The Strat Notebook

Number One - Rolling the Bones Outdoors

I live in SoCal, and the weather is pretty much f-ing awesome year 'round. I also live where we get a nice breeze, especially in the afternoon (around twoish). I have a preference for rolling the bones outside on the patio, but games with individual playing cards are a difficult matter, requiring all manner of paperweights utilized all over the game table. Drives me crazy, or I should say, it used to drive me crazy. This is the second go-'round for me playing strat, and I am doing the same thing I did the first time. I figured out a way to keep the cards from flying around, and it cost me about five bucks. I went to my local cheap store and purchased five photo albums, each held 24 4"x6" photos. Each photo album had twelve sleeves, so you would put in your pics back to back. The 5Y League has ten teams, so what I did was tear the front and back covers off the photo albums, and cut the spine in half, leaving me with ten sets of six sleeves. The first four sleeves hold the starting lineup, the fifth the pitcher's hitting card (no DH- EVER!!!), and the sixth sleeve is used for all the remaining players. Here are a couple of pictures that show my setup. I do take the extra players out and use paperweights on them when I'm rolling a game, but for the most part all the action is safely played out on the tabletop with little chance of Ralph Kiner blowin' in the wind. On a side note, summers here can top off in the mid 110 degrees. I grew up in the desert and love the heat, and let me tell ya, there's nothing like rolling the bones on the patio with an ice cold brewski and the fountain running in the background...Yep! Let's play six!!