GETTING ON BOARD : In These Baseball Leagues, Dice and Statistics Are the Tools of the Game

October, 1986. The New York Mets have just beaten the Boston Red Sox in a dramatic seven-game World Series, and Met second baseman Tim Teufel is under the glare of lights in the frenzied New York clubhouse.

“This sure beats playing Strat-O-Matic,” Teufel said.

Perhaps. But for those who will never play in a World Series, playing Strat-O-Matic and other baseball board games is the next best thing.

Where else can you manage Tony Gwynn, Alan Trammell and Don Mattingly? What other chance will you have to fill in your own lineup card, decide when to hit and run, and determine when to make a double switch when replacing a pitcher?

There are several dozen devoted players in San Diego. Jerry Asbury, manager of Game Towne, a game shop located in San Diego’s Old Town, organizes many of the baseball board game leagues in San Diego.

“Most of the leagues in which I’ve been involved have been with guys ranging in age from 15 or so into their 30s and 40s,” Asbury said. “And they all have a very large interest in baseball. They put a lot of time and effort into it. If you’re not somewhat interested in the sport, then it’s not going to work.”

The big four of baseball board games are Strat-O-Matic, Pursue the Pennant, APBA, and Statis Pro. Strat-O-Matic has the largest following, but newcomer Pursue the Pennant, which has existed only four years, is quickly gaining popularity.

The games stand out because of their accuracy. The goal is to imitate real baseball as much as possible with dice, a board, charts and paper players.

Darrell Hendricks, 29, a security guard, still cringes at the memory of the first Pursue the Pennant game he played four years ago. He lost in nine innings, 21-7.

“It’s not that not winning isn’t fun,” he said. “But 21-7 is more like a football game than baseball.”

Pursue the Pennant has made enough adjustments since then to assure more realistic games.

On opening day two years ago, Hendricks’ starting pitcher, Mario Soto, threw a no-hitter and lost, 2-1. A couple of errors and unearned runs cost Hendricks’ team. But it was at least more realistic than the 21-7 debacle.

“I was just unlucky,” he said.

Each game comes with individual player cards based on the players’ statistics from the year before. Pursue the Pennant offers 801 individual player cards; Strat-O-Matic comes with more than 700. Players can buy new cards each year.

Each game also comes with charts for various game situations.

“Pursue the Pennant takes into account more things, such as playing on grass versus artificial turf, and weather conditions,” Asbury said. “For example, if you’re playing in the middle of the day in Texas, you’re going to have a different game than if you’re playing in Boston on opening day with snow coming down.”

Before the game, the players roll the dice, then refer to a weather chart. What month the game is played will be determined by the roll of the dice, as will the weather conditions. Is it hot or cool? Cloudy or clear? Precipitation or no precipitation?

“In Wrigley Field, it will be a different game depending on how the wind is blowing,” Asbury said. “If it’s blowing in, it will be a pitcher’s game. If it’s blowing out, it will be a hitter’s game.”

Pursue the Pennant’s weather chart is the most in-depth, but different games feature different charts. Strat-O-Matic is known for its ballpark effects chart. You determine before the game which park you’re playing in, and that may affect the batters. A home run in Seattle’s Kingdome may be just a fly out in Houston’s Astrodome.

One thing you won’t find in most leagues is the designated hitter.

“The designated hitter rule should never have happened,” Asbury said. “It may be OK in real baseball, but it takes away some of the strategy of managing. And that’s why I play this game--to manage. If your pitcher is throwing a three-hitter but is losing, 1-0, in the sixth inning, should you pinch-hit for him or leave him in?”

Leagues are generally formed in one of two ways: through a group of friends or Game Towne. Most of the time, there is a bulletin board on a wall in Game Towne with notices from people who are interested in forming a league.

The first order of business for a new league is the draft. Managers will meet at a central location and spend six or seven hours drafting their teams. If it is a smaller league, such as six or seven teams, the player pool may include only players from one league. If the league is much larger, managers may be able to draft players from both the American and National Leagues.

The managers also draft to determine which stadiums they will play in. If a player picks Busch Stadium in St. Louis, he will be drafting a team with speed--similar to the one Whitey Herzog has put together. A manager playing in Wrigley Field will be picking power hitters.

The next step is a schedule. Asbury will normally spend a week working on that, while managers tinker with their teams, making trades. The length of the schedule depends on the number of teams.

“You try to play as many games as possible during the beginning of the season, when everyone is still excited about the league,” Asbury said.

Statistics are also kept by a league commissioner. In a game of numbers, the players love to keep track of how their players are doing. It also helps in trade decisions. And statistics help ensure that managers don’t bend the rules. For example, players are expected to maintain a four- or five-man pitching rotation, as in real baseball. If a star pitcher, such as Dwight Gooden, is pitching the first game of every three-game series, the other managers know something is up.

In leagues organized through Game Towne, the games used are rotated. Right now, they are accepting entries for a Strat-O-Matic league, which Asbury hopes to start at the end of July. After that, they might play Statis Pro or Pursue the Pennant.

Asbury is now playing Pursue the Pennant in a league not organized through Game Towne. There are 18 teams, and each plays a 162-game schedule. Players meet twice a week; Tuesday’s meeting is usually at the Tierrasanta Library, and then a time and site are determined for the next weekend.

There are 18 managers and usually nine games going on simultaneously. One game can range anywhere from 15 or 20 minutes to more than an hour. Three- or four-game sets are usually played during one meeting.

It takes dedication, if for no other reason than the amount of time consumed.

“Effectively, you lose one weeknight and one day out of the weekend,” Asbury said.

One day earlier this week, a man walked into Game Towne and struck up a conversation with Asbury. He soon asked Asbury about the baseball leagues.

Asbury paused, glanced toward his wife, Linda, and said, “That’s a sore subject.”

Linda’s ears perked up. She turned toward her husband. She uttered one word:

“Baseball?”

Linda and Jerry have a family agreement: He’s allowed to play in one baseball league at a time.

Asbury isn’t the first player, and certainly won’t be the last, to have this kind of trouble.

“We lost one of our managers this year to his girlfriend, who will soon be his wife,” Asbury said.

Before you label her as unreasonable, you should know that her fiance was playing in three leagues at once.

“They take it seriously,” said Shelley Knapp, who dated a Strat-O-Matic fanatic. “I’ve had dates broken and times rearranged because he had to play Strat-O-Matic. It’s not that I’m not way up there on his list of priorities, but . . . They really enjoy it.”

What happened to the guy who stood Shelley up for Strat-O-Matic? She married him two months ago. And the games will continue: Clarke Knapp, her new husband, is the owner of Game Towne.