50 years of mastering his game
The stat cards from the 1961 New York Yankees including Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Yogi Berra are included in the first edition of the Strat-O-Matic game. The 2009 edition features Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera and Alex Rodriguez. Strat-O-Matic is celebrating its 50th anniversary and will release a special edition of the game. (Photo by John Dunn) Credit: Photo by John Dunn
In 1948, Hal Richman, then 11, was living with his parents in Great Neck and surrounding himself with what became a lifelong passion - the game of baseball. As a gift, someone gave the young Richman a book on baseball statistics.
"It was like a Bible to me," Richman said the other day.
Now, at age 74, Richman is still very much involved with baseball, but also football, basketball and hockey. In 1961 he founded Glen Head-based Strat-O-Matic Game Co., which has become one of the country's leading providers of sports and card games. And he is still the owner.
On Feb. 12 Strat-O-Matic is set to throw itself a huge 50th birthday party at the Community Church of New York in Manhattan, where hundreds of fans of the company's games are expected to turn out. There will be a game room for those attending to play pickup games.
Strat-O-Matic is almost a secret on Long Island. The company occupies a small, comfortably rumpled storefront-type place across from the Long Island Rail Road station where seven people work. But the fans know the games. Two years ago, Strat-O-Matic came out with its now highly popular Negro League All-Stars game, featuring black players such as Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson, who for decades were not allowed to play in what was then all-white Major League Baseball.
It all started with $3,500 in loans from friends. "I lost everything but paid them back," Richman said. A few years later he borrowed $5,000 from his father, with the proviso that if he lost that money, he would have to work for his father in the insurance business. Richman did not want to do that, and that time the business got a foothold with an early baseball card game.
Now, Strat-O-Matic offers games for all four major sports, including computer and board games. This year, Richman said, the company plans to come out with a Baseball Heroes game, featuring Major League players who did not make the Hall of Fame but were nonetheless popular among fans.
Scott Simkus of Chicago, a writer and huge Strat-O-Matic fan who has helped the company in the past come up with sports statistics, credits the company with advancing his knowledge of baseball. "He has been like a mentor," Simkus said of Richman.
Richman has no plans to retire. "We're constantly improving our product," he said.
