Introducing – Hardball Retro’s Compendium of Baseball Tabletop Simulations
available now at Amazon for $44.99 (paperback) and $19.99 (Kindle)
Features 589 full-color pages with 150+ baseball tabletop sims and 16 interviews with game designers!
This compendium celebrates 100 years of baseball tabletop simulation games. Our goal with this book is to memorialize as many of these simulation games as possible and document the richness of the hobby we love. Game descriptions are supplemented by articles, game designer interviews, and comments and ratings from over 250 individuals from the tabletop baseball community. The authors wish to encourage readers to explore these games, both past and present, create their own teams and leagues, and share those results with fellow baseball gaming and simulation enthusiasts!
Baseball games are almost as old as the game of baseball itself. What started out as mechanical devices to emulate the batted ball, evolved into tabletop games designed to simulate the entire baseball game experience. Eventually, randomizer mechanisms entered the fray in the form of dice and spinners. Most early games were generic in nature. However, in 1925 we saw what is arguably the first true baseball tabletop simulation with the introduction of National Pastime by Clifford Van Beek. More tabletop games followed, including Ethan Allen’s All Star Baseball Game in the 1940s, the APBA Major League Baseball Game in the 1950s, and Strat-O-Matic Baseball in the early 1960s. Other game designers followed with creations of their own, a trend that continues today.
