RPG.net
Shannon Appelcline
November 2005
USA

Harry's Grand Slam Baseball Game comes as an authentic 1962 game packed in a 2005 tin with some additional materials.

1962 Game: The original Grand Slam game came with 54 cards and a rulesheet in a small cardboard box.

Cards. The cards are all medium weight, printed two color (red and black) on the front and one color (blue) on the back. Each of the 54 cards depicts a specific Baseball action (single, error, strike out, etc) with a name and a picture.

I'm pretty impressed that these original 1962 cards had some decent (though not quite complete) iconography. Base advancements are shown on cards as filled squares (so a single has one and a home run has four). If a card advances base runners without putting anyone new on base (e.g., a walk), the border on that card is dotted to show that. Outs are shown as unfilled circles. There's even some cards that mix these symbols (such as the sacrifice bunt which has both a base advancement and an out symbol).

Some subtleties are missed, such as the fact that a walk only advances base runners when the early bases are full and that a fly out will bring a runner at third base home, but I was still surprised how good the iconography was for a thirty+ year old design.

Rulesheet. The rulesheet is a folded up black and white rulebook. I didn't really go through it, because I used the updated rules instead, but I did glance at it and was somewhat aghast to see that in the original version of the game you kept score by drawing lines, boxes, and circles on a piece of paper. Ugh. (That's been fixed in this new edition, as you'll see.)

2005 Game: The new version of the game includes the original card box inside a metal tin. There's also a baseball diamond, a scoreboard, and a two-part rulebook.

Diamond. This is a somewhat flimsy cardstock sheet which depicts a baseball diamond. You cleverly place cards played around the diamond to mark where runners are and how many outs there are--a much better method than the 1962 original.

Scoreboard. A cardboard "outfield wall" which is three-fold and which has three dials inside: one each for the home and visitor scores and for the inning. We had a bit of trouble placing it so that each of our players, sitting across the table from each other, could see it. We also had a bit of trouble with the dials, because they rotate counterclockwise, and both of our players expected them to go clockwise.

Rules. The new rules comes as two three-fold, full-color glossy rule sheets, one of which explains the gameplay and one of which references all the cards. These rules are pretty utilitarian, but do a good job of explaining the game, and the card reference was great to use during the game.

Overall, this is a very nice method to package a classic game, showing you how it was originally presented, but also including new components to make the game easier to play. The collector's tin is also very appealing, and if I were still a game collector (as opposed to a game player), I'd want to get this whole set of Heirloom Games (of which this is the second).

However, with that said, it's hard for a 1962 game to stand up to modern poduction expectations. On the whole I've thus given the game an average "3" out of "5" Style rating.

The Gameplay

The object of Harry's Grand Slam Baseball Game is to score more runs than your opponent over nine innings of play.

Setup: Each player is dealt an initial hand of three cards. The baseball diamond is placed in the middle of the table with the scoreboard nearby.

Playing the Cards: The whole game of Grand Slam is in the play of the cards. They're, as already noted, all the general baseball plays that you would expect, from singles to home runs, from strike outs to fly outs, from balks to sacrifice bunts.

At the start of each half-inning the at-bat team plays a card. If it put a batters on base, the card is placed at the appropriate base. If it advanced runners, the cards are moved around the diamond. Then the other team plays a card. This is usually an out of some type. (If you have bad cards you might have to play an out when you're at bat or a hit when you're not.) Some of the cards have slightly special rules, such as the fly out which can bring a runner in from third, but most of the cards are pretty simple.

Play continues back and forth until there are three outs. In the meantime, runners who manage to make it home score runs.

There's just one special card, the pinch hitter/relief pitcher. When you draw it you immediately place a face-down card under. This gives you a chance to play a different card if everything in your hand is bad, except you don't know what it is.

Ending Innings and the Game: The end of each half-inning just brings the other team to the bat. After the end of the third and sixth innings all the cards are reshuffled (except unused pinch hitters / relief pitchers), and players are given new hands. At the end of the ninth inning, the team with the higher score wins (unless there are extra innings due to a tie).

Relationships to Other Games

Harry's Grand Slam Baseball Game is a very quick and simple baseball game. There have been other baseball games on the market, but I haven't played any of them, so I can't really offer comparisons.

The game that Harry's Grand Slam Baseball Game reminds me of most is, oddly enough, Kung Fu Fighting - both fall into the same category of nicely thematic but largely random games. I suspect they'd appeal to the same people, if those same people liked both Kung Fu action films and baseball games.

The Game Design

Harry's Grand Slam Baseball Game is an extremely simple and mostly random card game. There's a very slight opportunity for strategy, because you have three cards in your hand, but most of the time your choices are obvious. You want to play outs for your opponents, and you want to quickly get your people around the bases on your turn.

This is the type of game that I might have bought for my step-dad, a baseball fan, 10 or 12 years ago when there were still younger kids in the house. I expect that generally people might appreciate it for simple baseball fun or for nolstalgic value.

Overall I've given the game just a "2" out of "5" Substance rating, but that's a reflection of the fact that there's not much game complexity here, not that it's not fun to play. When I played Grand Slam I think it generated more laughter and yelling than most games I've played in quite some time.

Conclusion

Harry's Grand Slam Baseball Game has been nicely reproduced by Out of the Box in this new edition. It's a very simple, and largely random, card game, but if you're a baseball fan, and especially if you're looking to play with children or with family, you might enjoy it because the gameplay is amusing and even a bit tense.

Back to Harry's Grand Slam Reviews page