Baseball Boss: A Refreshing Take on Fantasy Baseball

If you’ve ever tried to watch a baseball or football game with someone who has a fantasy team, you might understand the devotion of fantasy sports players. To enlighten the rest of the world, Challenge Games has decided to reinvent the wheel, and create a brand new type of fantasy baseball, infinitely more accessible to those of us who don’t have hours to spare at the office to watch the waiver wire.

Baseball Boss is a brand new title that fuses engaging team management, the addictive nature of baseball card collecting and a hint of social networking elements to create a web-browser based title that’s engaging and fun. Best of all: it’s free.

Baseball Boss talks a big game, so when you first register feel free to be intimidated by the vast array of options at your disposal. Don’t worry though, once you get a feel for the game’s deceivingly simple user interface you’ll be a pro in no time. At its core, this game is a management simulator. If this doesn’t appeal to you then run as fast as you can, because this ain’t for you. But for those of you who genuinely enjoy mapping out your pitching rotation and batting order in MLB ‘08, prepare to fall in love.

Instead of managing actual players, you are given baseball cards of both active and retired players (from 2007 and 1907), each with plenty of statistics and ratings to fill you in on each one’s strengths and weaknesses. Each game plays out very much like a real game of baseball, since every pitch, swing and catch is simulated for a full nine innings. You can even watch the games play out in a Gamecast-like flash animation.

This game is simple enough for anyone to pick up and play. All your favorite MLB superstars are present and accounted for, and since the league play is in no way tied to the actual MLB (unlike traditional fantasy sports) you can play as much as you want even in the off-season. If you only have a passing interest in professional baseball, this game is a fun way to kill a couple of hours if you find some downtime. Be warned though: this game is exceptionally addictive and could result in slipping productivity numbers and an angry boss if you get carried away.