Earl Weaver Baseball

Earl Weaver Baseball is a baseball computer simulation game (1987), designed by Don Daglow and Eddie Dombrower and published by Electronic Arts. The artificial intelligence for the computer manager was provided by Baseball Hall of Fame member Earl Weaver, then manager of the Baltimore Orioles. EWB was a major hit, and along with Madden Football helped pave the way for the EA Sports brand, which launched in 1992.

Dombrower interviewed Weaver in his hotel room for months during the 1985 season for managerial AI. Dombrower actually apologized to Weaver at one point for taking up so much of his free time, but Weaver told him that he never had anything to do during road trips and never left his hotel room, anyway. In addition, he loved talking baseball strategy, and he was having a great time.

Innovations

EWB was the first game to introduce many features that subsequently became part of most or all computer baseball sims through the present day:

EWB was the first commercial computer sports game to not just play a single game, but to allow players to simulate an entire season of games without actually showing each game play-by-play on the screen. In 1971 Daglow had written the first-ever computer baseball game, Baseball, and included this feature. The game ran only on a room-sized mainframe computer, however, and was never offered for sale.
The first time players were offered the option of either playing in arcade mode (using eye-hand coordination as well as managerial strategy) or manager mode (where users managed their teams but did not physically control the players).
The first time players were offered single pitch mode, which allowed games where players dueled as managers to be completed more quickly by not calling every pitch and displaying only the outcome of each at-bat.
The first time voice synthesis was used to sports computer game. Players were announced at each plate appearance of substitution. (On the Amiga version only.)
The first time different stadiums were shown graphically on the screen, with game play adjusted for their actual dimensions. This marks the debut of the Green Monster of Fenway Park in any computer game.
The first time a manager would actually argue with an umpire. On a close play, the manager would rush out to the umpire, and they would argue "Out! Safe! Out! Safe! Out! Safe!", while the manager kicked dirt a la Billy Martin on the umpires shoes!
The first time a baseball manager had worked with game designers to provide the managerial strategy and artificial intelligence for a computer game. After leaving EA, Daglow would later lead the design of the Tony La Russa Baseball series, working with Tony La Russa.
The first time a games publisher issued annual baseball statistics disks to update the rosters and stats of the major league players.
The first time third party publishers issued baseball statistics disks, such as the All-Time Great Teams and 1987 Major League disks from Patrick Mondout in late 1987.
The first game to have the MLBPA license and feature actual major league players. This option had been pulled from Daglow and Dombrower's 1983 Intellivision World Series Baseball, the first sports video game to display multiple camera angles, at the last minute by Mattel in order to save money.
Players featured what Dumbrower called "artificial ego". Players would realistically occasionally make errors in judgment, such as trying to take an extra base or attempt to catch an uncatchable ball.

Gameplay

The gameplay was unusual in certain respects. The gamer had no control over the fielders, except where to throw the ball. The pitcher/batter interface was top-down.

Players were rated from 1 to 10, but the editor allowed players to effectively go up to 15 (after which it reset.) Players with 15 pitching speed, for example, could reach 100+ mph on their fastballs. Players with 15 running speed were already on second on a stolen base when the catcher's throw was 2/3 of the way to second.

There was no trade AI, so all trades were made manually.

The game featured a "practice" mode, in which the gamer could practice batting, pitching and fielding. The fielding practice was involving in that the computer would put the gamer through an authentic fielding practice (throw to first, turn a double play, etc.)

Minor glitches

The game was not without a few minor problems:

During one-pitch mode, the computer never stole a base, because the AI would steal according to the count. If a gamer wanted an accurate simmed season, they would have to play full pitch count.
The pitcher never covered first on grounders to first. This would result in more infield hits than normal.
With a runner on second, with 2 outs and a full count, the computer-controlled manager would send the runner, which would be a disaster if ball 4 was called and the runner was slow.
The computer-controlled hitter would almost never strike out swinging.

Commissioner's Disk

The Commissioner's Disk was released in 1988, as a utility for the Amiga version owners. It was an advanced player, stadium and team editor, able to make deeper changes, such as skin tone. (In the original version, one had to clone a black player in order to create a new black player.) It also featured a schedule generator as well, as well as advanced stat analysis, and so forth.

Earl Weaver Baseball II

Earl Weaver Baseball II (EWB2) was the sequel to the classic game, and featured many way-ahead-of-its-time advances, including full 3D camera that would render a television-style viewing experience. Unfortunately, the game was never finished, and forcibly released prematurely by Electronic Arts as a buggy mess.

I Got It Baseball

In 2002, Dombrower released a fixed version of EWB2 called I Got It Baseball as shareware, though in this version, the gamer can only manage, not participate. However, the managerial AI still remains, though now called "The Skipper", as well as the physics engine, the player AI, and the fully developed team, player, ballpark editors, and as well as stat accumulation, as well as a now-commonplace "QuickPlay" option. It can be downloaded at his website BangBangPlay.com

Awards

In 1996 Computer Gaming World named Earl Weaver Baseball one of the 25 Best Games of All Time on the PC.

Named to the Computer Game Hall of Fame by Computer Gaming World and by GameSpy.

References

GameSpy Hall of Fame article
Rielly, Edward J. (2005). An Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, Lincoln, NE:University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-80-329005-5.

External links

Underdogs Top Dog listing
Moby Games link
Baseball Simcentral listing
Permanent link to FAQ and guide to playing on modern machines
BangBangPlay.com - Dombrower's I Got It Baseball site

1987 computer and video games | Amiga games | DOS games | Electronic Arts games | Baseball computer games

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