My Time With Earl Weaver Baseball

8/26/22

If you love the game on the right, you owe a huge "thank you" to the man on the left

As I look back on all of the good fortune I have had during my life, I have expressed it to others as having "Forrest Gump-ed my way through life" - I happened to be in certain places at certain times as significant things were happening, and I got to witness those things from a very close vantage point. This story is about one of those things - my time "helping" during the making of Earl Weaver Baseball.

Starting Lineups

While I was lucky enough to have worked on the initial versions of Earl Weaver Baseball, the product was already well under way when I joined Electronic Arts in late 1985. Don Daglow had originally signed Eddie Dombrower / Mirage Graphics to make the game, Hall Of Fame manager Earl Weaver was already under contract to be the "guest AI" for the game, and the many baseball junkies walking the halls of EA (Trip, Richard, Chris, among others) meant that the game was already in pretty good hands before I even got to see it, let alone touch it. The first ever screen that I ever saw for EWB was in the magazine ad below...

the screen is a little bit easier to see here (as is Eddie)

Pitching Change

Through a series of internal reorganizations, I was ripped from my original production team, and placed on one that was chartered with only handling Sports Games (Weaver Baseball, John Madden Football, Ferrari Formula 1, etc.). After a little bit more "reorganizing & employee departures", I found myself without a Producer over me, and reporting directly to Bing Gordon.

At least I knew what games I'd be working on...

"Let's Play Two (Versions)!"

As I started to work with Eddie on the Commodore Amiga version of Weaver, news came through the halls of EA that would alter development of this version of the game - Tandy, yes the Radio Shack people, offered to buy 50,000 copies of Weaver if we made a special Tandy Computer version of the game and ship it to them in time for them to sell it that Holiday Season. Since selling these copies to Tandy came with no inventory risk (part of the order included their agreement to keep all copies whether they sold thru or not), this was very interesting to EA.

The only real problem was that, in order to get the Tandy version completed in time to reach this aggressive goal, the Amiga version had to get finished first (and with enough time left over to actually complete the Tandy version). Since the Amiga version of Weaver was "pre-Beta" at this point, all manner of proposals shot around EA with the express intention to somehow shorten the development process of the Amiga version.

Bing's idea was to send me down to Whittier, CA to work with Eddie as he finished the Amiga version of the game. Initially, no one was thrilled about this idea - Eddie didn't want a (potentially) foul-smelling Assistant Producer in his home office working with him, and the rumblings from within the halls of EA weren't much more positive. Because of all of this, I had a lot of personal misgivings about being sent down. In spite of all of this, Bing sent me to Whittier to work on Weaver with Eddie.

So I packed up my Amiga (and some clothes) and went...

[just an aside - trying to travel with a computer of any type back in 1987 was no easy task - large / heavy CRT monitors, large boxy computers, mice & power cords & power strips, plus getting to your destination without something breaking made just accomplishing this a challenge.]

The Road Trip

After checking into the Hyatt in Whittier, I made my way over to Eddie's to begin the task of bug-fixing & game tuning. While my initial reception within Eddie's home office was a bit chilly, it warmed greatly over my time there (the chill I felt over the phone line when reporting our progress back to EA never warmed).

We got into a rhythm, fixed & tuned, and whenever there was a technical issue that Eddie needed help with, he called David Maynard at EA to receive his sage advice & assistance. At night, I'd take a copy of the latest build back to my room at the Hyatt, and work most of the way through the night (being manic sometimes pays dividends).

What started out as what was supposed to be only a week turned into two-and-a-half weeks. Eddie was wonderful to work with, and we got a lot done. When I returned to EA we were (almost) Beta.

Returning To The Clubhouse

When I got back to EA, I carted my Amiga & monitor back to my cubicle only to discover that it had been emptied out - nothing remained but scrap paper (even my EA name plate was gone off the outside of the cube). I knew that there were folks who thought I should not have been sent down to work with Eddie, but had I been fired because of my trip???

[Answer - No, it was only a prank, but I was pretty panicked for a good long while]

Post-Season Analysis

The "L"s

• I did get chewed on for a while after the Amiga version shipped for some tuning issues & bugs that were in the Amiga version that initially shipped (although revisions would fix most of them)

• My power & cable got turned off while I was in Whittier (oops...definitely my fault)

• I received only $400 as a year-end bonus for working on Weaver

Check out the interview with Eddie Dombrower, Don Daglow, and Earl Weaver on page 36

The "W"s

• Earl Weaver Baseball won "Sports Game Of The Year" in multiple publications

• Thanks to this little "development experiment", and Eddie's continued hard work, the Tandy version ended up being completed in time to ship the 50,000 copies that were desired that Holiday Season (and over the life of the product more than 125,000 copies were sold to Tandy)

• I received $400 as a year-end bonus for working on Weaver!

The Legacy

In addition to those contemporary "Sports Game Of The Year" honors that Earl Weaver Baseball garnered following its initial release, it is still viewed by many as one of the best baseball games of all time. There are multitudes of fansites that still celebrate the accomplishment that was/is EWB. Even the Brits, when making a list of the "10 Most Influential Sports Games Of All Time" included Earl Weaver Baseball.

It was such an honor to have "Gump-ed" my way into working on this title...I wish I could do it all over again!

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Thanks for reading!...(hope I didn't piss-off too many people with this one)...

This blog does have a "chat" function so, if you'd like to reach out to me to comment, give me a possible idea for another entry, or just bitch at me - please feel free to do so!