History Maker Baseball Review

The last couple of posts have dealt with some nostalgic games from my past.  Now, we'll take a look at a game I was just introduced to - History Maker Baseball.  Let me start by saying HMB is different than any other baseball game I've ever played.  It's great at some things and doesn't do other things as well as other games on the market.

How is the game different?  Well, the primary difference is the player cards don't have tons of number on them.  The only numbers are the season the set is from, the team the player is on (for fictional sets), and the year in the trademark.  So, how do you play a game without numbers on the cards?  I'm glad you asked.  Let's find out.

Each player is rated at a position like most games.  Additionally, hitters are rated for right handed, left handed or switch hitter.  Pitchers are also rated on which hand they throw with.  There's a fielding rating for each player and a baserunning rating.  That all sounds the same as the rest of the baseball sims, right?  Here's where it changes.

Players are also given qualities.  For instance, Joe Morgan, MVP from the 1975 Reds is rated at as Semi-Champion, Semi-Slugger, and Patient.  Meanwhile, my childhood hero, Johnny Bench, is rated Semi-Hero, Semi-Slugger, Semi-Home Run King, and Semi Whiffer.  If you're like I was, you're probably wondering how can those qualities drive the game, and, oh yeah, what do you mean Semi?

These qualities are the engine that makes this game go.  To initiate an at bat, you roll three six sided dice and cross reference the result off a chart from the game book.  There are three columns in the chart.  The first is the pitcher column and it might ask if the pitcher has a certain quality or it might be blank.  If the pitcher has the quality, a result will occur.  If not or if the column is blank, you move on to the batters column and follow the same procedure.  If that doesn't produce a result, you move to the fielder column which will produce a result.

For instance, on a roll of 1-1-1, you will check the chart under the pitcher's column.  It asks if the pitcher has the ACE quality.  If so, the hitter grounds out to 3B.  If not, you check the hitter's column.  It asks if the hitter has the SCRAPPER quality.  If so, he hits a double.  If not, you check the Fielder column for the result.  For this die roll, the result is a Home Run to LF.

OK, but what about all those semi qualities?  This is a great innovation that designer Keith Avallone came up with.  Any of the qualities of players can be semi qualities meaning they are somewhere between possessing that quality and not.  So for any given at bat, if a player is semi at a given quality and the chart is asking if the player has that quality, you roll the decider die.  The decider die has three blank sides and three sides with a dot.  If you roll the dot, the player has that quality for that at bat.

I'll roll a quick at bat as an example.  We'll go back to the 1975 season and look at a World Series at bat between Joe Morgan and the Red Sox ace Luis Tiant.  The dice roll is 1-4-6 (always go from lowest die to highest).  The chart asks if Tiant has the Flash rating.  He is semi-Flash so we roll the decider die.  It comes up blank so he doesn't have the flash quality.  If he did, it would have been a strikeout since Morgan doesn't have the Good Eye quality.  Since it didn't, we go to the batter column and it says to check if Morgan has the Champion quality.  Morgan, as we stated above, is a semi-Champion.  A roll of the die indicates he is a Champion for this at bat at and as a result bloops a single into left field.  Had the decider come up no, we would move to the fielder column which would result in a ground out to 2B.

One aspect of this game that I love is the Game Day feature.  Each day before the start of the game, you need to determine the teams' mood and chemistry for the game.  The roll is dependant on the teams' success over the previous game or games.  Next, you determine based on your prior game (or games) who each team's hot and cold batter is.  This can come up in the game and can help players on a hot streak or hurt those that are slumping.  Finally, you check the message board.  This is done based on your team's mood.  A team in a stormy mood might get bad news while a team in  a sunny mood will likely get good news.  Very cool feature.

There are multiple charts in the game book that affect the game besides the main play chart.  You might be directed to the Infield Drama or Outfield Drama chart in which a player's fielding quality will be checked and will impact the result.  Similarly, Plate drama tends to look at pitcher and catcher qualities.  The Baseball Right Now chart looks at the batter/pitcher to see if they are hot or cold either as a result of the Game Day decision or the result of the prior at bat.  There's a player experience chart and team chemistry chart that impacts the game.  Finally, there are ballpark,umpire, and rare play charts.  So much good stuff.

This game is extremely fun to play.  I was worried I wouldn't like this game as I'm a bit of a simulationist and I didn't see how qualities could accurately simulate a game.  And, to be honest, I still don't think this game would be as statistically accurate as most others on the market, but this game doesn't attempt to recreate a past history but to create a new history if that makes sense.  The results should be close enough that it will pass the sniff test, but you shouldn't expect to have players do exactly what they did in real life.

Where this game truly shines for me is the fictional card set.  Keith has created a fictional card set so that you can create your own universe.  I've created my own league using the twelve team fictional set I bought from Plaay.com along with the card creation instructions (yes he sells this for a very small fee so you can create your own cards).  I've created a league of the six largest cities without an MLB team in California (where I'm from) against the six largest cities in the rest of the US without a team.  I plan to play a season and then "advance" my players.  Some will retire, some will get better, some worse, and new players will be called up from the minors.

Why a fictional universe?  There are no expectations tied to player cards.  I don't have to concern myself with statistical accuracy.  I don't have to decide if I'm using as played lineups or not.  My players and teams will grow and change.  But most importantly, it's a blast.  It's a completely different experience than playing Statis Pro or Strat-O-Matic.

So what's my verdict?  This game is a home run all the way.  No doubt about it.  I'm not sure there's a funner game of baseball out there.  I personally wouldn't use HMB to replay a MLB season, but for fictional leagues, History Maker Baseball is the top dog in my book.