Anyone Remember MicroLeague Baseball?
 

That was like one of the first games I ever had on my old Apple II computer...I think I spent half my life playing out games and seasons. I just can never seem to get excited anymore about playing the sports sims any more like when I was younger. I am thinking it is either I am getting too old, or I moss the simplicity of it all. It seems like now I have information overload and the numbers seem to overwhelm me. Are there any simple Baseball or football games currently on the market?
Thanks!
Jim

Well, there are the Haffner games. And I think there are freeware games out there that are not as complex as the current commercial products.

Of course, you could just get yourself an Apple II emulator and play the original Micro League Baseball (I played that game a lot, as well as Computer Baseball by SSI)...

a big fan of MicroLeague on my Apple IIc.

I spent months getting a season ready - setting up schedules by hand, coming up with a semi-passable free agency system, giving each team a minor league system, and I even wrote a program in BASIC to create random injuries. Lots and lots of fun.

oh hell yeah, then they had that version with the cinematic clips during the game...I was hooked.

YES. Man i loved that game when I was a kid. I set up leagues and printed boxscores and compiled stats myself and everything in that game. I had the '75 Reds and '27 Yankees starters and their stats memorized for quite some time as a result.

I did try the emulaters for both games, but I was unable to get the games to work without locking up. Did SSI Baseball ever come out for the IBM? I would love for someone to develop something simple like that and relive past memories. I remember the suspense because it was so slow, and the ball had a flight path kind of like Pure Sim has now.

I like Microleague 2, because of the stat compiler disk. My notebook got full from keeping hand stats all the time for Microleague 1. Also, I didn't like that issue when the pitcher couldn't get out of an inning. Once the game decided that pitcher was cake, he'd give up 20 runs if you let him. Microleague 2 was awesome because you tell when it was going to be a K, or SB/CS, or 2B depending on the text and how fast the little guy was moving.

I played 2 more than any other game. It was on an Atari 800XL. I was the 1968 Detroit Tigers and Denny McClaine with his 31-6 record usually fought the 1980 Astros, 27 Yankees, or the 1980something Royals for the title every year. Man, I had alot of fun in that game. JR Richard usually messed me up.

Both games do run on the Apple emulator I use, so I think you should be able to get the games to work.

I'm not sure if SSI Computer Baseball ever came out for the IBM, but I guess you can check the underdogs or a comparable site to see if it was released...

SSI had a great game for its time (1981, I think!)--you could enter stats, the game had some allowance for lefty-righty, and it even modeled pitching effectiveness going down if you didn't rest the pitcher.

The only problem I had was the lack of saves, "Casey" didn't know who to use to close out a game. But then again, today's bullpen strategy was still evolving at the time...

I played a game called Computer Quarterback from SSI that was the hands down most fun I ever had with a game. You could create your own teams, and I had the entire Texas Class 3A in there.

There was a stat compiler and a GM/team editor disk you could order for the first edition of MicroLeague. Once I got those, my life changed. Before I would keep all the stats by hand. The box score/compiler disk was a dream come true.

The team creator disk was even more awesome, since year and team disks were so expensive. Once I got a baseball encyclopedia, I would go through it and create teams like crazy. I created every team from 1980-1986, every Kansas City Royals team in history and selected others I wanted. I drafted a lot of all-stars teams and such as well. For the Royals and the '80s teams, I would also create "minor league" disk like DD that had players not on the MicroLeague 25-man rosters.

I would replay entire seasons -- I remember how stunned I was at the accuracy because the first two times I replayed the 1985 Royals season I ended up with the same record one season and one game better the next season.

My favorite thing to do, however, was to create tournaments. I drew up brackets for a 256-team double-elimination tournament and then would plug all the teams I had into them. I ran the tournament multiple times and even included all-star teams, which made it a bit more difficult for the run-of-the-mill teams. I remember I was pretty pumped when the 1977 Royals made the final four of one tournament.

The first champion of one of these tournaments was the 1963 Dodgers. I set all teams to use four-man pitching staffs. Sandy Koufax threw a no-hitter in the tournament and their pitching was simply dominate.

As for Jimmy's question, I don't have a good answer. Getting an emulator to work for one of the old games or Lance Haffner's games are probably the best bet. But for as much fun as I had with those old games, they just don't hold my interest as much as an FOF, OOTP or FBCB. They are too simple. A nice diversion, but not the collosal waste of time I turned them into 20 years ago. :)

I loved ML II

Everytime somebody asks me about a stat from the 25 teams or so that was on the ML II disk, I would only know it b/c I played ML II to the bone.

For instance, how did you know Ray Oyler hit .135 in 1968 with the Tigers? MicroLeague.

God, I loved that game! I had a league at school in 7th grade with my friends using that game. The original had no stat compilation, but the roster upgrade the following year included a stat compiler. I remember how psyched I was at the time! I sent my check in and ran 50 yard dashes down the street whenever I saw the UPS truck. After about 10 weeks (!) I finally wrote to them and received a letter saying that development had been delayed (no kidding). Still, when that roster update with stats compiler FINALLY came I was that happiest kid in Pennsylvania. Oddly, I was just telling my wife about this the other night. Today, I would have written 500 emails to the company as well as had the shipment tracked via UPS.com. Back in the 80's when you ordered something, it could come in 3 days or 3 weeks and you would have no clue as to its status.

I put in Oyler only when we had a big lead. The guy to sub in was Brown - he could hit the ball out of the park with every 5th at bat.

I used to play MicroLeague Football all the time. Troll.

Microleague and Wizardry! were the very first games that I developed addictions to. I also had an Apple IIc, and spent unhealthy amounts of time staring at that horrible green screen, so much so that my eyes would often be terrifyingly bloodshot.

But sweet jesus that GM/stat compiler disk rocked. For me it was the equivalent of giving a morphine addict some pure heroin.

And I had the 1985 season disk - which included older-than-fossils Darrell Evans' 40 homer season. In one season replay he became the new Babe Ruth, clobbering 62 homers. I can still recall the awe I felt at that season.

And just a comment on the original post - I also have difficulty experiencing the same absorption/enthusiasm/undiluted joy that I experienced playing games as a kid. For me, at least, I think it has more to do with normal aging than with the complexity of the games.

I had the same game for my C64 but could never figure out how to save the teams.

The original microleague for the C64 had a stat compiler disk, GM/O disk, and various season disks. My friend played a whole season for 1986 and introduced us to the game. I bought it and played a season with the "1978 Greats" while he finished up. In 1987 we joined his team in a league and continued through 1988 at least, possibly 1989. Played the hell out of that game. Still probably my favorite of all time.

I found the emulator "disks" for this a while ago and sent them to him, and he was working on going through a whole season managing the Phillies - except he was simming *every* game in the league, which was easy because of multiple windows. He was doing this rather than checking out OOTP. :)

dola:

hxxp://s64.emuunlim.com/gameinfos/microleaguebaseball/microleaguebaseball.htm

Wow, I'm not the only one who use to play "Computer Baseball" and "Computer Quarterback" on the Atari all the time!
I went down to the basement and dug through all my old boxes and found both games.
I also found an old game by SSI called "Combat Leader." Anyone ever play that game?
I took some pictures of all three games. If someone would like to post them I could e-mail them to you. Kinda neat, good memories.

I can't believe how many of us used to keep stats by hand until the stat compiler came out! (okay, I can believe it).

When I was 12-13 years old we used to have friday night sleepovers and stay up until 4-5 in the morning playing game after game of Micro League.

I also had SSI Computer QB--there was a way to beat it by calling last second audibles looking at the formations(there weren't many plays to choose from).

I can't BELIEVE I missed this thread. Yes, Microleague is where it all started on the Computer for me, with my Atari 800XL. I started out keeping stats by teaching myself to use a spreadsheet--Visicalc. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven when the Stats Compiler and GM/Owner disks were released.

Oh, duh. I CAN believe I missed this thread. Just checked the date. AT 10AM on 5/27, I was with a bus full of high school kids somewhere in Kansas. :p

Yes! Microleague and SSI were both great and easy to use! The last really fun baseball sim I played was Tony Larussa 4 and Old Time Baseball -- I loved playing games in those old ballparks, and other than the goofy off-the-wall singles, the engine was pretty sound.

One of the first computer football sims I cut my teeth on was Super Bowl Sunday for the C-64.

Does anybody still have the documentation to the SSI baseball game? I'm looking for the chart that has the fielding percentages for use in entering fielding ratings...

Klingler, I'll have to check in my garage tonight! I think I've still got the 5.25" floppy and user manual out there somewhere! :D

I played Microleague as well. Set up various freak teams and let them do battle. One team was a no-hitter team, literally. The pitchers gave up no hits and the hitters couldn't hit. Almost every one of their games was a 1-0 extra inning thriller.

I'd match them up against a softball team that all hit like .600, but had no pitchers.

Oh, good times.

It must have been shortly after he made that post about his closing skills in which you called him a troll, thus my joke earlier in the thread.

Does anyone have an old 5-1/4" Drive? I found my old copy of Microleague for the IBM but it is on 5-1/4" Disks. I am not sure if you can even copy it to another disk or not, I belive there may have been some sort of copy protection. If anyone would be willing to try I would send you the disks. It has the stat compiler and everything.

Huh? I don't remember that one. :confused:

Ahhhh.....that one. I didn't actually call him a troll; I just suspected that he might be one. My "smurfdar" is usually pretty accurate, but I missed on that one. I'll bet 70-80% of the times that I do an IP check, it turns out that it is someone posting under another name. I can't for the life of me figure out why people do that, but they do.

I spent a year lost in Earl Weaver's Baseball...

I too spent hours and hours playing Microleague Baseball on my C64. I don't know whether I spent more time with Microleague than with Earl Weaver though. I put in a lot of time inputting stats and names into Weaver for my Amiga 500. I still remember trying to figure out how to get the announcer to say Dan Quisenberry without spitting out gobbledygook. I'm a bit surprised that no other sports game (to my knowledge) has allowed users to type in a phonetic representation of a name in order to have an announcer say it in game. Granted the machine voice was the Amiga voice emulator and the voice in Weaver was that same voice, but still. I would have expected some game company to have come up with something akin to this setup by now. Weaver is what...15-16 years old now?

When I first got a PC, the first game I bought was Earl Weaver II, since I had read so many good things about the original Earl Weaver Baseball for the Amiga. I was a little disappointed with the game engine. Other people have said that the original EWB had a better engine compared to the sequels (different design teams?), do people here who have played both think this is true?

Cool. Thanks in advance--my parents had cleaned out the attic years ago, and my documentation had long since vanished (but not my 5.25" Apple II disc for some reason)...

Underdogs has several of the microleague Baseball games on its site. Here's a link to the first one. Find the others by searching by alphabet "M" then go to page 5 for the games available.

http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=707

I played one or two of the microleague games on the C64 as well back in the day, usually as my beloved Cardinals. Great fun.

I think my link has most of them too Dan...I know I set a friend up with this and he had been playing his way through the entire NL 2004 season (I tried putting 2003 stats in the GM disk a while ago but quit)...with the emulator you can play multiple games at a time as long as you're careful with the box score disk.

Seriously considering doing our all-star game in them this season. ;)

Cuervo,
I could not get your link to work? I would love to be able to make new teams like you mentioned.

Looks like Stadium 64 is out of commission....Jimmy - send me a PM, I should be able to send you the zip files I have (if this isn't frowned upon...I guess it's distributing a game, but the MicroLeague guys have been out of business for quite some time - and even a number of years ago I tried to get old versions of the game and they couldn't help me then).

Could also try this link:

hxxp://www.gb64.com/search.php?a=5&f=5&id=51&d=18

I've not tried to download them, but it looks like they have links to the main disks.