Game of Baseball

This 1930s Canadian baseball game may be the only existing baseball title that actually features a Canadian maple leaf on the chest of a player on the box top.

While undated, it was probably issued around 1936-7, when a foundering Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team was rescued from a buyout and transfer to Albany, NY, by a group of local investors headed by former Ontario Lieutenant-Governor William Donald Ross.

The game itself is rather basic. It has a folding thin cardboard field and 18 small wooden player disks (9 blue, 9 red). While there are circles on the field and bench for these pieces, their only real function is to mark baserunners.

To bat, players simply roll 2D6, and read the resulting play off a 2-12 table in the rules. The odds are not realistic: the most likely result (7) produces a double, and a batter will get on base almost half the time (17/36). Normal baseball rules apply, with the player scoring the most runs after nine innings winning.