Absololutely nothing beats an old-fashion Strat-o-matic game, in-person with a great friend. As a kid, I played all summer every summer. As an adult, I did once play an entire season with three friends - two nights every week all season. Great fun, two hangovers every week, I will never do it again. But our lives change, so now we want that game experience but can't get together with friends. I've searched, checked-out several. TSN runs an online strat-o-matic game: its past-year stats and auto-run, ie, you don't play - its like PB away games only. Doesn't sound real fun to me. Diamond-mind apparently supports online leagues, but it was confusing to me. Best I could tell, they are private leagues only. I think its all TRAD-based, no RT updating. Baseball Mogul had (or tried) an online version, but I found it to be terrible.

For those who love to play in the current year, I highly recommend Scoresheet. I enjoy it as much as PB, and have dropped PB onto its board a couple of times hoping to attract a few more owners over here. I know there are at least a few others like me who play both games. You do not manage a scoresheet team game-by-game like PB. You set your strategies and the computer plays your games based on the current week's stats. There's no knowing whether a guy will hit well or not when you put him in your lineup. You have to pay a little every time you change your lineup, although the computer will automatically sub for injuries etc.

Better than PB? Depends what you most enjoy: the actual managing of a game: the sim (PB), or watching real mlb boxscores (Scoresheet). Scoresheet is a hybred: part sim, part realtime rotoesque. There are definately more stat-heads there (at least on the board), because you have to project how your guys will do, and because most leagues have far fewer keepers. Timetable problems? No, Scoresheet really does a good job -- but then they are not trying to maintain a live database for each team as PB does, and they don't have to wait for managers to fix rosters etc. The computers run the games and send them out, and they are done for the week.

My intent is to offer this recommendation to other PB owners. The more duplication, the more exposure PB will get, the better. Like PB, scoresheet has some owners with many many teams - some would certainly enjoy dropping a couple for one or two PB teams if they tried PB (hint to Mike - get the new interface!)

To those who would complain about PB on this board - I am with you. I too am often frustrated and want Mike and the gang to know. To those who would announce their intentions to quit, I'm with Mike -- just go away. If there was a better game, we'd all be gone and this board would not exist.