What is The Bottom Shelf? It's where the older Mac games are usually found at your local software store. The games reviewed in this section have been released for some time now but are still selling, so you should get the Inside (Mac Games) scoop.
Mini-Review: The Manager's Challenge
By Paul Natsch
Publisher: MicroLeague Sports
Pros: Detailed statistics, stat compiler.
Cons: Horrible ported b/w & color graphics, unrealistic animation, no General Manager/Owner and stadium disks ever released as promised.
Requires: Mac Plus or greater, System 6.0.4 or greater, 1.5 megs of RAM.
 
The Manager's Challenge (TMC) is a long-awaited baseball simulation for the Mac that finally came out in May 1992. It was suppose to fill a void in the Mac sports world, especially in baseball. Unfortunately, TMC failed miserably in its attempt to fill this void. Even though there was a long delay in releasing this program, it is still a poorly ported product that is buggy as well. And as far as I know, the support for this product has been minimal to none since its release, and the bugs have never been worked out with patches or revisions.
TMC is a strategic baseball game, not an arcade-type game like Hardball. You play the role of the manager and make a wide variety of managerial decisions before and during the game. Pre-game decisions range from arranging your batting order to choosing your starting pitcher. During a game, you make decisions like when to steal or bunt, where to place your infield and outfield, and what pitches you want your pitcher to throw. You watch the consequences of your decisions on exact reproductions of three different Major League ballparks (Royals, Yankee, and Dodger stadiums) with animated players. You can also use the "QUICK-PLAY" option, which will give you the line score and box score of one game or a series of games between the same teams in seconds. For QUICK-PLAY all you do is pick the teams and set the lineups, and the computer does the rest. After a game you can print out complete box scores. There is also a stat compiler included that lets you accumulate stats for your team. TMC comes with 26 all-time great teams like the 1927 New York Yankees. But playing with these teams gets very old after awhile. This is where the General Manager/Owner's disk would of come in handy. With this add-on, you would have the ability to create your own teams, modify teams, and make trades. But along with new stadium disks it was never released. There may have been some team and current season disks made available, but I was never informed of their availability and I'm a registered owner of TMC.
TMC could have been a decent baseball game if the time was taken to convert it to the Mac right and the add-on disks were made available. The detailed statistics and stat compiler are great, but not nearly enough to overcome the many bad points of this program. It's too bad that TMC had to be a victim of the poor IBM-to-Mac conversions we have all come to loathe. But the real victims here are the people who paid for this product and are still waiting for a decent baseball game to come out for their Macs.
