Team Phungo is exicted to announce our latest Creative Endeavor - Starting9.
Starting9 is a phone game (think Wordle/Immaculate Grid) designed to test your knowledge of Baseball Teams using starting lineups drawn from the long history of the game.
The game is structured as the final inning of a Baseball Game with you at the plate as a member of the Mudville 9. During the inning you have 5 chances to get a Hit for Mudville and secure a victory.
Game Play
The goal of Starting9 is to guess the Winner of a random baseball game based upon the starting lineups for that game.
Of course a full lineup would often be too simple a task for many Baseball Trivia buffs. To make the game more challenging we start with a blank slate and give you the opportunity to select a Position for which you would like to know the players.
I like to pick Shortstop to start my games but any position will suffice. I am sure Pitcher can tell you a lot about the mystery game.
The SS for this game are WEIS and TORRES. The next step is to pick the Winning Team based upon the lineup Information. I can't recall either a Weis or Torres from any specific team play short. I think I remember seeing a 1964 Topps card of a White Sox player named Weis and have elected that for my first guess.
Once you have chosen a team
click SELECT and the results of your guess appear. Unfortunately the White Sox was incorrect and I have been dealt a
Strike.
For my next guess, I decide to go with a stronger hitting position of RF. The names revealed are SWOBODA and the more common MILLER. Has to be Ron Swoboda so I go with Mets.
Also incorrect Strike 2.
I have chosen two position players, for my 3rd pick I will change things up and choose pitcher
(Tom)
SEAVER! typically this would be a HUGE hint, but I have already picked Mets. And unless Ron Swoboda had a late career revival with the Reds that I don't recall it appears that the Mets must have been on the Losing end of our mystery game.
This leaves a Home Team that features Miller, Torres & Wilson at RF SS and P respectively - all with names that leave me stumped. Going out on a limb here and guessing this may be a World Series game with an O's pitcher I may have forgotten. (ed note - Apparently I totally ignored Frank Robinson as the O's RF with this guess)
Ugh Strike Three and this is my first Out.
We have only 2 more opportunities to guess the game winner, but we have likely eliminated the Away team so we can focus on the Home squad. I am going with the IF power bat position of 1B.
This reveals another Mets luminary in KRANEPOOL, but unfortunately this tells us nothing as we have established the Away team lost and we need to figure out the Winner. The Home First Baseman is STAUB. I am thinking Rusty Staub - and the first team I think of for him is.... the METS.
however I know that is wrong so I will go with my 2nd guess Les Expos.
In correct and another Out!
Thats Ok, I recall Rusty played for four teams and we have eliminated two of them.
For my final position guess I am going with Left Field and we get yet another familiar Mets Name in SHAMSKY but on the important side of the ledger we have WYNN. There may be a few Wynn's in baseball history but the first non-pitcher that comes to mind is the Toy Cannon - Jim Wynn Who I will always think of as an Astro - who just happen to be Rusty Staub's first club.
The Astros is Correct, Mudville Wins!!
It's that simple, You reveal players by position and find the game winner. If you miss all 5 guesses that will be a Loss for Mudville. Guess the correct winner in 5 attempts or less Mudville Wins.
Starting9 will keep track of your stats as you play along. In general the sooner you get the correct team the better outcome for your batting stats.
Clicking Next Game in the top Right will move you on to another game. Each week Staring 9 will curate 9 new games for testing your skills.
On the results screen I would like to point out that in addition to your stats we have two important links. 1) We have a link to the SABR game story. Our mystery game made the cut for being a Pitchers duel that remained scoreless for 23 INNINGS - This explains why Seaver didn't get the W despite going 10 shutout innings. 2) we have a link to the
Box Score from the mystery game. It turned out that two of the Heroes from our starting9 game Rusty Staub and Jim Wynn were also important to the real game played in 1968 as each were able to move up the winning runner in the 24th inning.
Details
This first release of Starting9 includes a Series of 9 Games. We will attempt to publish a new series of 9 games once a week - shooting for Mondays. Each Series will have a different name - The title of our opening series is "Aaron"
New Series announcements will be made here at Phungo in a posting similar to this and via x/witter (
phungo2008)
If you have any questions, have suggestions, or find bugs please leave them in the comments.
Updates:
2024 01 15: Series Bell Released! Series Aaron Key Results Published. Issue 1 Fixed. Losing Team Logic Added. Current Player Logic Added.
ISSUES BUGS:
1) If you are playing and selecting a position and no player appears you are still on the Splash Screen scroll to the top of the screen and click the Yellow Start Button. This will move into you the Mystery Game session.
This issue is due to the splash screen having an empty lineup for test purposes. This will be corrected in a future release.
Sources:
*** For weekly game updates or to report issues/questions please return here OR follow
phungo2008 on X/witter ***
*** If you enjoy Starting 9 please try our Wine Tasting Game
Sofa Somm ***
