{"id":1189,"date":"2013-11-24T17:01:59","date_gmt":"2013-11-24T21:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mrclapper.com\/blog2\/?p=1189"},"modified":"2013-11-24T17:03:26","modified_gmt":"2013-11-24T21:03:26","slug":"mr-g-strat-o-matic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mrclapper.com\/blog2\/?p=1189","title":{"rendered":"Mr. G — Strat-o-matic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Somewhere in the late 1970s we were vacationing with dear friends of my parents, the Gs, and Mr. G introduced me to Strat-o-matic baseball. I remember two things about that vacation: opting to hit and run in the ninth (basic version) and rolling a two, which meant a double, a winning run, and a feeling that someday I’d manage in the major leagues. I also remember an afternoon of listening to the Red Sox in the cottage and watching Mr. G light up when Dwight Evans hit a home run. Mr. G had a theory that Dwight Evans killed the ball in day games, a theory I should confirm on baseball reference someday. <\/p>\n

Anyway, I learned the game and then tormented my parents to buy me more sets. I think I played with anyone who would play with me — friends, cousins, my brother — and when I couldn’t find anyone, I’d play on my own. I learned names that are still with me — Wee Willie Keeler, Cap Anson, Nap Lajoie — and whatever mathematical quickness I possess comes from endless hours of this game. <\/p>\n

Now I have a son and we play an endless stream of games (see pic below). It’s led him into the same sort of reading and borderline obsession I used to have; I catch him reading old copies of Baseball Prospectus yearbooks (I used to read these books)<\/a> and saying things to his sister like “you don’t know who Rich Gedman is and that he hit 18 homeruns in 1985.” Yes… he said that.<\/p>\n

I owe you much more, Mr. G. Someday I’ll write about the letter you sent me after we went to the Bucky Dent game as well as what a handshake meant on a spring day in 1988, but for today, thank you for Strat-o-matic baseball, for talking baseball with me, and for being a role model for the kind of thoughtful intensity I try and bring to the rest of my life. <\/p>\n

Photo: Series from the past few months: <\/p>\n

\"Untitled\"<\/a>
\n—
\nCoda — I love that Buddy Ryan’s kids played Strat-o-matic too. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Somewhere in the late 1970s we were vacationing with dear friends of my parents, the Gs, and Mr. G introduced me to Strat-o-matic baseball. I remember two things about that vacation: opting to hit and run in the ninth (basic version) and rolling a two, which meant a double, a winning run, and a feeling … Continue reading Mr. G — Strat-o-matic<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8rNFZ-jb","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrclapper.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrclapper.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrclapper.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrclapper.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrclapper.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1189"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrclapper.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1194,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrclapper.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189\/revisions\/1194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrclapper.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrclapper.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrclapper.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}