Gift shop at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown: Board games bring baseball legends to life

On March 31, I scoped out the gift shop at the Baseball Hall of Fame ahead of our April 1 tournament and was thrilled to find APBA and Strat baseball sharing the shelves.

For folks who've never tried either of these games — and we encourage you to try both — these two games for decades have been a rite of passage for many a baseball fan and the vanguard of many tabletop sports simulations to follow.

Here is a quick look under the hood of two of the oldest and most respected statistics-based cards-and-dice sports games to represent major league baseball. APBA and Strat-O-Matic (often abbreviated to SOM) represent two distinct approaches to rendering individual and team statistics on your tabletop, but the core principle is the same: Turn a season's worth of MLB statistics into individual player cards and employ unique formulas to accurately render pitching, hitting and fielding. These games let you bring your Hall of Fame heroes to life instantly, right out of the box, to replay a player's career or the entire schedule of a given team — or the complete league.

Outside of the incredible accuracy of these games, another significant joy are the friendships one is bound to strike up with gamers who are as passionate as you are about the sport and playing all those "what if?" scenarios. The possibilities are endless, limited only by your imagination.

Of course, tabletop gaming is more popular than ever — and there are many, many more games out there to explore. But APBA and SOM represent the foundational experience for thousands of fans.

STATISTICS-BASED BASEBALL GAMES

APBA:
http://apbagames.com/

APBA Baseball season sets from 1883-present:
https://apba.stores.yahoo.net/basecas...

Strat-O-Matic:
https://www.strat-o-matic.com/

APBA Baseball league registry:
https://bit.ly/3oLVvy6

Strat-O-Matic league registry:
https://bit.ly/41K3lH4

SherCo GRAND SLAM Baseball:
https://shercobaseball2016.wixsite.co...

Brian Haferkamp's On Base Baseball:
https://onbasebaseball.com/

4th Street Software:
https://4th-street-software.com/

Inside Pitch (Inside Games):
https://www.insidesportsgames.org/ins...
(seasons back to 1956)

Plaay! Games:
https://plaay.com/

Baseball Mogul (PC):
https://www.sportsmogul.com/baseballm...

National Pastime III (PC):
http://www.npiii.com/

Action! PC Baseball:
https://www.dksports.com/baseball.htm

Dynasty League Baseball powered by Pursue the Pennant (PC):
https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com...

EURO-STYLE BASEBALL GAMES

Bat Flip Baseball:
https://www.batflipcolumbus.com/

Bottom of the 9th:
https://www.handelabra.com/bot9

Baseball Highlights 2045:
https://www.eaglegames.net/searchresu...

Lords of Baseball (Kickstarter late pledge):
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...