Earl Weaver Baseball

Earl Weaver Baseball is a baseball computer simulation game (1987), designed by Don Daglow and Eddie Dombrower and published by Electronic Arts. The artificial intelligence for the computer manager was provided by Baseball Hall of Fame member Earl Weaver, then manager of the Baltimore Orioles. EWB was a major hit, and along with Madden Football helped pave the way for the EA Sports brand, which launched in 1992.

Related Topics:
Baseball - Computer - Simulation game - 1987 - Don Daglow - Eddie Dombrower - Electronic Arts - Artificial intelligence - Baseball Hall of Fame - Earl Weaver - Baltimore Orioles - Madden Football - EA Sports - 1992

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EWB was the first game to introduce many features that subsequently became part of most or all computer baseball sims through the present day:

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• EWB was the first commercial computer sports game to not just play a single game, but to allow players to simulate an entire season of games without actually showing each game play-by-play on the screen. In 1971 Daglow had written the first-ever computer baseball game, Baseball, and included this feature. The game ran only on a room-sized mainframe computer, however, and was never offered for sale.
• The first time players were offered the option of either playing in arcade mode (using eye-hand coordination as well as managerial strategy) or manager mode (where users managed their teams but did not physically control the players).
• The first time players were offered single pitch mode, which allowed games where players dueled as managers to be completed more quickly by not calling every pitch and displaying only the outcome of each at-bat.
• The first time different stadiums were shown graphically on the screen, with game play adjusted for their actual dimensions. This marks the debut of the Green Monster of Fenway Park in any computer game.
• The first time a baseball manager had worked with game designers to provide the managerial strategy and artificial intelligence for a computer game. After leaving EA, Daglow would later lead the design of the Tony La Russa Baseball series, working with Tony La Russa.
• The first time a games publisher issued annual baseball statistics disks to update the rosters and stats of the major league players.
• The first game to have the MLBPA license and feature actual major league players. This option had been pulled from Daglow and Dombrower's 1983 Intellivision World Series Baseball, the first sports video game to display multiple camera angles, at the last minute by Mattel in order to save money.

The game was named to the Computer Game Hall of Fame by Computer Gaming World and by GameSpy.

Related Topics:
Computer Gaming World - GameSpy

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