After Earl Weaver's passing, let's remember the innovative computer game that bore his name

Earl Weaver died at age 82 on Saturday and, while he was a Hall of Fame manager, he was also a pioneer in the world of sports video games. Earl Weaver Baseball, released in 1987, broke ground in ways that were emulated in many subsequent baseball games.

Weaver was more than just a celebrity endorser of the game -- his strategy formed the basis of its artificial intelligence. The game's designers, Don Daglow and Eddie Dombrower, racked Weaver's brain in a series of interviews they conducted in hotels during the 1985 season. The wisdom they gleaned was baked into the game itself, which was released for the Commodore Amiga, MS-DOS and the Apple II.

Earl Weaver Baseball's other innovations included being the first game to feature real MLB players, the first in which it was possible to play a whole season instead of a single game and the first to depict different stadiums (including some demolished stadiums of the past). It also featured an editable announcer that one could, through the use of phonetic spelling, instruct as to how to correctly pronounce a player's name -- a feature that, as far as I know, has never been duplicated to this day.

Earl Weaver's impact on the game of baseball was huge -- and his impact on video games of baseball was pretty significant, too.

-- Dan Wohl / MLB.com