I had the original program as well as a copy of the powerful Commissioner's Disk, but never any of the MLBPA (Major League Baseball Players Association) Stats disks. Friends on Amiga Love did send me the ADF for 1988, and another recently sent me 1989.
There were five official stats disks created for the Amiga: 1986-90. Each year player stats disks were sold at the retail level for the previous year. So in 1987, when Earl Weaver Baseball shipped, there was a stats disk made available for 1986 since that dataset was complete, as so on. Sadly, by 1992 the franchise moved to MS-DOS and left the Amiga behind. It is my understanding that 1990 (made in 1991) was the final stats disk made available on the Amiga. And, interestingly, it looks decidedly generic and a bit ghetto compared to all of the previous years.
For those that are interested, you should read a bit about this innovative game and why it is so important to the entire genre.
In any case, I even contacted Eddie Dombrower, the original creator of the game in the 1980s to see if he knew how I might import all of the data (say, from Baseball Reference) rather than type it all in.
As I mentioned in the post linked above, Mr Dombrower kindly wrote me back about making contemporary stats disks.
Eddie Dombrower:
The thing is, there are some stats in Earl Weaver Baseball - particularly the defensive stats - that don't match up to what one can easily find online and transcribe using the Commissioner's Disk. Back in the 1980s, EWB used data from STATS, which is a service media companies can pay for even today. The data is not readily available to the public, however. The best mere mortals can do is use Baseball Reference, which in most cases would be good enough. STATS goes a level deeper, though.Thanks so much for reaching out to me.. it's always a blast to hear from fans of this game which is so near and dear to my heart.
I think creating a stats disk is always a great idea, but I don't have a way to do it right now... probably the best thing is, as you mentioned, is for fans to do this.
If you're still playing on an Amiga, then the only option I'm aware of right now is to use the Commissioner's tools on the Amiga and hand enter the data (what a labor of love that would be).
If you're on a PC version, there are actually some import tools in the EWB II Commissioner's disk.
Long story short, after all this time finally lucked into an incredible auction. I nearly have the entire "System" now on original physical media.
- Original Game, in a sweet Electronic Arts Flat in excellent condition. It also has the manual, installation card and (first time I've ever seen this) an order form for more pieces of the System that looks like it was printed with a dot-matrix printer (image below). Very cool.
- Commissioner's Disk in its original packaging. Originally sold for $18. That equates to $36 in 2017 US dollars! A back of the napkin guesstimate tells me the entire EWB family through the years would have cost about $140. Amazing! The Commissioner's Disk came with its own very handy manual, too.
- Stats disks - original disks - from 1986, 1988-1990. Every single one except for 1987! If I ever find 1987 my quest will be compete. And my 1988 disk still has the original packaging. This came with a single sheet of paper folded into quarters with a note from Trip Hawkins and some basic instructions for use, too. Something else I've never seen before.
For what it's worth, I've learned about an extremely rare game on the Amiga called MicroLeague Baseball. One of my online friends will type up all of the current player stats and run simulated games on his Atari computer (something EWB can also do). What's cool is he'll do this during the World Series and tell everyone which team one, how many games were played, etc. And last year it got it right! Pretty hilarious.
Data matters.
If allowed, I plan on posting and hosting all EWB Stats Disks (minus 1987, until I find it) here on Amiga Love soon.
P.S.
If anyone out there reading this has the 1987 Stats disk, please let me know!