Idiots Write About Sports

Every so often, you’ll see an entry here that’s in the “Baseball Planet” category. That’s a catch-all for make-believe baseball, most specifically the (just-completed) 44-game, 24-team APBA dice baseball season that Phil and I (mostly Phil) just completed. Your California Baseball League champions, the Tule Fog!

But I digress, as always. Yesterday I took the first new step in computer baseball that I’ve taken since 6th grade. Back in 6th grade, my elementary school teacher Chuck Holland introduced me to Strategic Simulations Inc.’s Computer Baseball on the Apple II. We played an entire season of that, in the computer room at Columbia Elementary. I played the ‘69 Mets, which were a very lucky team, let me just say.

I sold my own Apple II in college and bought a Mac, but the past few years I’ve been able to run that game on an Apple II emulator, so the primitive simulations have continued.

Last night I bought Diamond Mind, which I am again running in emulation (this time Virtual PC) on my PowerBook. Funny how things advance — not only is Diamond Mind about a zillion times more advanced than SSI Computer Baseball, but it runs faster than SSI Computer Baseball, even emulated. Crazy stuff.

In any event, I played a few games last night. I suspect that if I didn’t have a job, wife, daugher, and about 80 other side projects like this one, I would be taking a trip to Imaginary Baseball Planet right now. And not coming back.