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Ethan Allen: the original

spin doctor
Ethan Nathan Allen (1904-1993) was not your average
major league baseball player. He went from the
campus of the University of Cincinnati to the
hometown Cincinnati Reds in 1926 and remained in
the majors for 13 seasons, also playing for the New
York Giants, St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies,

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Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Browns. He retired with a

.300 lifetime batting average, having his best season in
1934 when he hit .330 and tied future Hall of Famer
Kiki Cuyler with 42 doubles, tops in the National
League that season.

Allen (above) still holds the University of Cincinnati

record for the highest batting average (.475). He later
earned a master’s degree from Columbia University.

After retiring as a player, Allen was the National

League’s director of motion pictures. He also wrote
several instructional books about baseball.

He became the Yale University baseball coach in 1946,

retiring in 1968. His teams played for the NCAA
baseball championship twice, losing to Southern
California in 1947 and California in 1948. His 1948
Yale captain was a first baseman named George H.
Bush. Allen’s Yale teams won more than 300 games,
earning him a place in the College Baseball Coaches
Hall of Fame.

Allen also was pictured on the Wheaties cereal box in

1946. That may have involved a promotional gimmick
connected with what many of us remember most about
this remarkable fellow – his board game.

All-Star Baseball was introduced in 1941 by Cadaco,

then a fledgling Chicago company known as Cadaco-
Ellis. The game was instrumental in establishing
Cadaco one of the giants in the toy and game industry,
though it took a few years before the company honored
the creator by changing the game’s name to Ethan
Allen All-Star Baseball.

All-Star Baseball is considered one of the 50 most

important board games of all-time, but its appeal was
limited. Cadaco stopped making it in 1993, though ten
years later the company marketed what it calls a classic

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version. I don't know if it's available in many stores,

but it can be ordered from Cadaco through the
company's website, www.cadaco.com.

Allen always claimed he created his game for boys aged

9 to 12, boys who were avid baseball fans. He was both
amused and frustrated when All-Star Baseball
developed a cult following among those who played the
game as boys in the 1940s and ‘50s, then continued to
play it as adults in the 1960s and beyond. Allen
considered these people odd. I know, because he told
me so – several times. More on that later.

Okay, what is it?

The game was conceived in 1933 when Allen was with
the St. Louis Cardinals. Always analytical about
baseball, Allen came up with an idea for a game after
he broke down hitting statistics into several categories
and created pie-chart representations of the
performances of several major league players. He put
those pie charts on paper discs about 3.5 inches in
diameter. The discs were cut out in the middle to fit
over a spinner, creating what you might call Baseball
Roulette. Flick that spinner over a disc and the result
would tell you what the player did in one at-bat. There
were 14 possibilities, from striking out to hitting a
home run. (There are sample discs elsewhere on this
page. You'll notice none is cut out in the middle
because Cadaco soon improved the spinner, mounting
it on a plastic sleeve into which the discs could be
slipped.)

If you played a season’s worth of games, each player’s

statistics would approximate those he had generated
on the field.

The focal point on most discs was the space alloted for
category number 1 – the home run. Everybody loves a
slugger, and those who played Allen’s first game
probably chose Joe DiMaggio for their team earlier

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than, say, Roy Cullenbine, because DiMaggio clearly

would deliver more home runs. The #1 on the
DiMaggio disc took up much more space than
Cullenbine’s.

The first All-Star Game manufactured by Cadaco-Ellis

featured 40 discs based on statistics from the 1941
season. That’s why Cullenbine was included. He played
for several teams during his 10-year major league
career and his lifetime average was a lacklustre .276,
but in 1941, playing for the St. Louis Browns,
Cullenbine hit .317, with 98 runs batted in with only 9
home runs. Cullenbine may be best remembered for
his ability to draw bases on balls. He walked 121 times
in 1941 which gave him a higher on-base percentage
than DiMaggio (.452 to .436).

Of course, 1941 was the year of Joe DiMaggio’s famous

56-game hitting streak. Allen couldn’t duplicate the
hitting streak, but he did create a disc that would have
DiMaggio hitting about 30 home runs for every
600-or-so flicks of the spinner, while maintaining a
batting average well above .300.

Allen saw the game being played by boys who could

assume the roles of major league managers, each
selecting a team of all-stars. He said he didn’t expect
anyone, particularly an adult, to create leagues, play
full seasons and keep statistics.

Pitching skill played no part in the outcome, but Ethan

Allen All-Star Baseball produced scores that seemed
real. No two games were alike. DiMaggio might go 20
games or more without the spinner landing on the 1.
Or he might hit two home runs in one game, or one
home run in three consecutive games.

All-Star Baseball was an immediate success, but Allen

and Cadaco never stopped tinkering with it.

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Allen believed he should have limited the discs to eight

categories, requiring a second spin on a separate disc
to determine what happened, for example, on a ground
ball to the shortstop, or a single to center field with a
runner on second base. There were many baseball
plays unaccounted for in the original game, but that
fact seemed to bother Allen more than it did those who
played the game. He kept coming up with ways to
make his game more realistic, more strategic.

The company eventually introduced eight-category

discs, but there was a storm of protest. The game’s
biggest fans had been adding discs to their collections
each year. They had no use for eight-category discs.
They preferred the simplicity and speed of the original
game. Like me, others who played the board game
probably didn’t love or appreciate baseball quite the
way Allen did. Statistics were more important to us
than strategy. And like me, other All-Star Baseball
fanatics had their own ideas on how to expand the
game’s limits without requiring extra spins, which
would have added to the playing time.

One idea, apparently common among the game’s

aficionados (or kooks, as Allen called them), involved
the space marked by the number 11 (a double). The
simple version of the game said runners advanced two
bases on a double. But when I played, a runner on first
would score if the point of the spinner landed between
the digits. I met others who did the same thing.
Likewise, I had a way of determining a fielder’s choice
– the runner on first base was out at second, the batter
safe at first – that didn’t involve a second spin. And I
used dice to determine the fielder whose error allowed
a hitter to reach base. (For more on my misspent
youth, see A Game for One.)

(People create unique rules for every game, it seems.

As I moved from job to job, state to state, I was
surprised at how many Monopoly players separately –

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but almost simultaneously – created a lottery from

money paid for fines and street repairs, with that
money going to the next person to land on Free
Parking.)

Letters from a legend

In 1979 Sports Illustrated published an article about

Ethan Allen All-Star Baseball, mentioning its cult-like
following. The article prompted me to write SI a letter,
telling how much I enjoyed the game. I also mentioned
the memorable (some might say infamous) disc that
turned Aaron Robinson, a pedestrian catcher, into a
superstar. Robinson's first disc was based on
impressive 1946 statistics (he only played 100 games
that season) and subsequent editions of the game
featured an Aaron Robinson disc that remained pretty
much the same, despite the catcher's poor hitting
performances thereafter.

SI published my letter, someone at Cadaco read it and

forwarded it to Allen, who, at 75, was living in
retirement in Chapel Hill, NC. Allen wrote to me, I
wrote back, and we became pen pals during the
summer of ’79.

I saved Allen’s letters which describe efforts to improve

his game and various disputes with Cadaco about his
suggestions. Allen and I often disagreed about the
game, especially about making it more complicated.
Re-reading his letters today makes me wish I had
saved copies of the letters I sent him because his end of
the correspondence leaves the impression he was
trying to calm a raving maniac. I couldn't have been
that bad.

One of his letters began, “Holy mother, I’m glad there

are only a few of you kooks. You’re trying to make an
adult game out of a kids game. I told that (All-Star
Baseball) crowd at the first convention in Chicago I

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didn’t care how they played the game – only that they
bought it.”

But he did care, and he’d go on, paragraph after

paragraph, explaining the need for special discs that
would deal with situations that developed on such
things as a pitchout, passed ball or a fly ball
mishandled by an outfielder with the bases loaded.

With one of his letters he enclosed three discs from an

advanced version of his game, Strategic All-Star
Baseball.

There are 40 spaces in what he termed the “outer

circle”, which meant there were many more lines for
the spinner to straddle. There was a middle circle that
told you if the pitch was a ball or strike, and whether
the hitter swung. A wild pitch, passed ball, balk and a
hit batsman were accounted for. There was even an
inner circle for pitchouts. His letter mentioned an
electrified spinner.

I got dizzy just looking at the disc, but Allen really

believed in this version of his game:

“Am I ever obsessed with Strategic (All-Star Baseball),”

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he wrote. “You bet I am, and if I can get my format

published with supplementary rules, it will run other
advanced games off the market. I would be willing to
bet on that – unless a computer-type game can be
reasonably realistic.”

It was a bet he couldn’t win. Strategic All-Star Baseball

never caught on.

All-Star Baseball was only one of his creations. Allen

said he had 13 games copyrighted, “but I cannot get
into a game company to demonstrate them.”

His games involved football, basketball and track, as

well as baseball.

I found it interesting that even Strategic All-Star

Baseball, one of the most detailed sports games I’d
ever seen, failed to account for pitching and fielding
skills, something that earned much more respect for
APBA Baseball, which is played with dice and
elaborate charts.

“I do not feel qualified to classify pitchers,” Allen wrote

to me, “and I would not do so even though there might
be scientific evidence for same. This is also true of
fielding ability. My reason is mainly a relationship with
players which I do not want impinged. Perhaps I have
old you the story about Zeke Bonura, former White Sox
first baseman. He was always high in the fielding
records. In a game against the Indians a ball went by
him into right field. Later Jimmy Dykes, manager of
the Sox, asked Luke Sewell, who had been coaching
first base, if Bonura should have fielded the ball. ‘No,’
Sewell replied, ‘but anyone else could.’ ”

Another aspect ignored in Allen's game was a player's

base-stealing ability. There were two base-stealing
discs, but the results on both applied equally to all
runners. I mentioned that in one of my letters, saying

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if I so chose, I could have Boog Powell steal 50 bases a

season. (In real life, the 6-foot-3, 230-pound first
baseman had just 20 stolen bases in 17 seasons.)

Allen's reply: "If you would do that with Powell, I

wouldn't trust you. You are not playing the game
according to the player's ability."

So there was an element of trust in Allen's game,

though I suspect that many young boys who played it
took advantage of the base-stealing loopholes. All-Star
Baseball was based on statistics, and statistics say that
runners have a better chance of stealing third than
stealing second. Something good was almost bound to
happen if you tried to steal third in Allen's game.

Even young players also recognized something else

about Allen's game. Since it's assumed there is no
designated hitter rule with All-Star Baseball, you
select, as your pitcher, the one who is the best hitter
available. Given a choice between Hall of Famer Sandy
Koufax (a poor hitter) and Schoolboy Rowe (a pitcher
who hit .300 or better three times), you went with
Rowe every time. And I'm sure kids whose game
included a set of old-timers were bright enough to use
Babe Ruth as their pitcher. After all, Ruth was one of
the best left-handers in the American League for a few
seasons.

Allen might also have considered it a violation of trust

for a player to take advantage of perhaps the most
unusual disc ever created for his game. That was the
Terry Forster disc (below). Because Forster spent most
of his career as a relief pitcher, he had only 78 at bats
in 16 seasons. It was from those 78 at bats that
Forster's disc was created. Turns out Forster had 31
hits, which gave him a lifetime batting average of .397,
higher than even Ty Cobb. Any time the spinner
landed on (7) or (13), Forster had himself a single; the
(11) is a double. You can bet that when it came to
All-Star Baseball, Forster was a starting pitcher who

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also did a lot of pinch hitting.

Also in the mail from Allen was a copy of a 1979 Chapel

Hill newspaper article. In it Allen told writer Ken
Roberts that “I never have played a game (of All-Star
Baseball), not a complete one, anyway.”

Yet he claimed it was possible to develop a spin that

would land in approximately the same spot on the disc
every time. That was an indication Allen was telling the
truth about his actual experience playing his game.
Even with years of practice, there was no way to
control the spinner.

For Allen to use the names of all-stars past and present

in his game, he had to get a release form signed by the
players, who received nothing in return. Allen
contacted each one himself and got cooperation most
of the time.

One exception was New York Yankee relief pitcher

Sparky Lyle. Allen told the Chapel Hill writer that he
made several attempts to reach Lyle, but heard nothing
until the pitcher finally sent this message: “Don’t send
me any more of this garbage.”

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Allen had no trouble getting permission from pitcher

Jim Perry, but Perry’s more famous brother, Gaylord,
refused to sign a release.

Roy Smalley III, who played in the American League

from 1975 to 1987, was apologetic for waiting so long
to sign his release form. When he finally did, he told
Allen that he had grown up on the game. He said his
father, Roy Smalley Jr., a Chicago Cubs infielder in the
1940s and ’50s, used to play it.

Allen didn’t deal with the Major League Players

Association, but his advancing age and a changing
business climate brought the players union into the
picture when Cadaco took full control of the game. The
union's cooperation is obvious in the 1993 edition of
All-Star Baseball and the classic version that came out
in 2003.

Allen and I exchanged letters for about two months,

then he concluded, “It seems ridiculous to keep this
correspondence going when we are so much at odds.
However, I will, of course, acknowledge any further
correspondence and make any comments I deem
necessary.”

He added, “By the way, when do you find time to work,

or is your wife the breadwinner?”

– JACK MAJOR

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Eventually Ethan Allen All-Star Baseball included

a disc above) for the player who created the
game. By then Cadaco was doing something that
– to me, at least – defied logic. The discs still
used numbers 1-14, but several were redundant
as Cadaco attempted to impose Allen's eight-
category system.

Numbers 2, 6 and 12 were all ground balls

requiring a second spin over a lettered pie chart
affixed to the spinner. Likewise, numbers 3, 4, 8
and 14 were all fly balls, also calling for a
second spin (which produced more outfield
errors than you'd see in a local Little League).

The more significant numbers were (1) home

run; (5) triple; (7) and 13) single; (9) base on
balls; (10) strike out; (11) double.

Despite the change, it didn't take much

ingenuity for "kooks" like me to interpret each
spin in a way that a second one was never
necessary for any batter.

When I bought my first Mac, I was able to

create discs for my own favorites, such as Jim
Hegan (below), a catcher with the Cleveland
Indians in my youth. I employed the original
format in which (3) had the hitter reaching base
on an error and there were different
consequences involved in each groundout (2, 6,
12) and flyout (4, 8, 14), reflected in the varying
size of each space. I realize Allen had suggested

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several changes over the years, but, to me, the

original format was better than any that
followed. The only concession I've made to my
discs is to display certain categories (such as
the 10, 12 and 14 on the Hegan disc) in two
spaces, not one. That was one of the changes
Cadaco made many years ago. I don't know
their reasoning; I simply think this looks better.

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