Major-smolinski | Ethan Allen

8/14/2019 Major-smolinski | Ethan Allen

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Ethan Allen: the originaspin doctor

Ethan Nathan Allen (1904-1993) was not your avermajor league baseball player. He went from the

campus of the University of Cincinnati to thehometown Cincinnati Reds in 1926 and remained inthe majors for 13 seasons, also playing for the New

York Giants, St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phill


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Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Browns. He retired with a.300 lifetime batting average, having his best season in1934 when he hit .330 and tied future Hall of FamerKiki Cuyler with 42 doubles, tops in the NationalLeague that season.

Allen (above) still holds the University of Cincinnatirecord for the highest batting average (.475). He laterearned a masters degree from Columbia University.

After retiring as a player, Allen was the National

Leagues director of motion pictures. He also wroteseveral instructional books about baseball.

He became the Yale University baseball coach in 1946,retiring in 1968. His teams played for the NCAAbaseball championship twice, losing to Southern

California in 1947 and California in 1948. His 1948Yale captain was a first baseman named George H.Bush. Allens Yale teams won more than 300 games,earning him a place in the College Baseball CoachesHall of Fame.

Allen also was pictured on the Wheaties cereal box in1946. That may have involved a promotional gimmickconnected with what many of us remember most aboutthis remarkable fellow his board game.

All-Star Baseball was introduced in 1941 by Cadaco,

th fl d li Chi k C d


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version. I don't know if it's available in many stores,but it can be ordered from Cadaco through thecompany's website,www.cadaco.com.

Allen always claimed he created his game for boys aged9 to 12, boys who were avid baseball fans. He was bothamused and frustrated when All-Star Baseballdeveloped a cult following among those who played thegame as boys in the 1940s and 50s, then continued toplay it as adults in the 1960s and beyond. Allenconsidered these people odd. I know, because he toldme so several times. More on that later.

Okay, what is it?The game was conceived in 1933 when Allen was withthe St. Louis Cardinals. Always analytical aboutbaseball, Allen came up with an idea for a game afterhe broke down hitting statistics into several categoriesand created pie-chart representations of theperformances of several major league players. He putthose pie charts on paper discs about 3.5 inches indiameter. The discs were cut out in the middle to fitover a spinner, creating what you might call BaseballRoulette. Flick that spinner over a disc and the resultwould tell you what the player did in one at-bat. Therewere 14 possibilities, from striking out to hitting ahome run. (There are sample discs elsewhere on thispage. You'll notice none is cut out in the middlebecause Cadaco soon improved the spinner, mounting


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than, say, Roy Cullenbine, because DiMaggio clearlywould deliver more home runs. The #1 on theDiMaggio disc took up much more space thanCullenbines.

The first All-Star Game manufactured by Cadaco-Ellisfeatured 40 discs based on statistics from the 1941season. Thats why Cullenbine was included. He playedfor several teams during his 10-year major leaguecareer 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 9home runs. Cullenbine may be best remembered forhis ability to draw bases on balls. He walked 121 timesin 1941 which gave him a higher on-base percentagethan DiMaggio (.452 to .436).

Of course, 1941 was the year of Joe DiMaggios famous56-game hitting streak. Allen couldnt duplicate thehitting streak, but he did create a disc that would haveDiMaggio hitting about 30 home runs for every600-or-so flicks of the spinner, while maintaining abatting average well above .300.

Allen saw the game being played by boys who couldassume the roles of major league managers, eachselecting a team of all-stars. He said he didnt expectanyone, particularly an adult, to create leagues, playfull seasons and keep statistics.


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Allen believed he should have limited the discs to eightcategories, requiring a second spin on a separate discto determine what happened, for example, on a groundball to the shortstop, or a single to center field with arunner on second base. There were many baseballplays unaccounted for in the original game, but thatfact seemed to bother Allen more than it did those whoplayed the game. He kept coming up with ways tomake his game more realistic, more strategic.

The company eventually introduced eight-categorydiscs, but there was a storm of protest. The gamesbiggest fans had been adding discs to their collectionseach year. They had no use for eight-category discs.They preferred the simplicity and speed of the originalgame. Like me, others who played the board gameprobably didnt love or appreciate baseball quite theway Allen did. Statistics were more important to usthan strategy. And like me, other All-Star Baseballfanatics had their own ideas on how to expand thegames limits without requiring extra spins, whichwould have added to the playing time.

One idea, apparently common among the gamesaficionados (or kooks, as Allen called them), involvedthe space marked by the number 11 (a double). Thesimple version of the game said runners advanced twobases on a double. But when I played, a runner on firstwould score if the point of the spinner landed between


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didnt care how they played the game only that theybought it.

But he did care, and hed go on, paragraph afterparagraph, explaining the need for special discs thatwould deal with situations that developed on suchthings as a pitchout, passed ball or a fly ballmishandled by an outfielder with the bases loaded.

With one of his letters he enclosed three discs from anadvanced version of his game, Strategic All-Star

Baseball.

There are 40 spaces in what he termed the outercircle, which meant there were many more lines forh ddl h ddl l h


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he wrote. You bet I am, and if I can get my formatpublished with supplementary rules, it will run otheradvanced games off the market. I would be willing tobet on that unless a computer-type game can bereasonably realistic.

It was a bet he couldnt win. Strategic All-Star Baseballnever caught on.

All-Star Baseball was only one of his creations. Allensaid he had 13 games copyrighted, but I cannot getinto a game company to demonstrate them.

His games involved football, basketball and track, aswell as baseball.

I found it interesting that even Strategic All-StarBaseball, one of the most detailed sports games Idever seen, failed to account for pitching and fieldingskills, something that earned much more respect forAPBA Baseball, which is played with dice andelaborate charts.

I do not feel qualified to classify pitchers, Allen wroteto me, and I would not do so even though there mightbe scientific evidence for same. This is also true offielding ability. My reason is mainly a relationship withplayers which I do not want impinged. Perhaps I haveold you the story about Zeke Bonura, former White Sox


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if I so chose, I could have Boog Powell steal 50 bases aseason. (In real life, the 6-foot-3, 230-pound firstbaseman 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 gameaccording 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 ittook advantage of the base-stealing loopholes. All-Star

Baseball was based on statistics, and statistics say thatrunners have a better chance of stealing third thanstealing second. Something good was almost bound tohappen 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 nodesignated hitter rule with All-Star Baseball, youselect, as your pitcher, the one who is the best hitteravailable. Given a choice between Hall of Famer SandyKoufax (a poor hitter) and Schoolboy Rowe (a pitcherwho hit .300 or better three times), you went with

Rowe every time. And I'm sure kids whose gameincluded a set of old-timers were bright enough to useBabe Ruth as their pitcher. After all, Ruth was one ofthe best left-handers in the American League for a fewseasons.

Allen might also have considered it a violation of trust


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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 KenRoberts that I never have played a game (of All-StarBaseball), not a complete one, anyway.

Yet he claimed it was possible to develop a spin thatwould land in approximately the same spot on the discevery time. That was an indication Allen was telling thetruth about his actual experience playing his game.Even with years of practice, there was no way tocontrol the spinner.

For Allen to use the names of all-stars past and presenti hi h h d t t l f i d b th


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Allen had no trouble getting permission from pitcherJim Perry, but Perrys more famous brother, Gaylord,refused to sign a release.

Roy Smalley III, who played in the American Leaguefrom 1975 to 1987, was apologetic for waiting so longto sign his release form. When he finally did, he toldAllen that he had grown up on the game. He said hisfather, Roy Smalley Jr., a Chicago Cubs infielder in the1940s and 50s, used to play it.

Allen didnt deal with the Major League PlayersAssociation, but his advancing age and a changingbusiness climate brought the players union into thepicture when Cadaco took full control of the game. Theunion's cooperation is obvious in the 1993 edition ofAll-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 thiscorrespondence going when we are so much at odds.However, I will, of course, acknowledge any further

correspondence and make any comments I deemnecessary.

He added, By the way, when do you find time to work,or is your wife the breadwinner?

JACK MAJOR


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

original format was better than any that

ollowed. The only concession I've made to my

discs is to display certain categories (such as

he 10, 12 and 14 on the Hegan disc) in twospaces, not one. That was one of the changes

Cadaco made many years ago. I don't know

heir reasoning; I simply think this looks bette

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