Warning: Extreme Nerd Content to Follow.
Christmas 2022, my wife gifted me the 1974 Season set for the Replay Baseball board game. I have been a table top sports gamer since buying the 1981 Strat-o-matic Baseball game after seeing the ad in the Street & Smith’s Baseball magazine. I can’t say I’ve played non-stop. I did discover girls, and there was the matter of my own attempts on the baseball diamond. Both, of which, kept these games off my table for a portion of my late teens thru my twenties.
Since 2006 (mid-thirties, yes I’ve logged more than half a century), when I purchased the Replay Game, it has been a steady source of enjoyment, relaxation, and some other positive effect, I am sure, but unable to conjure at the moment. I’ve started any number of full season replays, all of which have died sometime around the All-Star break, if not sooner. Still on that Christmas Day in ’22, armed with this pretty new set provided by Santa (er, Jill), I set out to do the unthinkable.
Finish a replay.
I dialed in expectations, and settled on just playing the American League schedule. As-played. With the actual lineups used in the games. I didn’t set any deadline for finishing. Didn’t sit down with a calculator and figure out how many games to play per day…(yes, I’m a nerd and have done this in the past). I also settled on keeping the most rudimentary of stats… and I have fallen way behind on that and have catching up to do.
I turned three years old in the summer of ’74. So, I have no recollection at all of the season. All I knew of it came from the Baseball Encyclopedia. I knew Jeff Burroughs won the AL MVP and Catfish Hunter won his only Cy Young award. And I knew, that the Oakland A’s completed their 3-year dynasty as World Series Champions. Now, having the set I saw that my beloved Yankee’s returned to respectability in the ’74 season, and were in the AL East race all the way until the season’s last weekend.
So, on that Christmas Day, I began all the logistics (setting each team’s opening day roster, downloading scoresheets with the as-played lineups prefilled, etc). Sometime soon after, I began. And in that first game?
The Texas Rangers beat the Oakland A’s on a walk-off BALK.
Last night (Jan 1, 2025) , seated across from Jill, who manned the dice for the Texas Rangers for the occasion, I finished the replay. Fergie Jenkins won the game for Jill…yes, she beat me. 973 games played.
Besides a walk-off balk, some other cool stuff happened during those 973 games.
There were three no-hitters:
- Gaylord Perry – Cleveland
- Bruce Dal Canton – Kansas City
- Doc Medich – New York
There were two 3 homer games:
- Jim Fregosi – Texas
- Jeff Burroughs – Texas.
My Yankees fell short and were out of it with a couple of weeks to play, but they ended up only two wins shy of their real-life total.
The American League Championship Series awaits as the surprising Boston Red Sox will take on the Oakland A’s.
The final standings looked like this:
EAST
WEST
- OAK 93-69 —
- CHA 91-69 1
- KCR 86-76 7
- MIN 82-80 11
- TEX 80-80 12.5
- CAL 60-102 33
It’s been fun, and it was a little sad putting most of paper men away in their box. They’ve been on my table for a little over two years now. I guess I’ll just have to find a new set of paper men… a new season… if you made it this far. Thanks for letting me share.
–Tony
Tony D. Writes Pulp Fiction 