30 replies to this topic

[fgoodwin]

The Lost Founder of Baseball Video Games
A tale of obsession, punch cards, and a '60s computer the size of a hatchback
By Bess Kalb on April 9, 2012

A few days before Christmas in 1960, John Burgeson, a mid-level programmer at IBM in Akron, Ohio, called in sick and invented a form of computerized fantasy baseball. In the process, he also presaged the rudimentary concepts of sabermetrics. And in doing all that, he figured out that computers, which until then had basically been ice cream truck–size calculators, were portals to a virtual world and the future of gaming.

[excerpted]

[Mark L. Ford]

The Lost Founder of Baseball Video Games
A tale of obsession, punch cards, and a '60s computer the size of a hatchback
By Bess Kalb on April 9, 2012

A few days before Christmas in 1960, John Burgeson, a mid-level programmer at IBM in Akron, Ohio, called in sick and invented a form of computerized fantasy baseball. In the process, he also presaged the rudimentary concepts of sabermetrics. And in doing all that, he figured out that computers, which until then had basically been ice cream truck–size calculators, were portals to a virtual world and the future of gaming.

[excerpted]

That makes me wonder who about the first computer simulation of football. Baseball is relatively easy to simulate, since only one player at a time comes up on the offense, and a response from the defense is required only if the batter gets a hit. The first video games I recall on football were relatively dull, watching x's and o's moving vertically up a screen without the benefit of John Madden's insightful and thought provoking comments about what had just happened.

As far as toys based on pro football, my neighbors had lots of them. There were card games where you would say in advance whether you were going to run or pass, then draw the card for your result, while moving a little football along a paper gridiron.

In the 1970s, there was a Sports Illustrated game (I can't remember the name, but the college version was called "Pay Dirt!") where you had a large card for each NFL team's stats on success of offense and defense, you'd call a play and roll dice.

There had been an electric game marketed as "Monday Night Football" where each person would slide a lever, and the result of the play would light up at the spot where the two levers intersected (very difficult to describe).

And of course, there was electric football, where 22 plastic men, mounted on 22 plastic pieces, would move in random directions along the metal gridiron when the power was turned on, with play stopping as soon as the guy with the football ran into one of the opposing team, or (more often), went out of bounds.

I would guess that in the 1960s, somebody wrote a program using a random number generator and corresponding results, although in the days before monitors, you would have to wait for a printout to see what happened. I imagine that the computerized baseball game was like the real thing, but even slower.

[Rupert Patrick]

That makes me wonder who about the first computer simulation of football. Baseball is relatively easy to simulate, since only one player at a time comes up on the offense, and a response from the defense is required only if the batter gets a hit. The first video games I recall on football were relatively dull, watching x's and o's moving vertically up a screen without the benefit of John Madden's insightful and thought provoking comments about what had just happened.

As far as toys based on pro football, my neighbors had lots of them. There were card games where you would say in advance whether you were going to run or pass, then draw the card for your result, while moving a little football along a paper gridiron.

In the 1970s, there was a Sports Illustrated game (I can't remember the name, but the college version was called "Pay Dirt!") where you had a large card for each NFL team's stats on success of offense and defense, you'd call a play and roll dice.

There had been an electric game marketed as "Monday Night Football" where each person would slide a lever, and the result of the play would light up at the spot where the two levers intersected (very difficult to describe).

And of course, there was electric football, where 22 plastic men, mounted on 22 plastic pieces, would move in random directions along the metal gridiron when the power was turned on, with play stopping as soon as the guy with the football ran into one of the opposing team, or (more often), went out of bounds.

I would guess that in the 1960s, somebody wrote a program using a random number generator and corresponding results, although in the days before monitors, you would have to wait for a printout to see what happened. I imagine that the computerized baseball game was like the real thing, but even slower.

I think it was in the late 60's when Pete Palmer was simulating baseball using computers. As I remember the story he was working for a major company and they had large computers and allowed him to use the computers on off hours. He took several years of MLB data and put it on punch cards and was able to determine how many runs would result if, as an example, you have runners on first and third and one out. I think this research eventually led to his Linear Weights system that was detailed in The Hidden Game of Baseball. At this time David Neft and his team were using computers to compile the Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia.

I collect old football games so I know a little about the history. The first true adult football game was Football Strategy by Avalon Hill, which I think came out in 1962, but you were dealing with two generic teams of equal strength and the difference was in the play calling and the luck of the dice. I don't know about the history of Stratomatic (never played it) but otherwise the first game to use real team data was Sports Illustrated Pro Football (also created by Neft) in 1970, where you had a color coded chart for each NFL and AFL team from 1969 and the charts were all different and the stronger teams usually beat the better teams. After two seasons, SI Pro Football was renamed Paydirt, and the College Football counterpart (which was a bunch of best teams from the 1960's) was renamed Bowl Bound. Paydirt was produced until 1992 and people still collect the charts and play the games today, and some people create their own charts for teams since 1992. Today the game is known as Data Driven Football. For my money, Paydirt is still the most realistic Football game ever developed, and it's very easy to play, and over time the statistical results are very accurate to real Pro Football. SI did create a Baseball Game with color coded charts, and I have the game but have never played it (nobody to play it with) but I imagine it is quite accurate and realistic.

James Barnes created Statis Pro games in the early 70's, which was bought by Avalon Hill and became Avalon Hill's version of creating a sports game with individual cards for each player like Stratomatic and APBA. While I don't care for the Football game, the Baseball game is in my opinion the best Baseball game ever developed. Unlike Paydirt, the Statis Pro Baseball cards are pretty easy to create, and when Avalon Hill went out of business fans create their own cards.

An interesting bit of trivia is that Avalon Hill from the late 50's to the late 90's I guess was better known for creating hundreds of military based war games that recreated battles and wars; my father was a military historian and played all of these games and thru him I started playing the various Avalon Hill board games as a child like Paydirt and the Statis Pro games. Avalon Hill went out of business about ten years back and was purchased by former Baseball player Curt Schilling, who loved to play the AH military games. I do not remember the name of Schilling's company (I know he renamed it) but his company is now producing many of the old Avalon Hill games, but oddly he never reproduced or updated any of the classic AH sports games.

EDIT: Schilling's game company is called Multi-Man Publishing. Here is a wikipedia entry about the company:

http://en.wikipedia....-Man_Publishing

Schilling didn't buy the entire Avalon Hill board game line but he did apparently purchase a number of titles, none of them sports games.

[lastcat3]

Front office football is really the most realistic football sim on the computer that I have seen. Some probably don't like it because it doesn't form teams based on the stats of a particular season but instead allows you to start a league and trade, draft, sign, cut players. Players also age and retire so after a few years you are playing pretty much a completely fictional league. Those who want the current real players and stats wouldn't like it but it is the best thing on the market for those that are interested in starting a league and making decisions to where the league is based on the decisions you made.

I find games like stratomatic although interesting they grow dull rather quickly because you are playing with the same team over and over again.

[Reaser]

I have many of these games and grew up playing them all, from electric football (I got 3 "fields" and about 20 teams during my youth) to strat-o-matic to paydirt. Of course by the mid 90's I was playing the computer simulation games or video games. Also had the NFL Red Zone game, visually the best of the "card" games. Also have a custom game that someone online made and I bought all the cards for all the 1991 WLAF teams.

All the cards, spinners, dice, etc. games were fun, the problem was finding people to play, or having "unique" games. My step dad played them all with me, and had a friend that would also, but we would get bored after a while then play 'Tecmo' or get on the computer to play something like "Football Pro" and GM it, spend the day drafting and trading and simming out 50 seasons with fictional teams...Which for me was/is (sometimes I like to still play various games, ha) a 100 times better than "re-playing" a game. I could have the '92 Seahawks play the '92 Patriots, have the cards for them and I can roll dice, or I could just put the game in the ole VCR and watch it again. I had and played those type of games but it was the "create your own league" ones that I found/find entertaining. Especially ones with commissioner options, so you can have expansion over the seasons, while being the Owner/GM/Coach of your team, etc...

[Rupert Patrick]

I have many of these games and grew up playing them all, from electric football (I got 3 "fields" and about 20 teams during my youth) to strat-o-matic to paydirt.

I hated Electric Football, it was the worst, because no matter how hard you tried to set up the feelers on the players, they would all congregate in the middle of the field and moved around in a manner resembling square dancing.

The other one I didn't like was the Cadeco Pro Foto Football, where you had like slides of the different plays and the offense would choose a play and defense would choose a play and you would lay them on top of a lighted board and it would show the play, only the formations never lined up correctly with one another.

I forgot to mention that what I always felt was the best of the generic team board Football games was Tudor NFL Strategy, which was designed by former NFL QB (and phD in Mathematics) Dr. Frank Ryan. I believe the game first came out around 1970 and Ryan analyzed several years worth of NFL play by play for statistical realism and the formations you could choose from were more like real NFL offensive and defensive alignments. In Paydirt you only had nine offensive and six defensive plays, but in NFL Strategy you had like two dozen offensive and a dozen defensive plays. Also, NFL Strategy was the first game of it's kind that did not use dice but instead used this spring loaded bead that you pulled back and released for determining chance.

[lastcat3]

I played Football Pro a ton back in the mid 90's as it was one of the first games (that I knew of) where you could play a career that could last as long as you wanted. Compared to games of today it was rather shallow (no contracts, could not trade draft picks, and you could only trade one player for one player) but at that time it was extremely unique (as back in that day most football games never even allowed you to play one full season with all the teams).

Problem with football pro was starting with the '97 version it began getting extremely buggy. The '99 version was so bad that they ended up re-calling it from store shelves. Instead of fixing the issues they decided to just end the series.

[Reaser]

I hated Electric Football, it was the worst, because no matter how hard you tried to set up the feelers on the players, they would all congregate in the middle of the field and moved around in a manner resembling square dancing.

I got infinite more enjoyment out of getting a new team and putting the #'s on the players and lining them up than I ever got out of actually turning the game on. I was just a "kid" with a great imagination (played 100's of seasons of various football leagues walking around in my living room throwing a nerf football up to myself, then i would write down scores and stats, ha) so sometimes I would just use the "players" and the field and never turn it on but move them myself and play out games.

Over the years I did however get decent at making SOME players move in a straight line, but ya, usually they either went in circles, fell over, "ran" directly out of bounds or worse, would instantly get turned around and run the wrong way...

[Rupert Patrick]

I got infinite more enjoyment out of getting a new team and putting the #'s on the players and lining them up than I ever got out of actually turning the game on. I was just a "kid" with a great imagination (played 100's of seasons of various football leagues walking around in my living room throwing a nerf football up to myself, then i would write down scores and stats, ha) so sometimes I would just use the "players" and the field and never turn it on but move them myself and play out games.

Over the years I did however get decent at making SOME players move in a straight line, but ya, usually they either went in circles, fell over, "ran" directly out of bounds or worse, would instantly get turned around and run the wrong way...

I was watching a show about hardcore electric football players (mostly guys in their 30's and 40's, and I would speculate many of them still live in their parents basements), and these guys will often purchase hundreds or thousands of plastic players in bulk and analyze every one of them to see how they perform. For example, if they find one that always moves forward and to the right, this piece will be useful on running plays to the right and they will keep him for those types of plays, and they will design their formations based on how the players move. One thing that I remember them saying is that half the little player guys do not work at all, you cannot control the players via the feelers. There was one guy at their event known as Dr. Base who could look at a base and tell you exactly how the player would move based on the base and feelers, and all the players were getting their pieces examined by Dr. Base.

[JWL]

I got infinite more enjoyment out of getting a new team and putting the #'s on the players and lining them up than I ever got out of actually turning the game on. I was just a "kid" with a great imagination (played 100's of seasons of various football leagues walking around in my living room throwing a nerf football up to myself, then i would write down scores and stats, ha) so sometimes I would just use the "players" and the field and never turn it on but move them myself and play out games.

Over the years I did however get decent at making SOME players move in a straight line, but ya, usually they either went in circles, fell over, "ran" directly out of bounds or worse, would instantly get turned around and run the wrong way...

Electric Football was horrible. I had it one time (don't know how I got it) and tried it once and that was it.

I did create a fictitious basketball league in my early high school years which is around the time when I got into the NBA. I had a Nerf ball and hoop and would also take shots as certain players when on the asphalt court in my neighborhood. Mostly I did it for stats and imagination purposes.

In earlier years I did similar stuff with baseball but used real friends as the players. In later years I would create my friends in the Madden games. Don DeCrazy (real name is similar to that nickname) was always added as the punter for the Browns. This was done because one time when I was playing Madden at WVU, Don walked into my dorm room after smoking pot and claimed he used to be a punter for the Cleveland Browns but they fired him for kicking too many balls out of the stadium.

[apbaball]

I think it was in the late 60's when Pete Palmer was simulating baseball using computers. As I remember the story he was working for a major company and they had large computers and allowed him to use the computers on off hours. He took several years of MLB data and put it on punch cards and was able to determine how many runs would result if, as an example, you have runners on first and third and one out. I think this research eventually led to his Linear Weights system that was detailed in The Hidden Game of Baseball. At this time David Neft and his team were using computers to compile the Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia.

I collect old football games so I know a little about the history. The first true adult football game was Football Strategy by Avalon Hill, which I think came out in 1962, but you were dealing with two generic teams of equal strength and the difference was in the play calling and the luck of the dice. I don't know about the history of Stratomatic (never played it) but otherwise the first game to use real team data was Sports Illustrated Pro Football (also created by Neft) in 1970, where you had a color coded chart for each NFL and AFL team from 1969 and the charts were all different and the stronger teams usually beat the better teams. After two seasons, SI Pro Football was renamed Paydirt, and the College Football counterpart (which was a bunch of best teams from the 1960's) was renamed Bowl Bound. Paydirt was produced until 1992 and people still collect the charts and play the games today, and some people create their own charts for teams since 1992. Today the game is known as Data Driven Football. For my money, Paydirt is still the most realistic Football game ever developed, and it's very easy to play, and over time the statistical results are very accurate to real Pro Football. SI did create a Baseball Game with color coded charts, and I have the game but have never played it (nobody to play it with) but I imagine it is quite accurate and realistic.

James Barnes created Statis Pro games in the early 70's, which was bought by Avalon Hill and became Avalon Hill's version of creating a sports game with individual cards for each player like Stratomatic and APBA. While I don't care for the Football game, the Baseball game is in my opinion the best Baseball game ever developed. Unlike Paydirt, the Statis Pro Baseball cards are pretty easy to create, and when Avalon Hill went out of business fans create their own cards.

An interesting bit of trivia is that Avalon Hill from the late 50's to the late 90's I guess was better known for creating hundreds of military based war games that recreated battles and wars; my father was a military historian and played all of these games and thru him I started playing the various Avalon Hill board games as a child like Paydirt and the Statis Pro games. Avalon Hill went out of business about ten years back and was purchased by former Baseball player Curt Schilling, who loved to play the AH military games. I do not remember the name of Schilling's company (I know he renamed it) but his company is now producing many of the old Avalon Hill games, but oddly he never reproduced or updated any of the classic AH sports games.

EDIT: Schilling's game company is called Multi-Man Publishing. Here is a wikipedia entry about the company:

http://en.wikipedia....-Man_Publishing

Schilling didn't buy the entire Avalon Hill board game line but he did apparently purchase a number of titles, none of them sports games.

I think APBA football came out in 1957. APBA baseball came out in 1951. Card and dice board games paved the way for computer simulations. In fact, Strat-o-matic is one of the major players in the computer football simulation industry. In baseball, APBA had a very large market share of the ciomputer baseball simulattion industry when they came out with a DOS based version of their master game in mid 1980s which they later moved over to windows with Ernie Harwell doing the play by play. When it came out it was ahead of its time but infighting between the developer and game company led to the developers abandoning the game. George Bush, David Eisenhower, Joe Torre and Curt Schilling are former APBA players (probably cards and dice version) Diamond Mind Baseball and Action PC Baseball have a big following as well and are good games although the creator of Diamond Mind sold out a few years ago. Strat and Action PC Football and Strat probably have the largest market share in the football industry. Games have advanced by leaps and bounds since the early days.

http://www.nytimes.c...9apba.html?_r=1

[Rupert Patrick]

I think APBA football came out in 1957. APBA baseball came out in 1951. Card and dice board games paved the way for computer simulations. In fact, Strat-o-matic is one of the major players in the computer football simulation industry. In baseball, APBA had a very large market share of the ciomputer baseball simulattion industry when they came out with a DOS based version of their master game in mid 1980s which they later moved over to windows with Ernie Harwell doing the play by play. When it came out it was ahead of its time but infighting between the developer and game company led to the developers abandoning the game. George Bush, David Eisenhower, Joe Torre and Curt Schilling are former APBA players (probably cards and dice version) Diamond Mind Baseball and Action PC Baseball have a big following as well and are good games although the creator of Diamond Mind sold out a few years ago. Strat and Action PC Football and Strat probably have the largest market share in the football industry. Games have advanced by leaps and bounds since the early days.

http://www.nytimes.c...9apba.html?_r=1

Richard Milhaus Nixon was also into Baseball board games, APBA and or Stratomatic; he was a huge sports fan, Baseball in particular, and he was once offered the job of Baseball Commissioner in the early 60's after he lost the 1960 election to Kennedy. (Imagine how differently things would have turned out if he had taken the job.) Nixon and David Eisenhower, who was Nixon's son-in-law (married to his daughter Julie) were both Baseball nuts who played board games all the time and played in Fantasy and Rotisserie Baseball leagues together in the 80's and 90's until Nixon's death in 1994. I know when Nixon left the Presidency he got a free pass to attend any MLB game and took full advantage of it, attending lots of games in the last 20 years of his life.

[rhickok1109]

Richard Milhaus Nixon was also into Baseball board games, APBA and or Stratomatic; he was a huge sports fan, Baseball in particular, and he was once offered the job of Baseball Commissioner in the early 60's after he lost the 1960 election to Kennedy. (Imagine how differently things would have turned out if he had taken the job.) Nixon and David Eisenhower, who was Nixon's son-in-law (married to his daughter Julie) were both Baseball nuts who played board games all the time and played in Fantasy and Rotisserie Baseball leagues together in the 80's and 90's until Nixon's death in 1994. I know when Nixon left the Presidency he got a free pass to attend any MLB game and took full advantage of it, attending lots of games in the last 20 years of his life.

In 1958, I covered an exhibition between the Packers and Giants at Nickerson Field (formerly Braves Field) in Boston. Vice-President was at the game and I interviewed him in the Packer dressing room afterward. I was never a Nixon fan, but I was very impressed with his knowledge of the game and the players.

The Green Bay Press-Gazette paid me $50 for the game story and $100 for the Nixon interview, which ran on Page 1. Pretty good money for a college student at the time

[Kelly1105]

Electric Football was horrible. I had it one time (don't know how I got it) and tried it once and that was it.

I did create a fictitious basketball league in my early high school years which is around the time when I got into the NBA. I had a Nerf ball and hoop and would also take shots as certain players when on the asphalt court in my neighborhood. Mostly I did it for stats and imagination purposes.

In earlier years I did similar stuff with baseball but used real friends as the players. In later years I would create my friends in the Madden games. Don DeCrazy (real name is similar to that nickname) was always added as the punter for the Browns. This was done because one time when I was playing Madden at WVU, Don walked into my dorm room after smoking pot and claimed he used to be a punter for the Cleveland Browns but they fired him for kicking too many balls out of the stadium.

Your mention of the NBA makes me remember a game I had. It was a board with holes cut in and a ping pong ball would roll around it and with levers that you could shoot the ball into a net. One winter I actually played half the NBA schedule and keep stats each hole represented a player. Another game I loved was Paydirt couple of my friends and I spent countless hours playing in high school and college which probably cost me that scholarship to MIT.

[Rupert Patrick]

Your mention of the NBA makes me remember a game I had. It was a board with holes cut in and a ping pong ball would roll around it and with levers that you could shoot the ball into a net. One winter I actually played half the NBA schedule and keep stats each hole represented a player. Another game I loved was Paydirt couple of my friends and I spent countless hours playing in high school and college which probably cost me that scholarship to MIT.

The name of the game was Bas-Ket, I had it when I was a kid:

http://boardgamegeek...me/3189/bas-ket

[Mark L. Ford]

In 1958, I covered an exhibition between the Packers and Giants at Nickerson Field (formerly Braves Field) in Boston. Vice-President was at the game and I interviewed him in the Packer dressing room afterward. I was never a Nixon fan, but I was very impressed with his knowledge of the game and the players.

The Green Bay Press-Gazette paid me $50 for the game story and $100 for the Nixon interview, which ran on Page 1. Pretty good money for a college student at the time

Back in 1971, when President Nixon was popular, he made a point of rooting for the Redskins as his home team while at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Being friends with George Allen, he diagrammed a play that he asked Coach Allen to run during a Redksins game. The coach's daughter, Jennifer Allen, would write years later that "It failed tremendously." http://espn.go.com/p...len/020308.html Since then, U.S. Presidents have pretty much stuck to baseball.

[Bob Gill]

>Back in 1971, when President Nixon was popular, he made a point of rooting for the Redskins as his home team while at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Being friends with George Allen, he diagrammed a play that he asked Coach Allen to run during a Redksins game. The coach's daughter, Jennifer Allen, would write years later that "It failed tremendously."

My recollection is that it was something like a reverse, and it lost 10 yards or something. It might even have occurred during their playoff loss that year, but I wouldn't want to bet on it.

[ronfitch]

There had been an electric game marketed as "Monday Night Football" where each person would slide a lever, and the result of the play would light up at the spot where the two levers intersected (very difficult to describe).

We had the Monday Night Football game, back in the early '70s.

It had a plastic "stadium" as the board, which was probably 1.5' wide by 2.5' long and maybe 6 or 8" tall (the stands). That was the cool part of the game (at least to a six-year-old).

The field was a green adhesive paper (with end zones, yard lines, etc. - even goal posts) which was adhered to a plastic surface with dozens of small, square, clear tiles with ploy outcomes imprinted ("Complete for a TD" and "Fumble" and "Loss of 7" and the like). Each player would pick an base formation, then a specific play which would give an instruction on where to move your lever. As Mark wrote, each player would slide a lever and where those levers intersected it would light the tile for the result of the play.

I recall the levers sticking a lot.

http://boardgamegeek...-night-football

[Todd Pence]

one time when I was playing Madden at WVU,

What years were you at WVU, JWL? I was there from 1986-90, and worked in the library system there in the early 90's, also taking classes from 1994-96.

[BD Sullivan]

>Back in 1971, when President Nixon was popular, he made a point of rooting for the Redskins as his home team while at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Being friends with George Allen, he diagrammed a play that he asked Coach Allen to run during a Redksins game. The coach's daughter, Jennifer Allen, would write years later that "It failed tremendously."

My recollection is that it was something like a reverse, and it lost 10 yards or something. It might even have occurred during their playoff loss that year, but I wouldn't want to bet on it.

According to the article below, it was a reverse to Roy Jefferson that lost 13 yards:

http://voices.washin...on_designe.html

Nixon obviously didn't learn from this play selection, since he suggested a play to Don Shula against the Cowboys in the Super Bowl soon after, a quick slant to Paul Warfield. Given the hype over the play, the Cowboys were more than ready for it, with Lee Roy Jordan helping out Mel Renfro when Miami tried it on the eighth play of the game. The ball was overthrown and wasn't really tried again.