Standardized strat-o-matic ballpark codes

The last two digits for any stadium will be the same ones assigned to it by the Strat-o-matic game company. (Example: Any custom background for Yankee Stadium II would end in "00", for Yankee Stadium I it would be "38", for Baltimore Memorial Stadium it would be "31".

The first digit will correspond to the decade that the image represents. So a picture of Yankee Stadium that shows how it appeared in the 1960's would be "bp638", a picture of Baltimore Memorial Stadium as it appeared in the 80's would be "bp831". The "n" or "d" needs to be applied at the end also depending on whether it is a day or night image.

In some cases, a stadium changed its look right in the middle of a decade by replacing the scoreboard, or repainting the ballpark, or expanding the seating. If the reconfiguration results in a second version of the ballpark within a single decade, then the naming convention stated above won't work for the second iteration since the decade digit is already taken. In that case, a different first number will be assigned, and correspond to a decade in which the stadium was not in existence (therefore assuring that we will not be overriding stadiums from other years). Each stadium will have a button entitled "(name of stadium) stadium project on the downloads page. Selecting this button will bring up a document that will provide all of the various codes that will apply to different versions of the stadium. These are very well researched, but if we missed one, please pass the information along and we will make sure that the missed one is added to the mix!

SOM programs its game to display at random entry shots of the hosting ballpark prior to the game starting. In order to display, ballpark entry shots must conform to the SOM naming convention, whereby the entry shot of the stadium is named "entryXXX" where XXX is the three digit code assigned to the stadium. Subsequent entry shots are named "entrBXXX", "entrCXXX",... there can be as many as 26 entry shots per stadium. Everything stays the same except the fifth character, which can be any letter from B to Z.

When users download a stadium image from YesterdaysGame, it will be bundled with concurrent ballpark entry shots for that time period.

.LOC Files

Since 2012, SOM has empowered gamers to create their own .loc files, however most of the files displayed on this site will have .loc files included in the bundle users can download to save time. If they do not have a .loc file associated with it, the download image will be noted accordingly. Remember that users can still use any stadium background image and create their own .loc file.

In many cases, there may be several good images of the same stadium configuration out there, our site is committed to hosting and displaying all of them that meet our quality criteria -- thereby offering users a choice. But no matter how many images of a stadium we post here, those that depict the same time era will have the same name. So if for example we have three good "day" pictures of Yankee stadium from the 1990's, they will all be named "bp900d" but each image will be displayed separately and its download zip file will be separate and inclusive (background bitmap, .loc file and ballpark entry shots).

We supply high quality, high-resolution stadium images that will bring out details that might otherwise be lost in the sands of time! Strat-o-matic has supported the high resolution images for display on its game since at least 2008. The following standards are the minimum quality and resolutions that will apply to each individual stadium image:

1) Minimum width (horizontal) 1200 pixels

Minimum height (vertical) 500 pixels

There is no maximum limit, most images found on this site will have a higher resolution than these listed.

2) Images are either created or scanned in a high resolution mode (usually 300dpi or greater).

When SOM came out with its computer baseball game in 1996, the average computer in the U.S. had a 1.5GB hard drive and most monitors had a very low resolution (about 800 x 600). Consequently, the original bitmap images loaded with the game were no larger 640 x 442 -- but they displayed pretty well on a low-resolution monitor. Computers and monitors have become exponentially more powerful since then, and even though SOM does not produce or distribute larger images with its game, its technology now supports high-resolution images, both in the actual stadium background photo used during the game (since 2008) as well as in the team notebook (since 2012). For the SOM ballpark entry shots, unfortunately SOM still only displays those in the original 640x442 format, and they must be sized accordingly as bitmaps. That is how the SOM download zips are formatted. However, fans can visit the stadium "Overviews" and "Perspectives" galleries to view these photos in their original high-resolution glory, and can also download those images as a jpeg album on the download site.

Many lower resolution images were supplied by Strat-O-Matic and by multiple fan sites in days gone by. These are still available on many sites, and we will supply links to some of them on this site. If a set of low-res images are displayed on Yesterday's Game, they will be displayed in a separate section below the catalog of high-resolution stadium backgrounds for each ballpark.

For the convenience of users, stadium backgrounds will be displayed in chronological order from earliest years to latest years.