Cards v Roster Sheets

Extra Innings uses roster sheets instead of individual player cards. I own a small handful of baseball games and of all of them EI is
the only one that uses roster sheets. I’ll admit being biased towards EI due to it being my first gaming purchase, so right off the bat
it should be fairly clear I prefer roster sheets over individual player cards. But this is not to say I completely write-off the use of
player cards. APBA, Strat and Statis-Pro use player cards, and they are all fun games. Many people who play those say they can
tell how good a player is just by looking at their card. I don’t count myself in that crowd, but I give props to those who are.

Another point about the use of roster sheets is the advantage of setting up a days worth of play involving each team in the league.
In my mind, I have to decide which is more efficient: playing a full slate of games, one after the other in a manner that allows each
team to see action, or playing a three or four game series using the same two teams because it’s easier to do this instead of putting
cards away and setting up the next two teams to play a single game. I’m not sure I wrote that very clearly, so I’ll try an example.

Let’s say I have an eight team league, and all eight teams are scheduled to play the first of a four game series. Let’s also make a huge
assumption that I am super organized, and I have a calendar hanging on my wall with the schedule listed and that it looks something like this

If I’m using player cards, my approach would be to play all four games of the Dodger-Braves series first. When those games are done, I
would then play the Reds-Mets series. After those four games are done, I’d set up the cards to play the Cubs-Giants series, and so on until
the final game of the Cardinal-Phillies game is completed. Nothing wrong with that method. I’ve done it that way zillions of times. Gazillions
of times, in fact. With EI, I would fill out the lineups for each team for the games scheduled for April 3. I would then proceed to play each of
the scheduled games for that day, and all eight teams would have a game played under their belts. Since I use injuries, I wouldn’t be able to
do the same with the player cards, since I can’t predict if the players used in game two, for example, would be able to play in game three due
to an injury. EI allows me to have a season unfold day by day, just like the real thing!

November 15, 2023