Baseball

An early card driven pitch-by-pitch baseball simulation designed for two players.

Game Contents: Playing Board, Deck of 36 Baseball Cards, 4 Wooden Markers for Batter and Base Runners, 2 Wooden Markers for Strikes and Balls, 1 Wooden Marker for Outs, 1 Wooden Marker for Runs Scored in an Inning, Score Sheet, Instructions.

To play, the cards are shuffled and held in the hand of the player at bat. The player in the field calls a pitch (fastball, curve, slow ball, drop, or knuckle ball). The result of the pitch is read from the top card. Pitch results include strike, ball, foul ball, hit batsman, wild pitch, balk or "field play."

When "field play" is the result of the pitch, the card is turned over to the Field Play side to determine the play outcome. Different play outcomes are included on each card, and the specific outcome used is based upon the number of outs and the number and location of baserunners.

After the result for a particular pitch has been determined, that card is discarded and play continues with the next card in the deck.

Although the game concept is simple, it works quite well, and play can be very competitive. However, the strategic aspects of baseball are ignored. There is no bunting, hit and run, positioning of the defense, etc.

This game has one notable oddity. The game board is a depiction of a baseball field with defenders drawn at the normal defensive positions. The defenders are numbered based upon standard baseball scoring conventions, except that the corner outfielders are reversed--that is, the rightfielder is shown as "7" and the leftfielder as "9."

This game was produced and marketed for at least 10 years under a variety of names: "Baseball", "Baseball Game for Young America", and "Little League Baseball".