Strategy and success: ‘Strat-O-Matic Baseball’ inventor shares his story

WILKES-BARRE — Many kids growing up in the 1960s or 1970s played baseball, and when they weren’t on the sandlot or Little League field, chances are they were on a front porch or at a kitchen table playing the iconic board game “Strat-O-Matic.”

“Strat-O-Matic Baseball” was developed in 1959 by Hal Richman of Great Head, New York, and it was released in 1961. Richman says this was the basic game only — the advanced game was released in 1971.

“But actual development began when I was 11 years old in 1948,” Richman said. “I was playing a game called all-star baseball. It was fun to play, but only measured hitting. I selected dice as my activator and recorded 5,000 dice rolls to develop a probability table. From 1948 to 1959, the game form changed many times.”

Richman said he tried to sell the game when he was 17 to several toy companies and the Brooklyn Dodgers.

“But fortunately, I was unsuccessful,” he said.

Richman, now in his late 80s, is married to the former Sheila Mednitsky of Hazleton, whose parents were Sam and Esther Mednitsky.

“I met my wife in 1966 in New York City, where she shared an apartment with another Pennsylvania gal,” Richman said. “Sheila was born and raised in Hazleton on West Diamond Avenue, left home at 17 for New York City.”

Richman said Sheila graduated from Hazleton High School and later from Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (LIM) College, and she also took courses at New York University. She then went to work as a buyer for the department store, B Altman and Company.

“At a New Years’ Eve party in 1966, I had no date, and two people who did not know each other indicated to me that they had a friend that they would like to introduce me to,” Richman said. “One was a friend of Sheila’s and the other person did not know Sheila, but would see her on the apartment floor where they both lived.”

Richman said Sheila played Strat-O-Matic a few times. And she did work part-time for the company, successfully developing a retail division for Strat-O-Matic.

“From the outset of our relationship, she showed great interest and faith in the game and because she was involved with mail order at B Altman — and Strat-O-Matic was a mail order company — she was able to provide good advice,” Richman said.

Richman said Sheila has one brother, Gary, who lives in Asheville, North Carolina, who they visited frequently. He said they also visited Sheila’s parents often when both had health issues.

He said he and Sheila had several favorite restaurants in the Hazleton Area, including Third Base Luncheonette, where former Major League Baseball manager Joe Maddon’s mother, Beanie, worked for years.

Richman graduated from Bucknell University in 1958 and he worked for Richman Brokerage — an insurance agency for six months in 1958 before serving in the U.S. Army.

After working several jobs in the toy industry, Richman continued to work on his baseball game, making many changes until he finally got it approved for release in 1961. The Strat-O-Matic Baseball Game started the company and later produced versions for basketball, football and hockey. Richman said he also developed some simple math games that were sold to Milton Bradley Co.

Today, Strat-O-Matic has a computer sports game line and one game (baseball) in the cloud.

Richman talked about his wife’s philanthropic contributions.

“Aside from being president of the Home Owners Association for 38 years, she booked all the cultural events for the Port Washington School District for 12 years,” Richman said. “She became a board member of the Ann Frank Society USA. This organization had a presentation about the Holocaust that was sent around the country to schools and community centers in order to educate people.”

Richman said Sheila also joined the board of Barrington Stage Company, a leading regional theatre in the Berkshires.

“When first involved, she was the social chairperson,” Richman said. “She then went on to become the chair of the education committee. This committee not only had weekly gatherings for kids at risk, but they also expressed at weekly meetings the trials and tribulations in their lives. These young people wrote plays about their problems.”

Richman said there are several groups, all run with a mentor and a therapist. He said they then take their written words to the schools and guidance counsellors where they are used as an aid to assist the students to talk about their problems.

“This program has been nationally recognized,” Richman said. “Sheila was recently asked to join the Cosmopolitan Club in New York City. This club is a place where accomplished women in the arts and letters gather to socialize, exchange ideas and enjoy each other’s company. Sheila loves to entertain friends and is a wonderful wife, mother and grandmother.”

In Basic Strat-O-Matic, each batter is rated for his ability to reproduce his batting average and power, walks and strikeouts, how often he hits into double plays, and his overall fielding. He has separate ratings for his stolen bases and his ability to take extra bases on teammates’ hits.

The result is amazingly accurate to the player’s actual statistics.

Start-O-Matic is an iconic Major League Baseball game that is so well known that it is exhibited in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

The game is conducted with pitcher and batter cards constructed with statistical probabilities, so they realistically reproduce the real-life performance of each player for the season represented.

The gamer is placed in the role of the manager and/or general manager of a team and controls the batting order, the choice of a starting pitcher, game strategies (hit and run, steals, intentional walks, bunting, positioning of infielders, pinch hitters, defensive substitutions, pitching changes, etc.).

If a full season is played, the game produces amazingly realistic statistics at the player, team, and league levels.

The game now comes in two versions: a cards and dice version that has been around since 1962, and a computer version that automatically looks up play outcomes and compiles player, team and league statistics.

Every year, Strat-O-Matic releases new player card sets based on the previous baseball season, seasons past, and some “greats” collections.