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“Readers of Guzzo’s brilliantly written and soaring look into Strat-O-Matic will start out thinking they’re reading about a game, only to discover they’re really reading about passion and life.”
—Doug Looney, former senior writer for Sports Illustrated.
“It's a terrific read for anyone who has ever played the greatest game ever created (including myself). It's a terrific business story. It's a terrific marketing story. Best of all, it's a page-turning personal tale of a quirky and brilliant inventor who, by refusing to give up even when he should have, changed the world of sports forever.”
—H. G. "Buzz" Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights
Available Now!
Strat-O-Matic Fanatics was featured on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" news show. To listen to the story online and read the write up and an excerpt from the book, click here.
This is the true story behind the creation—and re-creation—of America’s most popular sports board game ever—Strat-O-Matic. Overcoming abuse and betrayal, Hal Richman beat the odds and built a company that continues to thrive in a highly competitive industry.
More than a tale of a single man and his small company, Strat-O-Matic Fanatics shows the power of a dream. It details Hal Richman's youth; the first tenuous years of Strat-O-Matic; numerous episodes of conflict and opposition; and the devotion and addiction of the hobby’s fans. Along the way, author Glenn Guzzo reveals a universal story of determination, love, loyalty and honesty in the face of seemingly unbeatable odds that has made Strat-O-Matic an icon in the board and computer game industry. Core Strat fans will be intrigued by the exclusive, inside view into how Richman and his crew determine their baseball fielding ratings. Former players will enjoy this look back on the history of a game that brought them so much joy.
As entertaining as a novel, but as dramatic as only real life can be, Strat-O-Matic Fanatics is truly an unlikely success story, one that will be appreciated even by those who never once rolled the famous Strat-O-Matic dice.
GLENN GUZZO, former editor of The Denver Post and executive sports editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, has been a Strat-O-Matic fanatic since 1963. He lives in Florida with his wife Donna and their daughter Scheherazade, named after the greatest storyteller in history. |
This corrects two errors concerning Rhett Richman in Strat-O-Matic Fanatics.
- Rhett was married for seventeen years, not “briefly” as the book says.
- The father of Rhett Richman’s husband was not a friend of Hermann Wilhelm Goering, but of a lower-ranking Nazi SS man.
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