1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a board game and more particularly one in which a player establishes and builds a sports organization such as a baseball franchise club.
Each player represents a baseball franchise and plays through a season in which the particular events occur that help or hinder his team and provide income or loss of income as a result of various events. These events are the ones that would normally occur to a team franchise throughout a season of play. Examples of the events are injuries to players, a player in a slump and sent to a minor league team, the purchase of a player from another team, contracting free agents, etc.
The board game simulates the real life events that occur to the team. A particularly novel feature of the present invention is the use of commercially available baseball cards.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A large number of board games exist representing sports events or business enterprises and examples of these are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,027,882 and 4,486,022. However, neither of these patents nor others in the prior art contemplate the use of commercially available baseball cards in which the game players represent baseball teams and the game contemplates playing through a season.
3. Summary of the Invention
The game of the present invention is played on a board having a path along which playing pieces are moved. The path contains squares having indicia of the various events that can befall a baseball team throughout the season. Each player has a playing piece and in sequence rolls a die to advance his playing piece along the path on the board. As a playing piece comes to rest within a particular square, that player's team is subject to a designated event. It is understood that the events can either help or hurt a team and can provide income or expense to the club.
The purpose of the game is to enhance the quality of the team and receive income for the franchise. At the end of the game, the winner is determined by combining together the monetary income for the season plus points representing the quality of the team in terms of its players. The team quality is determined by the playing statistics of each player as represented on the commercial playing cards that each game player has at the end of the game.
Accordingly it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a game board that stimulates the building up and playing of a baseball team during a season in which commercially available baseball cards are employed.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a baseball franchise game board using baseball cards representing real life baseball players in which each card contains the actual statistics of the player represented on the card.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a baseball franchise game board in which each game player represents a franchise baseball club and the object of the game is to build up and enhance the team by acquiring quality players represented by baseball cards of real life players and their respective baseball statistics.