Looking for help with this baseball card game

[ValKehl]

I'm going through a few boxes of misc. baseball stuff that I haven't looked at in many years. I came across this PLA-BAL baseball card game that I picked up back in the 1990's. There are 2 decks of cards - green backs and red backs - with 54 cards in each deck. And, there is a rules booklet which shows a 1953 copyright date. It appears to be missing some red discs and score sheets. I did a Google search and found nothing about this game. Does anyone recognize it and know anything about it?

[Butch7999]

Hi Val -- one of the great frustrations in game collecting is finding that after more than thirty years at it,
there's still stuff we've never seen. One of the great thrills, though, is seeing, for the first time, something
completely new to us. We've never before seen Pla-Bal, but thanks to the excellent photos you've provided,
we can tell you at least a little something about it, which might be interesting (it is at least to us).

The thing that jumped out at us was the 1953 copyright credit. Robert Tait jr happens to be the guy who,
forty years earlier, invented Card Base Ball ~ The National Game, made by The Card Base Ball Co.
The following year, 1914, he revised it slightly as a game many guys here are aware of -- All Star Card Baseball,
popularly known as "the Polo Grounds game," source of the "WG4" cards, made by The Card Base Ball Co., Inc.

Now here's Pla-Bal, made by Card Baseball Co. of Washington DC. The earlier games were made in
Lynchburg and Norfolk, Virginia. As you surely know, all three towns are about a hundred miles distant
from one another.
And with only subtle differences in the play mechanic, all three games play very similarly to one another.
We're not absolutely certain -- none of the games mentions a total in their directions -- but we'd be
confident that 108 cards is the correct count for all three games.

Nice find! Shoot us a PM if you're ever interested in selling it.

[ocjack]

I am ever amazed at the depth of knowledge on this site, and people like butch7999 who are willing to share it.

[ValKehl]

Butch, many thanks for providing all of this very interesting info about Robert Tait, Jr., and the other games he invented. I know very little about baseball games, as I am mostly a baseball card collector, but I am familiar with the WG4 Polo Grounds cards.

It didn't dawn on me to do a Google search of the inventor. Having just now done so, I did find this piece of info: "This snapshot of Robert Tait Junior's life was captured by the 1940 U.S. Census. Robert Tait was born about 1895. In 1940, he was 45 years old and lived in Blacksburg, Virginia, with his wife, Delia, son, and 2 daughters." I assume this is the same guy, and if so, he would have been a teenager when he invented the earlier games.

I'll be sending you a PM.

[bigfanNY]

1914 game by Tait The senior 1953 game by Tait the Junior.

[Butch7999]

Interesting take, Jonathan. Supposition, or do you have some evidence?
We're always ready to be proven wrong.
The directions/rules pamphlets for both 1913's Card Base Ball and 1914's
All Star Card Baseball ("Polo Grounds game") are clearly marked
"Copyright 1913 by Robert Tait, Jr." and "Copyright 1914, by Robt. Tait, Jr,"
respectively, each with a J...

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