Baseball Solitaire

Since it’s a weekend in June and we don’t have baseball, I thought I’d share with you a game I invented when I was a kid. It’s a simulation baseball game that uses a regular deck of playing cards.

It’s a lot of fun and the rules are easy. Each card represents a plate appearance.

Here’s the breakdown.

Cards Hearts Diam Clubs Spades
Ace 1B BB GDP GDP
Two 1B BB GDP GDP
Three 1B BB GDP GDP
Four 1B BB Out Out
Five 1B Out Out Out
Six 1B+ Out Out Out
Seven 1B+ Out Out Out
Eight 1B+ Out Out Out
Nine 2B SF SF SF
Ten 2B+ SF SF SF
Jack 2B+ K K K
Queen 3B K K K
King HR K K K

Some explanation. The plus on 1B+ and 2B+ means that baserunners take an extra base (ie, a seven of hearts will score a guy on second, but a five of hearts does not).

The GDP is a normal out, but a double play is there’s a guy on first with less than two outs. Same for the SF. It’s a sac fly if there’s a man on third with less than two outs.

The other baserunners don’t advance on a SF, but they do in a GDP. I don’t know why I keep the latter rule, but it seems more fun that way.

Like I said, it’s simple and a lot of fun, especially once you internalize the system. Feel free to adjust the rules as you see fit.

Some technical stuff.

The game doesn’t perfectly match a baseball, but it’s reasonably close (hey, I was a kid). BA is .271, OBA is .327, SLG is .438 and OPS is .764 That’s not bad for such a simple game. Technically, the batting average is a little higher since sac flies don’t count as much at bat do as plate appearances. My guess is with the adjustment, it’s about .273, so not much of a difference.

I estimate that runs per nine innings is about 4.1 or 4.2. That’s just a guess. That’s about 0.5 lower than the OPS would imply. I assume that no errors or SB account for the difference, but I’m not sure.

I reshuffle after every three innings. That means about half the deck is used.

When I was a kid, I played this for hours and hours. I’ve recreated dozens of World Series and all-star games. I’ve managed my own teams and conducted trades. Have I run through an entire 162-game season and kept the stats? Um…no comment.

I’ve played some truly amazing games with wild comebacks. It’s all based on playing cards and my imagination.

If you’re missing baseball this year, give my baseball solitaire a shot. Warning: You might become an addict.

Posted by on June 13th, 2020 at 10:13 am


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