Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 21, 1993 TAG: 9307210073
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By PETER H. LEWIS THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
But let's face it, the game is mere reality. True baseball fanatics can slide head-first into baseball fantasy on any time, any day of the year with a personal computer or a video game machine.
One of the newest and most impressive baseball simulation games is APBA Presents Baseball for Windows, which has a suggested list price of $69.95, available from Miller Associates of New Canaan, Conn., telephone (800) 654-5472. Baseball for Windows is the first baseball game designed specifically for Microsoft Windows, and it is one of the first Windows sports games of any kind.
Although Windows is a so-called graphical interface, meaning that it is controlled by pointing at buttons and symbols rather than by typing strings of commands, Baseball for Windows is not one of those games in which cheesy animated figures run around bases.
Instead, the user sees a 256-color view of one of several famous baseball stadiums from the perspective of the cheap seats high above home plate. The players are represented by little boxes containing their names and a few codes that indicate their vital statistics.
Statistics are the heart of Baseball for Windows, just as they are the lifeblood of true baseball nuts. But one does not have to have the soul of a statistician to enjoy pitting one great team from history against another.
For example, one can play the 1912 Boston team against a more contemporary squad, the 1953 New York American League team. (Major League Baseball, the official licensing arm of professional baseball, will not allow game makers to use names like Red Sox or Yankees without paying a hefty royalty.) With the proper data disks, which typically cost $19.95 extra for all statistics from a particular year, I could have matched the 1912 Bostons against the 1992 Yankees, but why bother?
The play-by-play consists of a ticker-tape narrative. Here's the pitch from Whitey Ford to Duffy Lewis, who so dominated Fenway that the big outfield wall was called Duffy's Cliff long before it was the Green Monster.
Lewis smacks a single into the gap in center. Harry Hooper rounds third but, acting as manager, I hold him, not willing to test the arm of the rookie Mickey Mantle. Good move; the Bostons eventually whip the Bronx boys.
Holy Cow! There's the poet Phil "Scooter" Rizzuto at shortstop. A click of the mouse summons the season statistics of the Bard of Baseball, or for any other player. The "manager" can examine endless statistics and make substitutions when a player is injured or fatigued. The program stores game statistics for each player, so in the course of a season, which can be one game or a thousand, the play is quite realistic.
The program requires some big-league hardware: 3 megabytes of system memory, 12 megabytes of free hard disk space, a VGA monitor and a fast 386 or newer processor, plus Windows version 3.1. It comes with three "old timer" data files comprising several dozen great teams from history, and there are many optional disks available. The 1992 season disk is $19.95.
Bruce Herman, a writer in St. Petersburg, Fla., who specializes in computer-based sports simulations, said some purists may argue that the statistical base of Baseball for Windows is slightly flawed in that it does not account for esoteric "referentials" like variations in facing right- or left-handed pitchers, or dimensions of different ballparks.
Herman, who is using his computer to determine (to his satisfaction) the greatest team of the 20th century, said another good program was Pursue the Pennant. The program is made by Pursue the Pennant of Greensboro, N.C., phone (800) 765-4787. The program, for DOS computers, costs $74.95, plus $4 for shipping and handling; a free demonstration disk is available. For players who value graphics over statistics, Tony La Russa Baseball II, from Electronic Arts, is a contender, he said.
Another superior baseball fantasy game is Baseball Manager, from Prodigy Information Services of White Plains, N.Y., telephone (914) 993-8000.
Baseball Manager goes beyond other programs by using statistics not from yesteryear, but from yesterday. Actual player statistics from each night's major league games are gathered in a central computer, sifted and sorted, and used to determine the winners in a computer-based fantasy league. The results are presented the next morning in the form of a phony sports page on the computer screen ("Snakes Outhustle Wombats, 3-2"), including box scores and, of course, lots of statistics.
Because the real baseball season is half over and there are only 70 or so games left this year, the cost of Classic Baseball Manager has been cut to $69.95 from the regular price of $99.95. That is in addition to the monthly Prodigy membership fee of $14.95. There is also a 54-game "Lightning League" game for $49.95, but it has fewer managerial options.
For the aficionado of video games, Gamepro magazine recently ranked the best baseball games on those machines. For Sega Genesis machines, Tony La Russa Baseball, $64.95 from Electronic Arts, telephone (415) 571-7171, was in first place.
by CNB