A Simple Baseball Game
My father was a big solitaire player. While he played Klondike often, he also played a solitaire cribbage variant as well as others. One game that he taught me, another solitaire player, was a simple baseball game. With this game in hand, I used to build fantasy season schedules, play the games and figure out who made it to the playoffs. Today, I taught my son this game to help teach him how baseball is played.
The game is a simple one. Using a regular 52-card deck of cards, shuffle and pick each card off the top of the deck. A Jack is a single. A Queen is a double. A King is a triple. An ace is a home run. Any other card is an out. There are 36 outs outs in the deck, giving you a 6-inning game. If the game is tied after the 6th inning, reshuffle and play each inning until there is a winner using standard baseball extra inning rules.
The game is very simple, but not very realistic. There are no double plays, no sacrifice flies, only 6 innings and the frequency of triples to other types of hits is unrealistic. Also, assuming no hits cards get shuffled after the last out in the deck, there will always be 4-16 total runs scored, based on the order of hits before or after home runs. Here are some optional rules:
1) Shuffle in another standard 52 card deck. That will put an extra set of hits and outs into play. With 72 outs in the deck, one can now do a 9 inning game (54 outs) with a greater variance on the number of hits in the game. If the game is tied after 9 innings, reshuffle and continue using standard baseball extra inning rules.
2) Triples are more rare than other types of hits. In order for a King to be a triple, it either has to be the first card in an inning or the suit of the card has to match the suit of the previous card. Otherwise, it is a single.
3) Double are more rare than singles. In order for a Queen to be a double, it either has to be the first card in an inning or it has to be the same color as the previous card. Otherwise, it is a single.
4) Home runs are about as frequent as doubles. Use the same rule for doubles as for home runs.
5) Double plays can occur when 2s are drawn and there are less than two outs. On force plays, the lead runner is the extra out. On non-force plays and a runner on first, the runner on first is the extra out and the other runners advance. If there is no runner on first, then the lead runner is the extra out only if the suit of the 2 matches the suit of the previous card. Otherwise, it isn’t a double play.
6) Triple plays occur when a 3 of spades is drawn and there is are runners on first and second with nobody out.
7) Runners on second and third can tag up and advance if a 9 or a 10 is drawn for the out.
These extra, optional rules can add an extra bit of realism to a pretty simple game. Enjoy.