I fell into the world of sports simulations by my own misfortune.
Don't get me wrong, it's not like I don't enjoy them -- quite the contrary -- but my first experience with Strat-O-Matic baseball came when I was 12 after I broke my leg stealing third base on the first day of summer.
While I still managed to hop my way to quite a few rounds of golf that summer, I passed a lot of time with that board game, rolling the dice and completing fictitious seasons. I've been a stats guy pretty much forever, so even as a 12-year-old, I was fascinated by the probabilities and potential for different results.
In any case, that was my first experience and it paved the way for many more.
There's nothing like a realistic simulation to escape reality.
In high school, I recall playing MicroLeague baseball and reliving the 1976 World Series (don't ask me why that particular World Series -- aside from name recognition of the stars on the Yankees and the Big Red Machine -- was considered so special).
In university, I switched sim sports and got totally immersed in Hockey League Simulator II replaying countless seasons in the course of an evening. I've recently looked into Eastside Hockey Manager, but have yet to play out a full season.
After dabbling in Simulation Basketball in an on-line league, I expanded my simulation experience to include football and have been in the same on-line league for 11 years, most recently using Action!PC games.
But -- and by now you have to wonder where this story is going -- I haven't played a baseball simulation in a long time.
Then came the opportunity to try out a baseball sim called Out of the Park 9 and the first thing I have to say is: WOW!
While the game doesn't cater to those looking for splashy graphics, those that are interested in simulations will be awestruck by amount of detail involved.
Contract negotiations, managerial decisions, waiver wires and minor league systems just part of the mix and it's challenging to keep your entire organization running smoothly. At the very least, it also helps to give an indication about just how many decisions are necessary when making baseball decisions for an entire franchise.
The options in this regard for OOTP9 are spectacular. With historical records dating back to 1871, you can pick any team from any era to see how your managerial skills stack up or you can simply let the sim play out for an alternative version of reality.
In a few weeks with the game, I've replayed the entire history of baseball to find Barry Bonds as the all-time home run king (with 794) while Lou Gehrig (11 MVPs), Sandy Koufax (4,504 strikeouts) and J.R. Richard (seven Cy Youngs) may have been the most dominant players since health issues didn't interrupt their careers this time around.
The butterfly effect is fascinating too, as players don't necessarily spend their careers with the team that they are most identified with in "real" baseball. Babe Ruth with the Cincinnati Reds, Ted Williams with the Brooklyn Dodgers. It can happen.
The biggest problem with the game is that it threatens to eat up too much of my time, whether I dip into the past to try and drag the mid-1980s Yankees (led by Don Mattingly) into the postseason, look for a repeat of the Colorado Rockies' 2008 dream run or building a team (and entire league) from scratch. The options are quite literally endless and I'm sure I haven't even come close to grasping all of the features of this game.
From a fantasy perspective, I'm interested in seeing if there is any predictive value to running numerous simulations in the off-season in an effort to form fantasy draft lists for future seasons. Just one more experiment to run through the sim.
Addictive only begins to describe OOTP9, but let that serve as the one warning that comes with an otherwise wholehearted recommendation.