Hey, my name is Thomas Fischer, aka Stratotommie. This Web site is my contribution to the world of Strat-O-Matic Baseball. I have participated in many leagues over the years and am still part of a couple of leagues right now. I wanted to give something back to the SOM Community and though some of the articles on my site have been published on other sites such as SOMWORLD and Baseball Stratogists most of these articles, at least 90% are my own original work.
Kudos to my man Vacant who created the design for this page. It's very cool and I like it, I like it alot.- Baseball is life, everything else is just an imitation.
- My family is the most important thing to me in this life after God. Some people make fun of me saying that baseball is my number one priority but it goes more like this... GOD, FAMILY, BASEBALL. Definitely in that order.
- I began playing baseball when I was 5 years old.
- My grandfather Charles Krueger played in the White Sox organization in the 1930's and early 40's.
- My grandfather Erich Ruediger served in the United States Army during WWII and stormed the beach at Normandy.
- I am grateful to both of my grandfathers for their influence in my life, even though I don't remember either of them.
- My three children Ruth, Carson, and Maitland are the apples of my eye and I would do anything for them.
- Sherri, my best friend and my wife since 1997, is my one human credential. Without her I would just be another nerd on the net.
Some fans don't wait until opening day for baseball season. They indulge their sports fantasies year-round. Many play video games with splashy graphics. But the most enduring baseball diversion is a humble board game called Strat-O-Matic with an influential and devoted following.
Strat-O-Matic was one of the first diversions for numbers-obsessed sports fans. Launched in 1961, it's a predecessor to the stat-based sports fantasy leagues now attracting millions of participants. For some -- including ESPN and San Francisco Giants sportscaster Jon Miller, who played obsessively as a child -- it was even a tool for self-discovery.
Never a mass-market hit, Strat-O-Matic has nevertheless been a steady seller with unshakably loyal customers, including director Spike Lee, who made the game a recurring theme in Crooklyn , a film about childhood memories.But that loyalty has been put to the test by sports video games. Creator Hal Richman estimates that of a dozen baseball board games, only a few have survived the video game era. Ironically, one his most devoted fans is Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts, the largest video game company. Author Glenn Guzzo says Hawkins even prefers the classic, low-tech version of the game to the updated, computerized version.
My name is Thomas Fischer. I prefer to go by Tom as I have never really like Thomas. I am a 33-year-old Web Designer currently working on many projects and working at attaining my bachelors degree in Web Development. I work from my home in Chesaning, MI as a Web Master for two different companies.
I have been married to my best friend Sherri for eight years, and we have three children. Ruth, our oldest child, will turn nine in May. She is a very creative and imaginative third grader. Ruthie enjoys reading, and coloring and painting pictures. Our only son, Carson, is four and he is in preschool. He loves dinosaurs a great deal, and at the age of four, he can tell everyone about all kinds of dinosaurs and how the dinosaurs became extinct. I bought him a PBS documentary called the Death of the Dinosaur and he watched it so many times that the tape died. From that he learned that "the impact killed the dinosaurs". Maitland is our baby. She turned three on New Year's Eve and she has been walking since she was 10 months old. I think that it helped her motivation to walk, that she had two older siblings that she wanted to run around and play with.
My family is very important to me and I decided after years of bouncing from one shop job that laid me off to another that would do the same that being a "shop rat" was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life and it is not how I want to support my family. I had gone to college right out of high school in 1990. I attended Blackburn University in southern Illinois for one year where I majored in History Education and played Varsity Football and Baseball. I was well prepared for college coursework but not for the social interaction and extracurricular activities. I finished my freshman year with only a 2.0 GPA and decided to move back home to Michigan where I have been ever since.
After years of the aforementioned job bouncing, I decided to go back to college.This is my sixth term at Baker College and I have a GPA of 3.16. I am studying web design and hope to finish my Associate of Applied Science Degree in Web Design next year. I am trying to finish as quickly as I can to begin the career that I know I will enjoy tremendously. I have been building websites for about six years and I love it. I enjoy reading and writing, but I have not had much experience in the past 15 years with writing college papers and essays until last summer when I began attending classes at Baker.
There are links here on my homepage to some interesting websites and to some of my own websites, which I have created for my Strat-O-Matic Baseball hobby. Also on my homepage are links to some essays that I have written for school and others that I have written for no particular reason other than to write about something that interests me.
I am a lifelong Detroit Tigers fan, as well as a fan and student of the game of baseball, and have attended many games at the old Tiger Stadium including the last game ever played there. I have yet to visit Comerica Park, the new home of the Tigers since the year 2000, but I am looking forward to seeing a game there someday.
Please visit my website as often as you like and tell a friend about too. Maybe there are links that others will enjoy visiting, and perhaps something that I have written on my website will be of interest to someone out there. I plan to write and add more content to my website as time and my progression through school improves my knowledge and ability. Have a wonderful day and return again soon.