Favorite Baseball Holiday Gifts
- Mike Whiteman
- Dec 21, 2025
- 2 min read
By Mike Whiteman December 21, 2025 *** Happy Holidays everyone! While being an enjoyable time of connection and celebration with my family and friends, Christmas is very also nostalgic for me. I think often of the Christmases of my youth, with good memories, and still today enjoy many longtime traditions. I don't really need or want much in the way of presents these days, but that wasn't always the case. Here are some of my most memorable gifts through the years: Johnny Bench Batter Up - This was a hitting trainer, basically a plastic baseball at the end of a rod that was hooked into a post. Hit the ball and it swung around the post, then came back to be hit again. I used to hit and hit and hit with this. Didn't help me with the curveball in youth league though.
Strat-O-Matic Baseball - I received my first set Christmas 1981. I was immediately enthralled and obsessed (ask my wife and she may say that I still am today). What great fun it was rolling with my friends, and I credit a lot of my passion for baseball history to buying and playing the "Oldtimer Teams" like the 1927 Yankees, 1934 Cardinals, and 1950 Phillies. In my first exposure to SABRmetrics, Strat-O-Matic taught me that players who walked a lot were pretty valuable, and it was OK to bat Babe Ruth second in a batting order.
Sports Illustrated Superstar Baseball Game - Another tabletop baseball game. Once I started with Strat, a family member gave me this game as well. Didn't play as much as I did Strat, but still rolled the heck out of it. The Ultimate Baseball Book - Maybe the best book ever. Now I read the writing but back when I first received it Christmas day I was taken in by the great photographs of the players through the years.
The Sports Encyclopedia: Baseball - Second best book ever? My first real stat book. I used to just page through it, taking in the numbers. I also liked to pick out random players and follow them year by year through the book. Baseball Cards - My stocking was often filled with packs of cards, and as my collecting got more "sophisticated" there there were often baseball card binders, pocket sleeves, etc. under the tree.
Baseball Digest - Santa Claus got me subscriptions more than once. Yankees Starter Dugout Jacket - Fast forward from my childhood to 1996, when the Yankees won their first World Series of my fandom. What better way to commemorate than wear the same jacket that Joe Torre and Don Zimmer were wearing in the dugout? I've got to give my wife credit, she bought me this for about $100 back when $100 was a lot of money, especially as we both were working in human services/social work at the time. I still have the jacket, well worn through the years.
What were YOUR favorite Holiday gifts?
I didn't do Strat O Matic, but I did have it's competitor, APBA Baseball, which is still around. Good game.
I have that jacket. Was $160 at the Stadium, $129 across the street.
When I grew up, I had my father's mid-1940's, Cadaco "All Star Baseball" board game. It came with die cut, cardboard donuts for every baseball player. The donuts would fit over a thick cardboard circle with a spinning arrow in the center. Unfortunately, it is long gone I never heard of Strato-O-Matic until I was an adult.
I never got for Chanukah what I wanted, but my afikoman (on Passover), were always Topps of baseball cards. Those were the days (1975-1982), when many times, those years cards hadn't come out yet.
Start-o-Matic - 1981 (as well) was the best Christmas present I ever received related to baseball. The game has brought a lifetime of fun.
Thank you Grandma!