For those of us who chose the hobby of sports replay gaming there are decisions to be made. Which sport? Which system? How many sets do I buy? Do I need to talk to someone about this problem I have? The questions are endless.
For me, I oscillate between Cricket, Baseball and Football (the NFL kind). I occasionally drift into Golf or Tennis, but rarely. My game play comes in bursts. A month or two every year when it overtakes me. Just as quickly it fades and I’m onto some other obsession.
But right now, friends, I’m in a sports replay obsessive kind of mood. I’m playing a little Strat-O-Matic SADV just to keep my hand in, but mostly I’m replaying Statis Pro, using the 1978 Baseball Season that I got last year (you can read about that and see the scans of the complete game here).
The simplicity of the system works for me — the rules in that first Avalon Hill edition allows for fast playing, and it feels like a fun, relaxing board game rather than an exercise in mathematics (that comes later, with the 2nd Edition rules).
During my obsessive sports replay gaming periods, I lurk around eBay and try to buy something at a reasonable price to add to my collection. Right now – April 2022 – the eBay market for Statis Pro is hot. Original games and card sets are going for high prices and the bidding is frantic. That said, if you’re willing and patient, there are bargains to be had.
I recently picked up a clean “as new” copy of the 1980 Statis Pro game complete with the 1979 Season Cards — all pristine and unpunched.
I know I can pick up recalculated and new copies of 1979 from one of the many folk selling them as PDFs online — if you’re interested, I recommend Brian on Delphi Forums (click here) … his work is the result of a life time obsession and are very high quality — but I love the originals. I like everything about opening a 40+ year old game and pouring over it as though I bought it at the time (I was too young then and lived in Australia, so chances were slim).
The 1980 version is currently winging its way to me from the US and I’ll post the game images when it gets here. I am toying with the idea of scanning in ALL of the cards before separating them and then preparing them so that others can print and use them. They would be interesting to compare to the more recent versions.
More soon.
