Vol. IV, Issue #6 - August 2016

** Welcome to USBN as our Strat Leagues are in their midst,
Baseball Daily is a realhappening, and we have some good
team competing for the championship in MLB  **

Comments from the Wolfman about this current issue as we begin our fourth
year (2016) of publication with a new year of excitement. As we provide for our
readers the most unique and interesting aspects of Strat-o-matic Baseball with links
to Major League Baseball.  Time to meet some of the most interesting people who
are connected to the game we love - 2016 is gonna be a big ride with all the
new products and services that Strat-o-matic is offering - stay tuned -
from your staff at the Ultimate Strat Baseball Newsletter ....
 

Well here we are coming to the end of Summer, with about one month to go for Major League Baseball to finish its season and still we are unclear who will make the playoffs that is, of course unless they have a total breakdown, we will see the Chicago Cubs back.  And then of course, for those of us involved in various SOM leagues who are paralleling major league baseball, our seasons are coming down to, to their natural finish. Did your team(s) perform as you hoped?

I haven't heard from our members if others are playing Baseball Daily, I do know I have been enjoying playing (re-playing) the current Cub's season. Of course I am counting on the intelligence of the computer game to duplicate the moves of our opponents and I do have my version of the Cubs doing slightly better than in real life - but anyway my continuation of my report on this will show a bit more of what I am experiencing.

Last month I begin to share a report around the "Field of Dreams Movie Site" in Dryersville, Iowa where the Baseball Field built for the film "Field of Dreams" happened.  I continue and finish this report this month with a lot more information including the interviews we conducted with the owner of the farm in Dryersville, a member of the family who decided to preserve the Baseball Field and we speak to W. P. Kinsella for the second part of his interview, author of the book, "Shoeless Joe". Which, BTW, I did find at my local library and for this issue so I could read it as I wanted to compare how the real story in Kinsella's novel compared to the one we know from the movie.  Quite a few differences I dare say and I talk all about this right here, you will be surprised!

Other parts you will find in this edition of our newsletter is we hear from two more league commissioners that once again I found via Strat Draft - Brian Koch, commissioner of two retro leagues and Gary Davis who runs a face-to-face league.  Marc Wasserman returns with the next edition of his column Strat Wise and we hear about some new videos on our Youtube Channel along with how this video depot is beginning to see a ton of SOM Baseball gamers discussing Strat-o-matic on the airwaves.  Tom Nahigian, the collector, as author and strat expert/advisor Glenn Guzzo calls him, shares with you some more of the early cards for SOM released in 1961.  And finally, I thought I should update our members how the Skokie Wolfmen are doing in Minor League Strat as well as the players we were able to acquire for our farm team (my original article appeared in the March issue of this year.) via another special draft and auction that took place.

Yes indeed dear SOM family we got the goods for you again this month, so dig in!

A Special Request from our team:  We would like to continue to create a MLB rookie guide, to rank and rate all the new young players that continue to come into baseball, is there anyone out there who would be interested to assist in such an endeavor. If so and you would like to know more, please send an email to: info@ultimatestratbaseball.com with a subject of "Rookie Guide Inquiry".

Note (our monthly reminder): Once again, if you have just joined us recently or haven't had a chance to read all of our bulletins and prior newsletters (since January of 2013), you can find everything you desire by visiting our archive webpages at:

http://archive.aweber.com/stratbaseball

So here we are go again, as the MLB season is really getting intense now as it enters its last month of play - the chance for two teams to be wild cards give many teams a chance to make it into the playoffs.  Will the last minute trades made by the contenders make a difference? Or will the calling off many young stars and prospects from the minors be the key that gets a team in? Will your SOM league teams (face-to-face, via the computer game or on-line) win your league championship? So much activity related to the game we love going on at this time as we also get ready for the NFL to begin again too ... enjoy the August issue of your newsletter!!

To a glorious 2016, success in your leagues, replays and tournaments,

Wolfman Shapiro
on behalf of the team at USBN


PS -- If anyone has purchased the new DVD "Managing to Win" - The Story of Strat-o-matic - we would like to hear from you what you thought about this new documentary by the game company, feel free to send us a private email.