Nostalgia Baseball
At a Glance
If you've been living under a rock for decades, fantasy baseball is a statistics and numbers game, where groups of players form "teams" based around the real-life individual stats of current (and sometimes historic) baseball players. Nostalgia Sim Baseball is a simulation framework that lets participants--those who sign up at nostalgiabaseball.com for an account--manage their teams, make trades, and do all the other minutae involved in a fantasy baseball game. But it goes a few steps further.
In addition to the mere management of the fantasy baseball players and teams--drafts, trades, and setting lineups--the game also provides a simulation of the business of running a ball team. The player/team manager also must keep track of the team's finances, including player salaries, concessions, ticket prices, and player contracts; If the team ends the season with a negative balance of 250 units (the in-game currency), the computer running the simulation can force the franchise to fold--losing you all the players, stats, and reputation you've built up through a season, and bumping you down into the Tee-Ball League (the lowest status league) for the following season. If you're a serious fantasy baseball manager, and the existing charts, graphs, and statistical analysis of "common" fantasy baseball leagues doesn't force you to do enough number-crunching, Nostalgia might suck you in and never let you go.
Note: The software itself is free. However, using the service costs $2-8 per month (after the initial 60 days have elapsed), depending on the number of fantasy teams you manage
--Andrew Brandt
