections click on
the links {underlined}
and this will take you to the appropriate
webpage)
♦
RETURN TO NEWSLETTER MAIN PAGE
♦
INTERVIEW with RON SHANDLER, Baseball Fantasy Expert,
Throughout the fantasy baseball world, in all the various forms
of Fantasy Baseball, there is no one more well known and
respected as Ron Shandler. He started the website Baseball HQ,
the very successful baseball guide called Baseball Forecaster
and now he offers the new BABS Project for winning in your
fantasy league. We had the chance to speak to Ron
and to
get to know him a bit better as well as find out what the BABS
project is all about in Part I, of a two part interview series
we will be doing with him.
♦
ARTICLE with WOLFMAN
SHAPIRO - Wolfman Challenges STPC Worlds Champion Pete Nelson,
The Strat Tournament Players Club, is known as the most
expansive and challenging series of Strat-o-matic Baseball Draft
tournaments world wide. Pete Nelson has been one of the main
organizers and supporters of these tournaments for many years as
well as one of their repeat champions in their classic Worlds
Tournaments. Pete lives close by to our editor Wolfman in
the Seattle area, so at the end of January, these two giants played a best
of seven game series following the tournament rules of this club. Find out
how this epic battle of SOM Baseball heavies went ....
♦
SOM Baseball
and MLB World News - March 2017,
This is our periodic column where we share any exciting news
and updates linked to either the SOM World or MLB. In this
issue, we share a story about "Opening Day" at the
Strat-o-matic Game Company you have never heard, along with
another report from another newsletter member of their
experience at this year's "Opening Day". We also share
another analysis from Baseball Info Solutions done by strat
gamer and the owner, John Dewan about how to evaluate
Up-the-Middle Performances of various MLB teams ....
♦
STRAT WISE with MARC WASSERMAN
commissioner of the Cyber Baseball Association (CBA) continues
his new column sharing various perspectives on SOM Baseball.
For his article this month he discusses about vintage
strat-o-matic cards and how to find the best deals and
prices to get them.
♦
INTERVIEW with CHRIS WILLIAMS, Strat Baseball Author,
Chris is a fellow strat baseball gamer and new member to our
newsletter who has just recently become the author of a new
book through Acta Sports by the title of, "Coulda Woulda
Shoulda", a very entertaining book about "What If" scenarios
that might have changed the history of baseball. In this
interview, meet Chris and find out more about his new book.
♦
SOM BASEBALL LEAGUE REPORT with WOLFMAN SHAPIRO
--
the editor of "The Ultimate Strat Newsletter" and 2012 CBA
Champion, turns his attention to talk to members of various
face-to-face
Strat-o-matic
Baseball Leagues that he has discovered through the league
registry service offered
on the Strat-o-matric
website. Each commissioner speaks about the history of
their league and their experiences. To read the interview
for this month, click on the link below:
INTERVIEW with
HARRIS JESSOP, Winter Need a Life League Commissioner (Netplay)
♦
ARTICLE with CHUCK TINKLER,
Chuck is one of our most popular contributors and is back with a
new article for his column, "The Chuck Stop", as he
continues his article he calls "Old Guys Rule" with
Part III.
This article deals with the value of a 1st round draft pick and more - Chuck
always entertains our readers with his insightful and colorful
stories and experiences - check out this latest edition now!
♦
ARTICLE with WOLFMAN
SHAPIRO - How to Setup Your Draft League Team, the Final Part
of this article,
Wolfman, finish the last segment of this three part article to share with
our members the meat and potatoes of his various strategies how to build his 2017
Skokie Wolfmen in the CBA, a Keepers computer league. In
this segment, he
discusses the results of the CBA draft held in early March with
both this written article and some supplemental entertaining
videos. By using his team as an
example, you may receive from this article some suggestions and
new strategies you can use to help build your own team and bring
to your fans
a league's
championship.
♦
BOOKS TO
DIE FOR and Become a BASEBALL GURU
-- This page
is
specifically about special books we are finding that either will
expand your insights about the game of Baseball, help you in the
creation of your current league teams or with your replays and
learn more about the Strat-o-matic
Baseball Game and Game Company's
history. We
have a special arrangement with Acta Sports, who is a publisher
of a number of great baseball books (including Bill James
Handbooks) to offer for our members
a 10% discount. We will continue to add more books to this page in the future
as we uncover other gems our members should know about.
