Class Struggle:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1510/class-struggle
I always had trouble getting a good game of CS going because it was a role playing game. Nobody ever wanted to play the Capitalist ruthlessly enough.
Ur: Royal Game of Sumer:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1602/the-royal-game-of-ur
Parcheesi
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2136/pachisi
Upwords:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1515/upwords
Scrabble:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/320/scrabble
A domino set and a magnetic chess set.
The game missing was a chess machine.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/579308697/saitek-electronic-chess-kasparov
This isn't exactly what my chess set looked like, but close enough.
I gave away my chess machine a long time ago. It was very advanced for 1983, when I got it. I moved real piece pegs into slots and then the machine would respond. A little red light would blink while it was thinking. Then it would beep to indicate its move. It had 8 levels. It beat me mercilessly at the most elementary levels. Then I got a few books. I was never a good chess player, but the machine taught me to keep count of the pieces very well. I got to where I could beat the machine at level four. It was so much fun to watch the little red light blink slowly, and then faster and faster, and then just stay lit! Checkmate. I had beaten the son-of-a-bitch. I spent many a long night playing against it, listening to Sting, Steely Dan, and Supertramp. Great music to play chess against a machine to. Of course it never helped me against humans. The ones who were better than me stayed better, but I could give them a more interesting game. I must say I enjoyed playing the machine more than people regardless of the result. Even at the higher levels, where it still beat me mercilessly.
Those were the non-sports games. When I looked at the sports games, things started getting interesting.
Pursue the Pennant:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/7290/pursue-the-pennant
All Star Baseball:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3157/all-star-baseball
There's quite a story behind All Star Baseball. Want to hear it? I thought you would.
When I was in third grade (the 1953 edition of ASB was on the shelves of the department stores), we had an exercise at school called the "hundreds club." Each day Arithmetic would start with a small quiz. If you got them all right that would be one quiz. If you got 100 percents on five quizzes in a row, you joined the hundreds club and could do something more interesting while the others were trying to get in. One after another the kids got in the club. I could get three quizzes in a row. Then I'd screw up. I'd try and try, but I'd always screw up after three. (Thinking about it now, it really wasn't a good way to build a kid's confidence. It was pretty frustrating, and my lifelong lack of skill or interest in math may have been partly influenced by this exercise).
My parents got wind of my frustration, probably at a teacher-parent meeting. Soon they offered me an incentive. I could get any board game or toy I wanted if I could get into the hundreds club. My Dad even took me to one of the precursors of the big box retail stores to peruse the merchandise. I didn't need to do that. I knew exactly what I wanted. All Star Baseball. I'd spent most of the summer playing it at my friend's house. I don't remember the friend, but the game was great! I've always been nuts about baseball, and it was the very first of the baseball simulation games. An entire career or the 1959 season distilled into a paper player disk. The area of the number indicates the real frequency of the result. Flick the spinner and see what happens.
For how the game works see:
http://cadacoallstarbaseball.com/about/what-is-all-star-baseball/
Example player disks.
http://cadacoallstarbaseball.com/about/player-download/
This guy's blog could have been mine!
The only thing between nirvana and me was that goddamn hundreds club. The incentive didn't help me. I still kept stumbling after three times in a row. By now weeks had gone by and only a couple of dolts and I were still taking the stupid quizzes. Finally I got to four. I was hoping the teacher would shut it down and let me through. But no go. On the fifth day I was a wreck. But somehow I made it. 5 hundreds in a row!!! It probably took me 30 quizzes to get five in a row. I can't remember. It seemed like 100.
And so on that triumphant day we went to the store and my Dad presented me with my prize. I felt 10 feet tall. And I played that game to death, mostly solitaire. What did I need people for when I could put down a lineup card with Ruth, Foxx, Cobb, Mays, Mantle, and even Hary Chiti. And another one with Hornsby, Wilson, Traynor, and Norm Larker. Just let them have at each other and record what happened. I played that game until the paper disks disintegrated. Much later, after college, I bought a vintage 1970s version.
Then, at the bottom of the pile of games, I found a game in a white box. It had renderings of Charlie Brown, Lucy, Pigpen, Snoopy, and Linus on the cover.
Charlie Brown's All Stars:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5629/charlie-browns-all-stars
For the rules see:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/255221/its-yet-another-baseball-game-charlie-brown
This was a game I had purchased, as sort of a joke, in about 1976. On the top right corner of the box there was a yellow sticker with a smiling sun and the words "Take me to my owner". Underneath, my first name and last initial was printed in a delicate, feminine hand.
It wasn't much of a game. The object of it was to out-guess your opponent, figure out the best times to swing at a pitch that was in the strike zone, or maneuver the pitcher into a position where a strike had to be thrown. It was a game for kids. But when adults played it a headache could be the result. It was very difficult to score because it was very difficult to hit the ball. Just like baseball. You had to be thinking, concentrating on every pitch. You had to look for patterns. Same thing for the pitcher. Just like baseball. There were lots of strikeouts and almost no walks. And the real problem was that when you did hit the ball, you had to throw three dice to see the result. And more often than not the result was an out anyway. Just like baseball. So maybe it wasn't such a stupid game after all. I was always competitive at baseball in any manifestation (even though I had no talent for the actual game). So when I played against another competitive male, I got to feel all the mind numbing frustration a real live baseball player gets to feel. How did I not see that pattern? How did that bum strike me out again? I just hit three shots, right at fielders.
But it was kind of cool to actually play something against another person, and to share the frustration of real baseball players. The games were always 1-0 or 2-1. 3-2 was a slugfest. I had two friends (lets call them Mickey and Willie) that would play and I would watch as Willie would beat Mickey by one of those scores time after time. He would beat the hell out of him by those scores. Finally Mickey quit playing. When I played Willie he would always pile up at least 2 runs, and sometimes he would get 3 or even 4. It was embarrassing to both of us. His boredom playing me was palpable. I was always ready to go, but he begged off after a while.
I opened the box and the memories started flooding back. I had forgotten the Charlie Brown's All Star League, a league which I had invented and was Commissioner of, as well as one of the players. This was the year after the games I have already talked about. My group of friends consisted of two couples and an unattached man and woman. I would get together with them on fall Sundays to watch the football game. I thought it would be cool to set up a little competition, something to do before the game or at halftime. I asked my partner if she would go in on it and she agreed. She wasn't into the game, but thought it a nice idea. So now there were eight. And a league could be set up.
I looked at the yellowing paper and the backs of small paper bar checks (I worked at a bar at the time) to see my scribblings as I worked out a 14 game schedule (to mirror the professional football schedule of the time). And that schedule was still in the box, as were the line scores of every game we played. I felt like I had discovered Tutankhamen's tomb.
Division 1: (well, you had to have playoffs at the end of the season).
Millennium Falcons
Sunday Comics
Bears
Porky Pigs
Division 2:
Bulldogs
White Sox
Walden Pond Bullfrogs
Wholly Rollers
We played the first games on opening day of the football season. I couldn't believe I had organized this and it was coming to fruition. My partner couldn't make the Sunday game so we opened up the season against each other (a rivalry game) on Thursday night. I beat her 2-0.
On Sunday,
Sunday Comics 7, Bullfrogs 2
Porky Pigs 5, Wholly Rollers 1
White Sox 3, Millennium Falcons 1
I was astonished at the size of the scores. But then nobody in this league could play like Willie or Mickey. And so there was a Week I, just like with the football, and standings. It was so cool!
And then my partner quit the league. After one game! It was a prescient move on her part.. But I had to quickly recruit another friend. It wasn't an easy sell, but I got the replacement in the league in time for Week II's games. The replacement took one look at the game, thought it was totally stupid, and played it randomly. And lost mostly. I wasn't happy about the lack of acceptance of the philosophy behind the game, but was so happy to have a replacement that would be reliable that I let it go. And so the Bears disbanded and were replaced by Donuts Prohibited.
There was an undercurrent of discontent almost from the start. I had no talent for the game, but was very vested in it because I was Commissioner. Two teams were very good and got into it. The other teams not so much. It was always hit or miss, sometimes they were into it, sometimes not. I was grateful that they played and kept playing.
In the end the game was too difficult. By Week VI I was holding things together with chewing gum and baling wire. By Week IX I could see it was doomed. Look at these scores and you can see why.
2-0, 7-2, 5-1, 3-1,
2-1 (10 innings), 1-0, 3-1, 1-0 (12)
2-1, 1-0 (12), 3-2, 5-0
2-1, 2-1, 2-1, 3-2
5-3 (25 innings), 3-0, 2-1, 2-1
Here we should pause. 25 innings is not a typo. Two of the players couldn't make the Week V game on Sunday, so I set it up so they could play on Saturday. I witnessed this game, as I did every game played in the CBASL. I did some scouting, but I also wanted to make sure the teams played the games. In this game the loser scored three in the first inning and then didn't score again for 24 innings. The winner tied the game in the eighth and then didn't score for 16 innings. It was this game that caused a rule change. CBAS allows stealing. One die. 1-4 for stealing second. 1-3 for third. There was no provision for stealing home. After this game I installed one. Throw a 1 and you steal home. Just like Ty Cobb used to, for somewhat the same reason. The rule was gratefully accepted, but didn't change the fate of the league.
Neither player was very happy. The game took over two hours. If I hadn't been there, I'm sure they would have mailed something in. I was starting to doubt my creation.
2-1, 4-1, 4-3 (13), 1-0 (13)
1-0, 3-0, 4-2, 3-1
3-1, 1-0, 3-0, 3-1
By Week IX I knew it was over. So did everybody else. But they felt bad for me, and in a very compassionate act tried to soldier on. One player even played two games. But we didn't make it through Week IX.
3-1, 3-0, 1-0
I think they would have gone on if I'd asked them to. But I shut down my own game, and the league, with the score 0-0 in the third inning. I thanked them for their effort and asked for their forgiveness. They were good friends and told me it wasn't so bad and had been an interesting experiment. And I chose to believe them, although if I hadn't been there I think they might have made a bonfire with CBAS and then this story would have never been rediscovered and retold. Such are the vagaries of archeology.
Final Standings:
Div. 1:
Sunday Comics 7-3
Millennium Falcons 6-3
Porky Pigs 3-5
Donuts Prohibited 2-6
Bears 0-1
Div. 2:
White Sox 6-3
Walden Pond Bullfrogs 5-4
Bulldogs 3-5
Wholly Rollers 3-5
Sort of looks like standings from the NFL in the 1920s, or professional baseball in the 1870s.
And so came and went the CBASL.
Update 1: On Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 2, 2014, I met with a bunch of friends to take in the game. Half the league was there. I brought the game and all the archeological relics, just for fun, to show to the members. The White Sox had no memory of even being in the league. Donuts Prohibited, who had saved the league so long ago, said simply "Oh, Charlie Brown, what a stupid game." How's that for consistency? And Porky Pigs! Wow. Porky Pigs wanted a game!! And so we had one. And we picked up just where we left off so many years ago. Porky beat me 2-1 in 11 innings, tying the game with a ninth inning home run and winning it with two hits sandwiched around a stolen base two innings later. It was just as frustrating as it had always been. And exhausting, actually. It doesn't get easier as you get older :)
A couple of years later I figured out a way to incorporate CBAS (for pitching) and All Star Baseball (for hitting) into one game. If you could hit the ball, Babe Ruth would do your hitting for you. I played one game with one of the participants in the CBASL. I played with Babe Ruth. He played with
I might get rid of some of the board games I found in the closet. I have a while to make that decision. But CBAS and the archives of the CBASL will go with me to the grave. Thanks to everyone who participated. You were all much better friends than I deserved.
