The Early Years
In the early years of our game we played "live" every Friday afternoon in my office at Simpson University. As many as 12 colleagues would be crammed together, cracking jokes, talking smack, and generally enjoying our competition against each other. We used to do "live" drafts, too! We had people phone in who couldn't be present. Among that first group of owners were Keith Waddle, Paul Nesselroade, Pete Yee, Brad Williams. Kevin Spawn, Gordon Brown, John Williams, Barth Campbell, Danny Posada, Jim Grubbs, and a few others, including some students, some of whom are still playing with us. Coming together around our love of baseball made for good times. Around the year 2000, the school paper did a little article (written by Candace Brown) on the game that I saved for posterity. I reproduce it below.
A meeting of the campus strategy committee? The Bonhoeffer Society? No.
This small faculty office is crowded by a special group of faculty, staff, administrators, and a few “outsiders” who stare at a computer screen with one hope---to win the game! Nostalgia Baseball is on again.
For about two hours, jobs and academics take a back seat to the thrill of the game. As they watch the statistics roll and read the play-by-play script that could easily be the words of a radio baseball announcer, winners and losers rejoice or groan at their teams’ performance. And then they go off to re-arrange rosters, work around simulated injuries, and strategize for the next week.
Nostalgia Baseball, a game simulator based on real-life player performances and probabilities, was designed by Dr. Slane because of his love for the game. The simulator is integrated with a full-scale database that houses stats for every player from 1893 through 1999. Set up just like live baseball, the league has 4 divisions and 24 franchises. “Owners” meet twice yearly to draft their players, work out contracts, and set up budgets for their teams. These owners must manage teams, not just watch them play on a screen. “The idea,” Dr. Slane says, “is to combine dugout decisions made by the manager with the front office decisions of the general manager. It gives people the feel of running a big league ball club.” Each week about 40 reports go out covering a wide array of baseball statistical information. From these reports owners can decide how they want to handle injuries, plan pitching rotations, change personnel, and even invest in a minor league system. Owners must manage fictional money allotted their franchise. Winning teams generally have no difficulty remaining solvent. Consistent losers, however, will experience declining concession revenues and game attendance forcing them to sell off talent or fold their franchises.
At the end of each of two 18 week seasons, there are playoffs and a championship series that determines an overall winner. Soon there will be a plaque that hangs in the office of the most recent winner.
Though fictional, the game is built on reality. The computer generates random plays based on elaborate probability structures created from actual stats that old-time players generated during their careers. Unlike the live game, however, players who might never be on the same team can join forces through the draft. In real life, pitcher Juan Marichal once clubbed catcher Johnny Roseboro over the head with his bat, but these two may find themselves as battery mates in this league! Likewise, a real-life duo like Warren Spahn and Johnny Sain of the old Boston Braves may have to square off on opposing teams.
Why a simulated baseball game for a theology professor? “I think it helps me deal with some of the perennial ambiguities of theology,” he says. “The idea of a game with a fixed set of rules is psychologically satisfying, and computer programming, which exacts such precision and syntax, is certainly a compensation of sorts for those ambiguities.”
As a child, he loved baseball. When computers came onto the scene, he found another fascination, and in 1993 found the perfect match for the two. Even today the programming continues as new ideas develop. About three years ago, he and Dr. J. Paul Nesselroade, assistant professor of psychology, worked together to develop the Nostalgia Baseball league concept. “It’s a statistical simulation,” Slane explains, “baseball for statheads, but never dull.” Dr. Slane’s excitement builds as he talks about the project. It may be a computer game, but for those who play it the joy of winning and the agony of losing is real indeed!
Barth Campbell proudly displaying his championship trophy.
The plaque that held the names of winners.
