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Ultimate Strat Baseball Newsletter SOM Game Box

Vol. VI, Issue #2 - April 2018

Article by Dave Lubera

Revisiting the Annual SOM Conventions
(1975 - 1980, conducted in Illinois)

(In the early part of the existence of our newsletter, we shared re-prints
of the articles posted in the Strat-o-matic Review which shared about
the first Strat-o-matic Conventions which took place from 1972 through
1980. A group of us in Chicago worked together from 1974 to create
a National SOM Convention at the Univ. of Illinois until 1979, and then
the final one we organized was at Northwestern in 1980. Recently, one
of the individuals who joined us for six years at these conventions, Dave
Lubera, contacted us and offered to share his experiences with our
members, to provide another view of this special time .................)

(Notes from the Wolfman: When I began to be involved in helping to organize these conventions, I was 19 years old in 1974, and was a student at the University of Illinois, studying computer science. My fellow strat brother, Bob Anderson (who later became a very successful accountant) that I met at the U of I, we formed a club which allowed us to rent space at the Union Hall to conduct our tournaments and also for attendees to stay in the dorms during their stay at a very inexpensive price. As I indicated in these earlier articles for my column on the conventions, we formed a close nit family of strat friends as the convention was our time to reconnect and to play our tournaments. Below, are links to the articles written before about the first 9 conventions.

Now for this article, I want to introduce you to Dave Lubera along with his father Richard. I just checked all the reports about the Illinois conventions and Dave did not win any tournaments. When I first met Dave in 1975 (see the photos he sent for the article) he was quite young. I do remember him - but you know this is now over 40 years ago and at almost 63 years of age, its hard to remember all the members of our extended strat family we saw yearly back in those days. Anyway, Dave contacted me recently and wanted to share his experience and view of these early and exciting times so I asked him to send me what he had.

Included in this article are quite a few pictures Dave sent and his report. Also he kept amazingly some of the early documents we shared with our participants which I of course lost over the course of the years with all my moves and worldwide travels so I want to thank Dave for doing this.

It is good to see that some of our early visions and dreams has come to pass especially with the Strat Tournament Players Club which once the new card set comes out by SOM, they start having many baseball tournaments all over the U.S. and sometimes in Canada plus on-line tournaments using Netplay and Skype. So the idea of som gamers coming together and playing tournaments is still very much alive and remains in my heart to always support such activities in anyway I can.

Before we go into the article Dave submitted, if you missed the reporting of the early conventions we did from the January 2013 issue through the March 2014 issue of the newsletter - feel free to click on the link or links of your choice below:

SOM Convention 1972 (Kalamazoo, MI) / SOM Convention 1973 (Brooklyn, NY)

SOM Convention 1974 (Urbana, IL) / SOM Convention 1975 ((Urbana, IL)

SOM Convention 1976 ((Urbana, IL) / SOM Convention 1977 ((Urbana, IL)

SOM Convention 1978 ((Urbana, IL) / SOM Convention 1979 ((Urbana, IL)

SOM Convention 1980 (Evanston, IL)

So dear members, now its time for Dave to take us back in time, to revisit these early days of tournaments and meeting of strat family - thank you Dave for providing us another glimpse into the "Golden Days" -- Wolfman

My Experiences at the SOM Conventions
by Dave Lubera, 1975-1980

Here is Dave with one of the organizers of the U of I convention,
he might look a bit familiar to our readers, always wearing a hat,
could we really have been this young at one time?

I have been playing Strat-o-matic games since 1974, and have played all the different sports they offer. Some of my best memories came from attending the Strat-o-Matic conventions – from 1975 to 1979 at the University of Illinois and 1980 at Northwestern with My Dad, Richard Lubera. The only time he played was during that one weekend a year. But he always took a team in the tournament.

A Photo of Dave with his Father, Present Time
How Cool that his Father brought Dave to the Convention every year!!

We would get down to the University on Thursday night , and we always stayed at the Florida Avenue residence halls – those spacious dorm rooms. We always ate at the same restaurant going down – the Oasis that was over the Highway which I thought was cool.

At my first tournament (1975) I was 13 years old. I used the '73 Braves and played in both the basic and advanced tournament. I remember doing pretty well, and recall players joking that they got beat by a 13 year old. We played games from 9 AM to 5 PM or so, and then had the evening to relax. That was almost as much fun as the tournament. We always ate pizza at Garcia’s pan pizza by the slice. I recall there being a bowling alley in the student union and we always bowled a few games. There was a bowling tournament one year. I also recall a high-tech computer system – Plato – and there were some computer games we played on it. It was probably an amazing sight with the technology available at the time. We had a chance to meet other gamers and play games for fun at the Dorm in the evenings. My Dad would also play a few games. We never won a tourney, but always had a good time. Playing at the tournament and meeting other Strat players really solidified my interest in the game.

Here we see Dave practicing his game
in his dorm room so he will be ready
to participate in his next tournament
with a smile on his face that victory
and a trophy will be his soon!!

And after a hard day's work playing games
he comes back to the dorm room (yes this
is what I remember our rooms looked like)
to call home and talk about his superior
SOM game play after drinking 3 pepsis.

A couple of memorable individuals – Rick “Wolfman” Shapiro always did a great job organizing the tournament and keeping things fun. And then there was Robert Henry, who was at every tournament and I don’t ever recall him playing a game. At our first tourney, he was one of the first people we met. I was surprised when he told us he wasn’t playing. But he always had his suitcase full of teams for sale. He had so many teams in the collection, it was very impressive. I always bought 5 or 6 teams – ’66 Yankees , ’64 Tigers and the ’62 Pirates were only a few. I still have them all. He was very knowledgeable on the details and probabilities involved in creating the cards. I learned quite a bit on how the hit chances were determined. I recall he put together a quiz one year on rarities in strat cards.

Something else that was funny that happened during the convention which I remember. I recall someone with a tape recorder and a tape (playing) a Jack Brickhouse home run call. Whenever his team hit a home run he played it. A bit annoying, but kind of funny.

It was a fun environment to play in. The stakes weren’t as high as tournaments are today, and really helped to develop the enjoyment I have for the game. At the time, I started playing in some PBM leagues. After I graduated from College, I wasn’t always as involved, but always kept playing.

I was very happy when my oldest son Andrew showed an interest in the baseball and hockey games at an early age. We attended our first STAR tournament in 2007 when he was 12 years old. I loved hearing the comments of gamers about losing to a 12 year old. We have drafted and played as a team seven or eight times since that the, including playing in the championship series this past December in Chicago. We played in another championship in Cleveland a few years before, and unfortunately lost both to very worthy opponents. Playing together has been a great experience for me, and I am so proud in his sportsmanship and respect for others in the tourney.

The almost Strat Tournament Players Club championship team
for a tourney in Chicago (last yr.) and Cleveland - a current photo of
Dave with his son. If you are curious who's card Andrew is
holding up, when you zoom in on the photo it is Bartolo Colon.

I am in the Metro Detroit Strat League currently (MDSOML) and still enjoy replays of older seasons. I feel very fortunate that I have had such great experiences with my Dad and son in these tournaments. Who would have known that answering an advertisement in the Strat-O-Matic review in 1975 for a summer convention would have resulted in such great experiences.

Dave Lubera

Special Documents from the SOM Conventions
which Dave saved so you can view them
(how crude things were before the PC)

Ticket to the 1976 SOM Convention (Convention #5)
(Dave and his father Richard entered the two baseball tournaments,
boy does that handwriting sure look familiar ....)

Once again Dave and his Dad signed up for two of our baseball tournaments
at the 1979 SOM Convention - our last one at the U of I ..........

Letter sent to Dave with updates on the tournament
play schedule for the 1975 Convention from yours truly.

Our Welcome Sheet left in the Dorm Room of our Participants for the
1977 Convention sharing basic information - the schedule, how to contact
the organizers, what rooms we were in and also that we were offering a
"Losers Tournament" (once a person was eliminated from their tourney
they could continue to play) plus the Bowling Tourney held at Union Hall.

1976 Baseball Tournament Rules (3 Pages)

Some other rules we shared for the baseball tournaments, shared in a supplemental document sent to each person registered for the convention not given in the rules sheet shown above:

1. A Starting pitcher used in the first game of any round, must have two rounds of rest before he can start again. Your opponent may use any elligible starter after you switch teams (in effect the same starter if he/she wishes).

2. No player with less then 150 plate appearances (walks + at bats) may start.

3. There will be strict rules about a starter's removal (this was done so a team can't go into their bullpen right away and use up their best relievers early)

4. Each pitcher may only have a maximum of 9 innings per round (which means if a game goes extra innings the starter must come out)

5. The winner of the round is the person who collectively scores the most runs.

6. If you tie in runs (as you must play each game till a team wins) at the end of the round then it is consider 1/2 win and 1/2 loss.

Wolfman: If any of our members wish to contact Dave directly with some personal questions, you can email him at: davelubera@comcast.net

I want to thank Dave again for sharing his experiences at the conventions with our readers and how the baseball tournaments offered with strat-o-matic baseball has become a key shared experience between father and son in the Lubera family, what a great story!

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Contained inside this exciting issue of the 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 ♦ ARTICLE with J. G. PRESTON, Baseball Author, Stat Analytics Researcher, we return with Mr. J. G. Preston, one of the most indepth and comprehensive Baseball Researchers sharing unusual and never told before stories. This month, J. G. talks about pitchers throughout the history of baseball who did not bat 9th and which managers have placed their pitchers hitting 8th the most - one of his many interesting baseball articles on his blog website. ♦ INTERVIEW with BRUCE BUNDY, In this Month issue of our newsletter, for Mr. Bundy's column, "Strat Thoughts", the Wolfman talks to Bruce about his experiences and life linked with Strat-o-matic Baseball, as we learn how Bruce became so well known within our community. Take a peek at this enjoyment chat with Bruce Bundy (added April 9th to this issue of the newsletter). ♦ 1961 BASEBALL CARDS with TOM NAHIGIAN, We return again this month with a look at the card images of the original MLB players released for the 1961 season by Strat-o-matic thanks to the sharing by Tom Nahigian who scanned for us all the cards from 1960 and 1961 from his whole collection. ♦ SOM Baseball and MLB World News - April 2018, 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 discuss the free 1890 MLB teams, various minor league team and players, a few cuban teams and a ton of professional Negro teams, created by Alan Davidson which you can receive from him for free and, the series of the century, coming up later this month, between the All Time Great Cub vs. the Yankee Players and the key role this series will play in a new short story to be written by the Wolfman and why. ♦ STRAT WISE with MARC WASSERMAN commissioner of the Cyber Baseball Association (CBA) continues his new column by sharing more in depth about two key new features in the 2018 SOM Computer Baseball Game, the use of the cloud which makes running a league and passing the league files much easier and a new rule that could alter and change your game play called "Extreme Matchup". ♦ Special Report/Story with WOLFMAN SHAPIRO, The book that this story will eventually be a part of is tentatively called, "How They Play Baseball in Heaven", but this story is linked to the results of a so-called fantasy 3 game series held at Wrigley Field between the Greatest NY Yanks who ever lived, vs. the same with the Chicago Cubs -- this is a multi-page report with a full explanation of the book it will turn into, why this series and a full reporting on the 3 games played. Be prepared for one wild ride from the crazed mind of a Wolfman as he shares this story piece meal here in the April issue as well as his way to celebrate his 63rd birthday (April 17th).

♦ RECOMMEND ON-LINE SOM RESOURCES -- On-line Strat-o-matic and Baseball related websites that offer amazing information, special tools and products to improve your game play that we strongly recommend. In most cases, we have had personal contact with these sources who agree with the idea and key principle about working together to help promote each other.

♦ 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.

Contact Us for Questions or Submissions:Wolfman Shapiro co-Founder/Editor, the Ultimate Strat Baseball Newsletter email: wolfman@ultimatestratbaseball.com facebook: www.facebook.com/wolfman.shapiro twitter: @StratBaseball4U To Sign Up and Become a Member of this Newsletter http://www.UltimateStratBaseball.com (this provides direct emails when our bulletins and next issues come out)

** Article by Dave Lubera ** Revisiting the Annual SOM Conventions (1975 - 1980, conducted in Illinois)

Article by Dave Lubera

Revisiting the Annual SOM Conventions
(1975 - 1980, conducted in Illinois)