The game first appeared in 1941 and a special version is still sold today. It was the best-selling baseball board game of all time, and is the only such game to have been distributed through mass market channels and toy stores for any extended period of time. The annual versions of the game were discontinued in the mid-1990s due to the loss of market share to video games and greatly increased player licensing costs, but a commemorative version was issued in 2003.