There weren’t many items I remember being attached to, but one that comes to mind is my Strat-O-Matic baseball game.
Strat-O-Matic baseball is a dice game played with decks of team player cards. Each player chooses a team, sets a line-up, and the game begins. After each dice roll, you look up a result. Just like the real game, your player would ground out, fly out, strikeout, get on base or hit a home run. The game is simple, but it kept my brother and I and a neighbor friend occupied year-round in the 1970s.
I discovered the game when a classmate brought his Strat-O-Matic to school in sixth grade to play on indoor recess days. When I finally had enough money to buy my own game, I think I bought the 1969 edition, which included card decks for all the MLB teams that year. I’m really stretching my memory, but I’m pretty sure I had the Mets and Orioles from that year, who faced off in the World Series.
Later on, I bought a few classic teams from the past, like the 1927 New York Yankees, with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Or the 1931 A’s with Jimmie Foxx, my dad’s favorite player. And the 1950 Philadelphia Phillies, who could have won it all, but folded at the end of the season.
We would set up leagues and seasons seasons and play game after game after game. We kept score with pencil and paper, and typed up statistics on my mom’s manual typewriter. While it’s a two person game, you can also play it alone. We spent a lot of time playing Strat-O-Matic baseball.
I left the game behind when I started college in 1975. But my younger brother and a close friend from a few houses away kept playing and playing and playing.
I have no idea what happened to the game. Either my brother has it packed away in a box of memorabilia somewhere, or it got tossed when we sold and emptied out dad’s house. There’s never been another game I spent so much time playing.
Waite for it... 