Micro League Baseball

Last Updated on September 6, 2023 by Dave Farquhar

As far as I know, one photograph exists of me with my first computer, and it’s appropriate that I was playing Micro League Baseball. I probably spent more time playing that game than every other game I had for that computer combined. There were certainly earlier statistical baseball simulations than Micro League. And Earl Weaver Baseball from 1987 was definitely better. But for about 3 years, between 1984 and 1987, Micro League Baseball was perhaps the most popular and best statistical baseball simulation you could get.

As good as computer statistical baseball got in 1984

I played Micro League Baseball on a Commodore 64, but it was available on just about every computer platform of the time, including the IBM PC/PCjr, Apple II, and Atari 800.

Now that I’ve had the opportunity to see the game run on a 1980s PC and an Apple IIe and Atari 800, it’s pretty clear that they developed the game originally for the IBM PC and then did a direct port to the other systems. It is one of the few early PC games that took advantage of artifact color to make CGA graphics look better, and picking up and moving that graphics engine over to the other platforms resulted in a mediocre visual experience on a Commodore or Atari computer, even by 1984 standards.

But this game wasn’t about the graphics. It was about statistical realism, within the confines of what you could do with about 64K of RAM and about 150 k of disk storage, and expandability.

What the name Micro League Baseball meant

The name “Micro League Baseball” was a play on Major League Baseball. “Micro” referred to microcomputer, which was a common name in the early 1980s for small, personal computers. We called them microcomputers because they were smaller than minicomputers, which in turn were smaller than mainframes.

And it showed you could do some pretty good baseball simulation in spite of the limitations of 1984’s small, inexpensive computers.

What it cost and what you got

The initial game retailed for $39.95, and that bought you the basic game and a selection of 26 teams you could pit against each other. The exact mix of teams you got could very slightly, but you got a pair of all time All-Star teams, one from the American League and one from the National League, and the 1984 All Star teams from both leagues. They also included some famous and infamous teams from the past, like the 1927 Yankees and the 1955 Washington Senators. If you wanted to win, managing the 27 Yankees while having the computer manage the 55 Senators was a pretty good way to stack the odds in your favor.

And then to round things out, they tried to choose a selection of successful teams from then recent memory, which gave you the ability to replay the 1982 or 1980 World Series, or the 1980 National League playoffs.

There was no way for the selection of teams to please everyone, but nearly any baseball fan at the time would find at least a couple of teams in the mix that evoked strong emotions. Surely there would be a couple of teams, at least, that you rooted for or against.

The 1980 Kansas City Royals were the first team I had any memory of watching. Trotting them out against the 1927 Yankees wasn’t something that you could expect to end well the majority of the time. No, the 1927 Yankees wouldn’t go 162-0 even if they played the 1955 Senators 162 times. But they would win more than they would lose against anyone except one of the two all-star teams on the disk.

Limitations of Micro League Baseball

One of the limitations of the game was that it did not factor in fatigue or injuries. So you could game the system by throwing your ace for nine innings of every game. Unless there was a bit of a degree of randomness thrown in, there was no reason to ever take a pitcher out, unless they seem to be having a run of bad luck.

The other weakness in the statistical model was that it didn’t factor righty / lefty matchups. It only had the full season statistics, so if there was any righty / lefty logic under the hood, it wasn’t factoring in those specific player performances under those situations, just taking it generically.

But given the limitations of the computers of the time, it was pretty impressive. And if it was your first experience with statistical computer baseball, it was probably even more impressive.

Expansion disks

A big part of the game’s business model, and its appeal, was the expansion disks. You could buy a general manager/owner disk that allowed you to edit teams, create custom teams, or make trades between teams. They also had season disks, with every team from a specific year, and franchise disks, with a mix of teams from each franchises history. And finally, there was the stat compiler disk, which compiled the statistics from the games you simulated.

With a season disk and the stat compiler disk, you could feasibly replay the full season of your favorite team.

The downside I ran into on the Commodore 64 was the slow disk drive. The stat compiler disk was incredibly slow, so firing up a game took a dreadful amount of time, over 15 minutes. Presumably on systems with a faster drive, it gave a better user experience.

But even with the slow drive, I played the game a lot.

The decline of Micro League Baseball

Earl Weaver Baseball, which came out in 1987, was a much better game and a better value. It was also licensed by MLBPA, so it featured real teams and real players. Its innovation was including a manager AI that they built by interviewing Earl Weaver, the game’s namesake. It also included real stadiums, better graphics, and a facility to simulate a 162 game season without you having to play each game manually.

The saving grace for Micro League was that Earl Weaver was only available on Apple II, Amiga, and IBM PC. If you had an Atari 8-bit or Commodore 8-bit, or if you had sunk a lot of money into expansion disks, then you might have been more likely to stay with Micro League.

Micro League Baseball 2 addressed some of the shortcomings, bringing better graphics and stadiums, although initially it was only available for IBM PC, Amiga, and Atari ST. A Commodore 64 version followed in 1989. Perhaps their management noted the C-64 still wouldn’t die and lack of another advanced statistical baseball game left them an opening.

Ultimately, trying to compete with much larger software houses proved more difficult and Micro League faded into the sunset. They never replicated the success of their initial offering, but they did survive a surprisingly long time, into the 1990s.

Why I still play Micro League Baseball

There are plenty of excellent retro statistical baseball simulations in existence. The two Earl Weaver games are outstanding and hold up well, as do the Tony Russa Baseball games. Sierra’s Front Page Sports Baseball series is extremely underrated.

In spite of its shortcomings, I find myself playing Micro League more often than any other retro statistical baseball game, but that may say more about me than it does about the game. My original disks don’t work well, but I was able to locate an image of the IBM PC version, which runs well on my Tandy 1000 and has the benefit of loading very quickly. The gameplay is nearly identical other than the speed, which I appreciate. Unfortunately, not very many of the add-on disks seem to have been preserved, but I can still replay the 1980 World Series like I did decades ago.