Category: Explanation

Spring is Coming! and #RallyBird Baseball Rules PDF Link

Spring is coming. Where I live there are no new leaves, but aye, buds on some of the trees. The quince bulbs are insistently pink even as it rains and glooms. Soon there will appear a little white orb in the sky, one scored by the looping helix of red stitching. Take a moment from your snow shoveling to think of the accidental genius of that stitching, providing just enough irritation against air travel for the gangly pitcher to impart sensible “english”…

I’ve started another phase of my enterprise, and another and another. Imagine a rolled-up sleeves guy with a magazine-proletarian wrench pulling all he can muster against the nut of a phantasmagorical wheel. Everything takes time, but the plan is to offer you a quicker, easier, and cheaper way to purchase RallyBird Baseball. What a mogul I am! I could grow a twirl-able mustache, but then I’d be just another posturing hipster instead of Truly Special (which is now plain).

Click here to download the current rules PDF –including the friendly setup guide.

While I wait I’m investigating the further steps for the RallyBird Baseball Board Game. Fear not! That horrible process lies safely below the horizon (flat or round?–Controversial). Spring is coming. I reloaded the bird feeder and immediately fat, round birds started whacking at it with their ax-beaks. Whack, whack!

Thanks for your patience.

Update: Click here to see the game for sale on Amazon.com (and eligible for free shipping for Amazon Prime members).

#RallyBird #Baseball #BoardGame Add-On Kit updated with 2019 Season Teams Data

Hooray! The RallyBird Baseball Add-On Kit comes with 2019 season team data! I didn’t make any adjustments for the alleged Astros pitch stealing. The 2018 season is still available to customers as a free download.

It seems like an act of hubris to compress the plentiful cosmos of numbers that reflect a baseball season’s team performance to the simple RallyBird parameters. But that’s what I’m here for. It makes me confront the vast swirlies of purple nebulae and with an act of will, turn the sublime into a 1 3/16 inch steel bolt. It brings me face to face with the strangeness of our baseball universe. Clearly, as the numbers show, it wasn’t the best overall performing team that won such an exciting World Series. This is to the credit of the team and the sport, and, perhaps, to their fans like me. It shows itself in defiance of the laws of physics, in defiance of math and logic. The flawed team beat their numerical betters. What does this mean? Where does this liberation from robotic destiny come from?

“Now listen to me! This game of baseball is only one half skill! The other half is something else…

#Unboxing the Add-On Kit for the #RallyBird #Baseball Board Game

This kit is an add-on to the RallyBird Baseball board game. You cannot play with out the base game, which provides a baseball contest between teams of equal potential. This kit provides way to match up teams of different ability–different mixes of strengths and weakness. It does so in two ways. Here’s what it includes:

  1. The Easy Advanced Game… Coach Defense Cards that change the array of Glove values of the standard RallyBird Baseball Board Game. For  comparison, the standard game gives both players the same starting Glove values. This advanced game gives each player a different set of values–all with the same sum. I think this implies different strengths and weakness, different risks and benefits, and different strategies–all for you to discover. This does not add more than a minute to game play time. The rules fit on 1 page!
  2. Big League Teams… tiles and data. This includes 30 team tiles in red (Visitor) and blue (Home). It also includes data for the 2018 season. I intend to provide the 2019 season as well as a free download for owners of the kit. Unlike the Easy Advance Game, with which this does not mix, it offers variation of offense and defense for individual teams–in simple RallyBird Baseball game terms. The rules are on 1 page, with an example of play on a second page, and team data on 2 more pages.
  3. 24 new Glove tiles, 12 for each side. In support of the two add-ons above, this supports both the variable defenses of the Easy Advanced Game and the Big League Teams rules. The regular RallyBird Board Game does not include enough tiles to support either set of rules, so you need these to play.

These materials fit inside the regular RallyBird Baseball game box. You don’t have to pay for an extra box, nor grant it more shelf space.

Store: https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/rallybird-baseball-add-on:-big-league-teams-coach-cards

As you can see I tried to make the video interesting and on point. When I finish cogitating the 2019 season data I’ll probably replace this video with a revised version.

Thank you!

Update: The Add-On Kit now comes with the 2019 team data. The 2018 season is available as a free PDF after you purchase the game. Thank you!

Toward a New #Baseball Vernacular

iu-1.pngThis is a small step I offer generously.

You probably know that 3 balls, 2 strikes (3-2) has a name, Full Count. I approve this. The other ball-strike combinations do not have names. People have to take the trouble of articulating all the syllables and straightforward mathematics of the numbers of balls and numbers of strikes. They don’t just have to do this for clarity. There is no other method! Numbers are good, please understand me, but what about descriptive, colorful words like Full Count? Nope, there’s no other method.

Well, friends, now there is. Here’s the basic idea, based on what the numbers look like in a family-friendly world:

3 = popper (looks like part of a popcorn)
2 = duck
1 = stick
0 = egg

so, this isn’t too difficult…

0-0 = “We got eggs.”

0-1 = “An egg and a stick.”

1-0 = “A stick and an egg.”

0-2 = “An egg and a duck.”

2-0 = “Duck and an egg.”

2-2 = “Double ducks.”

1-1 = “Two sticks,” or “a fence.”

2-1 = “Duck and a stick.”

1-2 = “Stick and a duck.”

3-1 = “Popper and a stick.”

3-2 = “Popper and a duck” which could be shortened to “Papa duck.”

However, I still accept “Full count”. You’re welcome.

A linguistic anthropological baseball report follows! I have actually tried to use this new lingo around people I know during baseball games — with zero success, snears and rejection. It’s up to you now. You. There are only so many ideas I can come with and implement–some of the implementation I need to share with you. Good luck! It’s yoeman’s work.