This year, I was invited to play in the 1969 Strat-O-Matic baseball league on the TSN web site. First off, I’d like to thank my good friend Lawr Michaels for the invitation to play in the league. 1969 was about the time that I went to my first major league game at the old Comiskey Park, where Wilbur Wood took the mound that day. I began playing the Strat-O-Matic board game with the 1975 season.

Over the years of playing, I have experienced all aspects of the Strat-O-Matic game. Defense is not to be overlooked.  I have also noticed that a pitcher’s ERA doesn’t matter quite as much as his WHIP.  Taking those two statistics into consideration, I went on to build what I thought would be a winning team. For the first three weeks of the season, my team was sailing right along. Then a couple of small injuries to key players for a day or two started my team on a downward spiral from which it was never able to recover.  Although usually when playing a Strat-O-Matic season, player stats seem to end up close to the players’ actual season stats. For my team, it seems as if those injuries may have affected some of my players for the remainder of the year.

To start, I built my team around pitchers who had a good, if not terrific, WHIP. 

I took Mike Cuellar as my ace, as he finished third in the AL with a 2.38 ERA and his .258 opponents’ OBP was second in the league that season. He also had a terrific 1.00 WHIP.  Cuellar is now 17-12 in the game, with a 3.07 ERA and 1.14 WHIP. As expected, he has done a decent job.

I took a number of guys in relief who had decent numbers in these areas as well, including my all-time favorite Wood. He along with Jack Dilauro and Eddie Watt have set up Cecil Upshaw, who was second in baseball that year with 27 saves.  While the setup guys all have done a decent job, Upshaw has not.  Over the first three weeks of simulation, Upshaw was outstanding closing out games. Since that time, after blowing five straight saves, Upshaw has been moved to setup. He has a 4-7 record and 16 saves on the season, though with a 4.91 ERA and 1.77 WHIP, a far cry from the 2.91 ERA and 1.24 WHIP he had in 1969.

While Upshaw has been a big disappointment to the pitching staff, the real problem with my team has been hitting.

I drafted an outfield consisting of Carl Yastrzemski (LF-1 e5), Mickey Stanley (CF-1 e6) and Tony Oliva (RF-1 e7), all players who had the best range (1) to cover the field, in order to help the pitching staff keep runners off base. While these guys have made the plays in the field, it is their bats that have hurt my team this year. Oliva is currently batting .319 with 22 HR, not far off from his real life stats of .309 and 24 HR. Stanley however, is hitting .203 with 10 HR, compared to .235 with 16 HR in real life. The major disappointment of the team is Yastrzemski, who is batting .208 with 27 HR, compared to .255 and 40 HR in 1969.  With 18 games left to play in the season, I am hoping Yaz goes on a hitting tear just to come close to his actual stats.

The infield is not a whole lot better. Ken McMullen at third base is doing fine with .267 and 16 HR, compared to .272 with 19 HR. On the other hand, 1B Ernie Banks is hitting .215 with 16 HR (.253, 23 HR in 1969), 2B Julian Javier is batting .247 and has 10 HR (.282, 10 HR), and SS Luis Aparicio is at .261 with 3 HR (.280, 5 HR).  The power numbers are good for the most part, but the OBP and batting average are not close to what they were in real life.

I need to mention that I am playing in the first major league ballpark at which I saw a game, Comiskey Park in Chicago, where a single is 1-13 and HR 1-7. With this ballpark, where a single can be had 65% of the time, the batting averages of my players should be closer to what they were in 1969.

Overall, it has been a fun experience looking back at the 1969 season. I was looking for a home run battle between the likes of McCovey, Aaron, Killebrew, Howard, Jackson, Petrocelli and Yaz. In the simulation, however, it is Frank Howard who has blasted his way to the brink of a home-run title with 65. Killebrew is second with 52, followed by Powell, Jackson, McCovey and Petrocelli.  Aaron was not selected by a team in this simulation. Did I mention who was last among the seven players I expected to compete in the home run race? It is Yaz with 27 HR for my team.

Good luck the rest of the way to the division leaders: Cuyahoga River Fires, Gateway Gazelles and the Stratosphere Dukes. Although the division leaders all have a substantial lead, the wild-card spot is still up for grabs among four teams.

Thanks again to Lawr for putting the league together and Brendan Roberts at TSN for making it happen.