This truly was the game that started it all for me. My older sister bought it for me and I played it so much! I kept stats on index cards. I made an index card for each player and updated it after every game by erasing and re-writing the updated stats. I pretty sure I even kept them for pitchers even though I realized that pitchers didn’t matter. I feel like I remember having a Roger Clemens card. It’s fuzzy! Lol.
My sisters husband told me that since I liked that game so much I’d love a game called Strat O Matic. I always kept that name in the back of my head. After I finished college and got married and before the babies started coming, one of the first online searches I did was “Strat O Matic”. The rest is history. But it all goes back to this game!
Yeah - I saw that when I was preparing this. I don't believe either of those for a second.
It's interesting that All-Star Baseball stayed in print for decades. However, I really have a hard time believing that it was really the best selling baseball board game of all time, or that it was anywhere near as influential as that page claims.
I'll perhaps give it the best-selling baseball board game of the "1940's." That's quite possible, as I'm not sure there was much (if any) competition back then. But once APBA and SOM emerged in the '50s and '60s, this game would have quickly relegated to second tier.
This truly was the game that started it all for me. My older sister bought it for me and I played it so much! I kept stats on index cards. I made an index card for each player and updated it after every game by erasing and re-writing the updated stats. I pretty sure I even kept them for pitchers even though I realized that pitchers didn’t matter. I feel like I remember having a Roger Clemens card. It’s fuzzy! Lol.
My sisters husband told me that since I liked that game so much I’d love a game called Strat O Matic. I always kept that name in the back of my head. After I finished college and got married and before the babies started coming, one of the first online searches I did was “Strat O Matic”. The rest is history. But it all goes back to this game!
Wikipedia says this about the game:
"All Star Baseball is a 1941 baseball board game designed by baseball player Ethan Allen.
The game, manufactured by Cadaco-Ellis, was the best-selling baseball board game of all time.
It has been honored as one of the fifty most influential American board games of all time."
Those are two pretty heady accolades. Although I'm not sure I believe either of them.
Yeah - I saw that when I was preparing this. I don't believe either of those for a second.
It's interesting that All-Star Baseball stayed in print for decades. However, I really have a hard time believing that it was really the best selling baseball board game of all time, or that it was anywhere near as influential as that page claims.
I'll perhaps give it the best-selling baseball board game of the "1940's." That's quite possible, as I'm not sure there was much (if any) competition back then. But once APBA and SOM emerged in the '50s and '60s, this game would have quickly relegated to second tier.