Strat-O-Matic PBP Update – Version 8
D Scott Nichols – pbp coordinator

Every year since its first appearance in the SOM computer baseball game, Strat-O-Matic has updated and enlarged the play-by-play (PBP) module. In the earliest versions of the game, all of the pbp was internal to the game engine – there was no way that the end-user could effect a change. This portion of pbp is still in use and is now referred to as the “default” pbp. Rarely has this been altered over the years, but when errors have been noted or new categories of pbp have been added, this default pbp has been edited/strengthened. More importantly, however, the USERPBP module has undergone mammoth enlargement and improvement since its inception approximately a decade ago. For the novice, let me reference the four part ‘PBP Primer’ I wrote last year. This is currently available for download from the SOMWORLD “resource” site and will explain in detail exactly what the USERPBP module is all about and how you can modify it for your specific needs and enjoyment. It is not that difficult when you know how!

As is typical for other areas in the game, Bob Winberry has also listened to our requests for enhancement of the pbp module. Every year has brought new improvements in this module. I will not list them all, but it is worth mentioning a few of the additions over the years: hundreds of new symbols and modifiers allowing for ever increasing specificity in the pbp accounts, the addition of the newspaper re-cap for each ballgame, the addition of many new categories (incl. trivia Q&A, introduction of relievers/ pinch runners, pinch hitters, newsworthy events, etc.), the @:XP and @:XB modifiers allowing for player specific pbp accounts, etc, etc…..). This year is no exception to the rule. There have been two significant enhancements to the USERPBP module in addition to the yearly updating that always takes place. Let’s take a look!

Before I detail the new additions, let me report a little on the yearly updating that mirrors that done every year. Each team is studied to see what pbp lines need be updated or limited for use to a certain set of years. For example, when a team moves into a new stadium, the pbp team must put modifers on ALL pbp lines that reference the “old” stadium – these modifers will limit the use of these pbp accounts to those years that are appropriate. The last few years required much of this editing as there have been many stadium changes………. although not this year. New pbp lines are added to take advantage of the new stadium characteristics. The best example of this that comes to mind is the many additions I made to the SF Giant team file to reference McCovey Cove out in right field. It is especially impressive that SOM has a modifier that limits homerun pbp accounts from being used unless the home run is a “monster” home run. These “monster” home runs can only be hit by the real ‘power hitters’ (ex. Barry Bonds). Therefore, one will not see a light hitting shortstop hitting one into McCovey’s Cove. To continue, pbp lines have been added for each team to give the SOM player the “feel” of actually playing in each team’s home park – and in a particular year. For example, many pbp calls for the Atlanta file in July of 1996 dealt with the Olympics. Every year, similar team accounts are written: for the NY teams, mention of the U.S. Open in Tennis; for Boston, mention of the Boston Marathon; for Los Angeles, mention of the NBA Championship, etc., etc.). In order for these comments to make total sense, the use of the actual league schedule is required (otherwise you may see reference of an upcoming road trip to Boston that will make no sense if you have generated a different schedule). Most of the pbp’s though “work’ even without using the exact schedule. Another feature that is addressed every year is to update the pbp files so that mention will typically be made when a player reaches a milestone in real-life. For example, this year’s pbp has been written so that when Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Rickey Henderson, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, (and many others) reach personal milestones, these will likely be mentioned!

In addition to the team file updating, the USERPBP.FIL is also addressed yearly. Usually, the pbp team approaches this task in a similar fashion every year. First, we add hundreds of new pbp calls to give a new “flavor” to the lines. It is practically impossible to change the overall pbp flow as there are simply so many lines now – tens of thousands! But, with new words and phrases scattered throughout, the pbp accounts ALWAYS have something new to offer every year. Next, typically yearly projects are undertaken. One year, it was re-writing all of the pop-up accounts and adding the reference to the Infiled Fly Rule. Another year, the double calls were all re-done. Last year and this year, all of the trivia questions have been updated. Last year, newsworthy events were added for every season since 1920! The addition of scores of “Dizzy Deanisms” was a project of mine a few years ago. These are just a smattering of the “projects” that are undertaken yearly to keep the pbp “fresh”. This year’s project was enormous!

Ren Petrie has been a member of the pbp team since the second year (as I recall). While other members have come and gone, Ren has been an irreplaceable member of this yearly project. He is amazingly prolific (as you will soon see) and always willing to do whatever it takes to get the yearly update ready on time. Beginning last spring, Ren decided to take on the mammoth task of writing pbp accounts for every major league player that had a nickname (those he could determine). These number in the thousands! He also went on to write accounts that mentioned player’s height and weight. Hometowns were often mentioned as well. This project began to snowball and as the months went by, Ren finally had files that totaled close to nine thousand accounts! Our new pbp team member, Jason Miller and I joined in to write additional pbp accounts directed mainly at those players currently playing. We added lines that alluded to physical and emotional and other player characteristics (burly, quite, fiery, vertically challenged, rookie, etc). When this file was complete, there simply were too many lines to add to the currently available team and USERPBP files. What to do?????? Well, Bob Winberry was not about to ‘lose’ the great work that Ren Petrie had undertaken. After some thinking, Bob came up with a great idea – a completely new file called NICK.FIL. This is now located in the CDROMBB/DATA sub-directory along with the team and userpbp files.

Here is how it works: People can write pbp calls for any individual player and place them in this file. They must end with an @:XB=Batters Name$ or @:XP=Pitchers Name$. Another modifier may also be attached to limit the use of the call (for example, if I add @:YE>25, this pbp account will only be considered for use in games after the 25th of any given month). The categories represented in this NICK.FIL are 90,92,97, and 99. It does not matter what you set the pct at for these pbp accounts as their use is determined slightly differently than the pbp lines found in the USERPBP.FIL and team files. This is basically what happens:

In a typical batter-pitcher confrontation, the pbp accounts that are referenced will go somewhat like this:

90 – intro of batter

92 – discuss his game or seasonal stats (batter prep)

97 – pitcher pre-pitch

99 – the delivery

then the result of the at bat follows (ex. 13 = strikeout call)

Now, with the introduction of the new NICK.FIL, the game will intermittently reference this new file looking for ALL pbp lines that have been written for that particular batter (for 90, 92) or pitcher (for 97,98,99). The frequency that is looks into the NICK.FIL for these player calls is not known to us, but typically results in about 3-7 NICKNAME accounts being read per game. If, for example, three pbp’s relating to Babe Ruth are found when the program looks in the NICK.FIL for category 90 calls, these three accounts will be added to the other category 90 accounts and considered with these others when deciding which one to use in that particular instance. Sometimes it will be picked to use, other times it will be passed up in favor of a regular category 90 USERPBP.FIL account. The result is hopefully a nice smattering of local color throughout the game…….. not too much, not too little.

By the way, if you feel that there is too little, you could simply enter into the NICK.FIL and duplicate those lines you would like to see more often (or simply double the whole file). If you see more of these accounts than you would like, you can enter into the NICK.FIL and add modifiers to the end of the lines that appear too often for your tastes. This can be done simply by using the search/replace edit capabilities found in most editors. One such way would be to find and replace every “$” with an “$@:BE. This would make it so that no pbp lines from the NICK.FIL would be used unless there was a man on first (@:BE = use only if man on first). This would result in a nice 75% reduction in NICK.FIL use across the board with one easy edit! Of course, there are many other ways to accomplish this goal.

Let me show you an example of what will actually happen within the NICK.FIL file if you use the first method I mentioned:

90 Here is the Splendid Splinter coming to the plate@:XB=Ted Williams$

this becomes:

90 Here is the Splendid Splinter coming to the plate@:XB=Ted Williams$@:BE

You can certainly forget the entire foregoing paragraph if you are happy with the frequency of the new NICK.FIL account usage. Frankly, I realize (and encourage) at least 99% of the readers to simply leave things alone. I simply want to bring up a few ideas for those of you who really get into this stuff – and from my e-mail, there are some out there! <g>

Another excellent pbp improvement was made in this year’s CDROMBB game. For years, the ability to reference the game attendance has not been available. There was a ‘bug’ that kept the game from reading the attendance figures correctly. The symbols and modifiers were there, but not usable. This has been corrected! Now you will see the attendance being mentioned in virtually every game. Sometimes there will be interesting (or even occasionally humorous) comments made when there is a capacity crowd, sparse crowd, large crowd, etc. This is another nice addition to this year’s game.

Before concluding, let me show you a few examples of some of the new pbp accounts for 2003:

from Team files:

10 **** 000000111 100 @1 @2 rips one to deep @P@NThis one has definitely got the distance...@NThis is waaaay back...@NIt is GONE!@/@NThat is a big home run here@Jat @U for the @O @:H5@NIt is not only number @B=33@Jfor this @:YR season@NBut it is 600 for his career!@:XB=Barry Bonds$@:YC=2002

13 9*** 010000000 100 @2 just watches it go by!@/@NAnd that is a big one@Jfor the Big Unit!@NThat is number @:KK=290 in @:YR@NThat moves him ahead of Bert Blyleven@Jinto 4th place@Jon the all time list!@NNumber 3,702 for his career@:C8@:XP=Randy Johnson$ where @:C8 is for “strikeout looking”

13 9*** 010000000 100 And @2 goes down swinging!@/@NAnd that is a big one@Jfor the Big Unit!@NThat is number @:KK=290 in @:YR@NThat moves him ahead of Bert Blyleven@Jinto 4th place@Jon the all time list!@NNumber 3,702 for his career@:C9@:XP=Randy Johnson$ where @:C9 is for “strikeout swinging”

13 9*** 010000000 100 @2 just watches it go by!@/@NAnd that is a big one@Jfor the Big Unit!@NThat is number @:KK=300 in @:YR!@:C8@:XP=Randy Johnson$

13 9*** 010000000 100 And @2 goes down swinging!@/@NAnd that is a big one@Jfor the Big Unit!@NThat is number @:KK=300 in @:YR!@:C9@:XP=Randy Johnson$

13 9*** 010000000 100 @2 swings late on that 99 mph heater!@/@NWOW! Incredible!@NThe Big Unit has just broken@JNolan Ryan's all-time record@Jfor strike outs in one season@N@1 has just posted number @:KK=384!@:C9@:XP=Randy Johnson$

13 9*** 010000000 100 And @2 watches the heater go by!@/@NWOW! Incredible!@NThe Big Unit has just broken@JNolan Ryan's all-time record@Jfor strike outs in one season@N@1 has just posted number @:KK=384!@:C8@:XP=Randy Johnson$

13 9000 010000000 100 @2 can't catch up with that blazing fastball@NThe Big Unit mows down@Jnumber @&K=11 on the @M@NThat one hit 99 mph on the radar gun!@NNothing but pure heat tonight!@:C9@:BB@:AO@:XP=Randy Johnson$

from NICK.FIL

90 0000 000000000 088 The ex-schoolteacher from Kentucky@Jthe 6' tall Earle Combs is now batting@:XB=Earle Combs$@:BF

90 0000 000000000 088 The Holy Cross College star, Joe Dugan@Jis making his way to the plate@:XB=Joe Dugan$@:BF

90 0000 000000000 088 The surly, 6'3" tall, Bob Meusel@Jis moseying up to the plate@:XB=Bob Meusel$@:BF

90 0000 000000000 088 Here's Tony Lazzeri coming up to the plate@NTony had a fine 1926 season with 18 HR's,@Ja .275 BA and 114 RBI's@:XB=Tony Lazzeri$@:YC=1927@:M7=5@:YE<4@:YD<6

90 0000 000000000 088 Ol' "Poosh 'Em Up" is up next@Jhere in the @I@NStage is set for him@Jto earn that nickname...@:AC@:YC>1926@:YD>4@:CS@:XB=Tony Lazzeri$

90 0000 000000000 085 @1 @2, the rookie @O @:H5, is up next@:XB=Nick Johnson$@:YC=2002

90 0000 000000000 085 @1 @2, the rookie @O @:H5, is up next@JWhat a bright future he should have@:XB=Eric Hinske$@:YC=2002

90 0000 000000000 085 @1 @2, the diminutive @O @:H5, is up next@:XB=David Eckstein$

90 0000 000000000 085 @1 @2, the young Dominican @:H5,@Jis coming up next@:XB=Alfonso Soriano$@:YC<2005

90 0000 000000000 085 Here comes the powerful @O @:H5, @1 @2@:XB=Jason Giambi$

90 0000 000000000 085 Here comes the a favorite@Jwith the ladies,@J@O @:H5, @1 @2@:XB=Derek Jeter$

90 0000 000000000 085 Here comes the @O @:H5, @1 @2@NHe has quite a future here in @U@:AU@:XB=Alfonso Soriano$@:YC<2004

90 0000 000000000 085 Here comes the @O @:H5, @1 @2@NHe is in the twi-light of@Ja great career now@:XB=Rickey Henderson$@:YC>2000

90 0000 000000000 085 Here comes the @O @:H5, @1 @2@NHis career is winding down now@Jbut still a fine player@:XB=Rickey Henderson$@:YC>2000

90 0000 000000000 085 Here comes the rookie @O @:H5, @1 @2@NGreat potential, no doubt...@:XB=Nick Johnson$@:YC=2002

90 0000 000000000 085 Here comes the fine rookie @O @:H5, @1 @2@:XB=Eric Hinske$@:YC=2002

90 0000 000000000 085 Here comes the slugging @O @:H5, @1 @2@:XB=Mike Piazza$

90 0000 000000000 085 Here comes the fleet-footed @O @:H5, @1 @2@:XB=Alfonso Soriano$

90 0000 000000000 085 Here comes the fleet-footed @O @:H5, @1 @2@:XB=Jay Payton$

90 0000 000000000 085 Here comes the @O @:H5, @1 @2@NHe has quite the following among@Jthe female fans here at @U@:XB=Mike Piazza$

90 0000 000000000 085 Here comes the @O @:H5, @1 @2@NHe has quite the following among@Jthe female fans here at @U@:XB=Derek Jeter$

90 0000 000000000 085 Here comes the @O @:H5, @1 @2@NHe is a youngster with a great future@:XB=Eric Hinske@:YC<2004

90 0000 000000000 085 Next up, the O @:H5, @1 @2@NHe hits it hard to all fields@:XB=Alfonso Soriano$@:AC@:M7=3

90 0000 000000000 085 Next up, the O @:H5, @1 @2@NHe is quite the free swinger...@NA lot of power in those@Jlean, strong muscles...@:XB=Alfonso Soriano$@:YC<2006@:M7=4@:YE<4

90 0000 000000000 085 Next up, the @O @:H5, @1 @2@NA good contact hitter in the minors@:XB=Nick Johnson$@:M7=5@:YC=2002

90 0000 000000000 085 Next up, the gifted @O @:H5, @1 @2@NQuite a good eye@:XB=Jason Giambi$@:M7=5@:AC

90 0000 000000000 085 Here comes @1 @2,@Jsomewhat vertically challenged,@Jout from the @O dugout@:XB=David Eckstein$@:M7=4@:YD<6

90 0000 000000000 085 Here comes @1 @2,@Jsomewhat vertically challenged,@Jout from the @O dugout@:XB=Timo Perez$@:M7=3@:YD>7

90 0000 000000000 085 @1 @2, the quiet @O @:H5,@Jis coming to the plate@:XB=Bernie Williams$@:YC>1996@:M7=3

90 0000 000000000 085 @1 @2, not exactly a gazelle in the field,@Jis coming up next@:XB=Mo Vaughn$@:YC>1997@:M7=9

90 0000 000000000 085 @1 @2, not exactly a gazelle in the field,@Jis coming up next@:XB=Mike Piazza$@:YC>1995@:M7=3

90 0000 000000000 085 @1 @2, not exactly a gazelle in the field,@Jis coming up next@:XB=Jeromy Burnitz$@:YC>2000@:M7=5

90 0000 000000000 085 @1 @2, @O's "Golden Glove" @:H5,@Jis coming up next@:XB=Roberto Alomar$@:YC>2000@:M7=5

90 0000 000000000 085 @1 @2, the muscular @O @:H5,@Jis coming up next@:XB=Shane Spencer$@:M7=5

90 0000 000000000 085 @1 @2, the @O speedster with@Jthe World Series rings,@Jwill be up next@:XB=Chuck Knoblauch$@:YE>26@:YC>2001

from USERPBP.FIL

from category 46 – newsworthy events:

46 0000 000000000 100 In the length of one baseball at-bat,@Jthe Kentucky Derby is over@Jand has been won by War Emblem@Jand his jockey Victor Espinoza@NIt was a great race and War Emblem@Jled from the first step out of the gate@JThat's the first gate-to-wire winner@Jsince Winning Colors way back in '88@NNot bad for a horse just sold last month!@:YD=5@:YC=2002@:YE=5

and a few relating to attendance:

81 0000 000000000 025 One away in the @I@NCapacity attendance of @:TA at @U today@NThey are packed in here like sardines@NIt is great to see@:FG@:M7=7

83 0000 000000000 017 That will do it for @O@NA small crowd on hand here this @M@NOnly @:TB out of a possible @:TA@NI suppose the weather had quite@Jan impact on that, @:IP@:AC@:FE

89 0000 000000000 020 This one is getting started a little bit late@NBut, it finally looks like we're ready@NWe have a packed house on hand@N@:TA in attendance here at @U@N@3 @4 is on the mound@NHe has a @:WL>1 and @:LW record@N

He'll be facing @:33 @:44@NWho is @:WN>1 and @:WO on the season...@NAnd here we go@:FG

97 0000 000000000 004 @4 got quite an ovation as he walked to the mound@NThe crowd of @:TB were showing their appreciation@N@3 is having an outstanding season so far@NHe's @:CF in the league in wins@N@:CG in ERA allowing only @:ER earned runs a game@NHe is set to begin this game@NWhen @:TB people applaud when you go to work@Jit's got to be quite an inspiration!

@:AV@:AW@:HA@:FF@:YD>5@:M7>6

In conclusion, the play-by-play module in version 8 of the CDROMBB game has been significantly upgraded. Not only have the usual updates been performed, but an entirely new concept – that of referencing thousands of individual player characteristics - has been added, thanks primarily to Mr. Ren Petrie! I hope you enjoy the upgrade!