The Story Behind the Game

In 1927, my great-grandfather, Lewis A. Bedard, first published Lewis A. Bedard’s Universal Baseball Playing Cards.

He designed the game to capture the possibilities of a real baseball game in a deck of cards. Hits, strikes, balls, outs, and unexpected turns all emerged through the choices made by two players. He continued refining and publishing the game for decades.

Many years later, a copy of the game came into my care, complete with its original deck and rulebook. The rules were remarkably thorough, but they were also nearly 40 pages long and written for players from another era.

I began by transcribing the rulebook so I could study the game carefully. Even then, understanding how all of its parts worked together was a challenge. I eventually built a computer simulation to test the rules, identify problems, and explore how the game could be made easier for modern players to learn.

What followed was a long process of revision and testing. The current rules are approximately seven pages long. They preserve the essential character of the original game while providing a foundation for advanced features, such as stolen bases and double plays, to return in future editions.

This game matters to me. It represents nearly a century of history, along with a substantial investment of time and care in bringing it back into print. I want people to play it, share it, and enjoy it. I also want the authentic game and its history to remain connected to the people who created and preserved it.

That concern led to a larger question: how can an independent creator share something meaningful while making it harder for unauthorized copies to be mistaken for the real thing?

Large companies may have access to specialized packaging, enforcement teams, and expensive anti-counterfeiting programs. Independent creators usually do not. A copied product can take away more than a sale. It can separate a creator from the work, confuse customers, and weaken the value of the authentic edition.

Bedard’s Universal Baseball became my first opportunity to search for a practical answer.

Each deck in the first edition includes credentials that correspond to an authenticity record published by LiTPOW. Customers can check those credentials without downloading an app, creating an account, or owning Bitcoin. The system cannot prevent every copy from being made, but it can give the authentic product evidence that an imitation cannot create simply by reproducing the artwork, packaging, or story.

I chose this game as LiTPOW’s first published and authenticated product because I believe an idea like this should be tested with something that genuinely matters to the person building it. I am not asking other creators to trust a theory that I have been unwilling to test with my own work.

The game is real. The first edition is real. The risk of copying is real. By placing something personally meaningful into the system first, I can learn what works, acknowledge what does not, and continue searching for better ways to help creators and customers recognize authentic products.

I hope Bedard’s Universal Baseball brings people together around a table, just as baseball has brought people together for generations.

I also hope its story demonstrates why authenticity is worth protecting.

Now, let’s play ball.

Sincerely,

Joshua Williams