Meet the Richmond Strat-O-Matic Baseball League
Winners of the February, 2001 
Yahoo! Strat-O-Matic Webring Site of the Month Award
 
The Richmond Strat-O-Matic Baseball League has played over a thousand
Face to face games every year since 1984. From a small newspaper
announcement in '83, the league has played a full 162 game schedule every
year after the first two. Currently with 22 teams, drafting, trading, and
dice rolling has been the passion for this group of fanatics for 17+ years.
 
The current group is a wide mix scattered over the Richmond, Virginia metro
area. A new experiment will utilize Strat's Internet play feature to allow
one long time member who's moved to southern North Carolina to remain in the
league. We have an engineer, several teacher/coaches, a few police officers, 
three computer industry types and a retiree among the varied group. All love
baseball, love the wheeling, dealing, and real time baseball managerial
strategy as well as the GMing.
 
Many minor rules have changed, and with some small variations from Strat's
rules, the league stays very close to the super advanced game-ballparks, no
weather. One rule that hasn't changed over the years (despite hours of
discussion otherwise) is the protection rule: the RSBL protects 15 players
early in November, then meets again in early February to draft 15 more and
start the season (immediately), which is scheduled to wrap up along with MLB.
 
Mike Parker's (Rampage) website has been a godsend, allowing for posting of
game notes, trade talk, and just general chatter, as well as one central
location for league information---much quicker and cheaper than a newsletter.
 
Just like real baseball, we have an AL that uses the DH, and an NL that
doesn't. The only concession we've made for equality is to keep Milwaukee in
the AL so that there are an even number of potential draftees. No prize money,
just the Wizards, Tigers, Buffalo Chips, Uncallables, Cold Harbor Whales and
more battle it out every year for the big championship trophy. The largest
face to face league on the Web moves into year 19 and is still rolling on.
 
Written by Randy Shavis
Richmond Strat-O-Matic League
www.rsbl.org