Strat-O-Matic Turns 40

Forget Mike Piazza and Al Leiter. The most popular baseball figure in Queens on the last weekend in July was a guy who couldn't hit or throw a lick.

No, not Jeromy Burnitz or Jeff D'Amico. The more than 50 pilgrims who had flocked from across the country to a basement room on the Jamaica campus of St. John's were there to meet Hal Richman, the inventor of the Strat-O-Matic baseball game, and celebrate the game's 40th anniversary.

"As soon as I heard about this, I knew I had to come," said Dave Jackson, who flew in from Minnesota to play in the weekend tournament. "Everything good about baseball is in this room."

The game Richman invented as an 11-year-old on Long Island and honed for 15 years before he began selling it in 1962 is lauded by devotees for its realism. Batters and pitchers have cards with results that statistically align with their field performance. Richman spends hundreds of hours in the off-season rating players' throwing and fielding on a one to five scale.

"There are no strikes in Strat," said Glenn Guzzo of Colorado, who began playing the game as a 12-year-old in 1963. "You tell a player to sit, he doesn't cry about it. No one sits out with a hangnail."

Most of the conventioneers, many of whom travel the country like karaoke crooners or poker players to compete in regional tournaments, know all the latest on baseball's labor talks, but prefer to keep the real-world strife at a distance.

"It's all politics, and it's annoying to us," California's Stan Suderman said of a possible baseball strike. "We're going to keep playing. We just hope they play long enough so Hal can make new cards."

Players broke off into pairs along rows of folding tables to begin almost nine hours of play. The room was split about evenly among those playing in the tournament for a $1000 top prize and those playing just for fun.

Grown men eagerly called out the play-by-play for long retired players. "Larry Hisle coming up," said one. "Kingman, gone!" said another, throwing his arms in the air; it's the Strat-O-Matic home run call. ESPN anchor and Strat fan Dan Patrick uses the same call and readily admits he stole it from the game. Not surprisingly, many sportscasters, including Marv Albert and Bob Costas, grew up playing the game. MSG's Joey Wahler credits Strat-O-Matic with teaching him about different players.

"The game went a long way in teaching me about the strengths and weaknesses of major league players at a young age," Wahler says. "When I played almost 20 years ago, Strat-O-Matic was really the only way to find out how certain teams and players would do against each other. If you wanted to see how Dwight Gooden would do against Don Mattingly, you rolled the dice."

Despite the game's availability on computer, fans say rolling the three dice (two six-sided and a 20-sided) is the only way to play. "The highest joy you can have in this hobby is to roll the dice face to face across from someone else," Guzzo says.

New York Jets general manager Terry Bradway agrees. Bradway read an article about the game while flying back from the NFL Twners' meetings in Houston this year and it rekindled his boyhood love of the game.

"They sent me a game," Bradway says. "I told them I wanted the cardboard game, not the computer discs. There's only one way to play, and that's with the dice."

Bradway plays frequently now with his seven-year-old son. "Strat-O-Matic?bringing together fathers and sons, separating husbands and wives," as one conventiongoer joked. One league is named "Road to Divorce."

Randy Jones of Long Island, who plays in a weekly league, appeared on Ricki Lake's show nine years ago when his wife issued an ultimatum, the game or her. "Strat won out, 'cause she's an ex," he tells me. He adds that his second wife doesn't mind his hobby.

There was only one woman at the convention. Joan Redican came to roll the dice and keep score for boyfriend, Tom Cooke, who was injured by a drunk driver. Cooke is the commissioner of the Players Memorial Baseball Association. Firefighter Ken Marino, who was killed on 9/11, was a league member; the championship trophy has been named in his honor.

This was Redican's second convention. She remembers her reaction to her first: "Oh my God, what a bunch of geeks."

Richman arrived late. All attention turned to him. It was like George Lucas appearing at a Star Wars convention.

Richman says he's working on a Negro League card set, but the lack of accurate statistics is making the project difficult. He says he never had a no-hitter playing the game. In fact, he rarely plays at all. Since introducing a football version in 1968, he says he doesn't have time to roll the dice.

Fewer and fewer kids are playing the game each year, Richman admits, no doubt lured away by videogames. The 1994 strike also hurt sales, and he expects a strike this year would have even more impact. He won't reveal sales figures, but Richman's never had to have another job. He knew he wasn't good enough to be a ballplayer, so he invented the game to feel closer to the players.

I ask how it feels to have people travel from across the country to play a game he invented as a kid.

"It's amazing. I'm just happy to be part of their lives. Someone says the game is an important part of their life, I say thank you very much. What more can I ask for?"