As many of you know, Baseball Boss is a little over a year old. As Gussie Busch said about his 1982 St. Louis Cardinals, it’s been “a heckuva year.”

The fun part (and the challenging part) about building games for the web is that the web evolves incredibly rapidly. A great example of this is what has happened to gaming over the past year. It’s impossible not to notice the impact social networks - and especially Facebook - have had on how people play games. After a great deal of thought and deliberation, we’ve decided the best way to build games that large numbers of people play and love is to focus our energies on developing games for social networks. To be clear, we are still extremely committed and very passionate about building fun social games.

Gridiron Live (http://apps.facebook.com/gridironlive/) is our first game on that path. Even though it is in beta and we still are doing much to improve it, it is a first-of-its-kind intersection of sports gaming and social gaming. We are very encouraged by what we’ve seen in GridIron Live in just its first 2 weeks. In the coming weeks, we will release another new Facebook game. We are proud of these two games and believe they will add significantly to the next generation of games people play on social networks.

As a current player of Baseball Boss, it’s natural to wonder what this means. The answer is twofold. First, we are not planning to take this game - or any of our existing games - down. We will continue to maintain and support them, although perhaps not at the level that the most passionate of our players would like. Second, we will launch new versions of some (and possibly all) of our web games on Facebook. We will do our best to make the transition from web game to Facebook game as smooth as possible, and do what’s right by the people who have helped make our web games what they are.

Two things are evidence of this strategy. First, Warstorm has a new card expansion coming out today. Second, we will roll out a new generation of one our current games to Facebook in November. We’ll be announcing more details in a few weeks, but the introduction of that game is close and we think it looks great. We’ve found that Facebook provides a number of opportunities to make games even more fun to play, and we’re looking forward to doing innovative things on that platform, just as we have done on the web.

Know that this is not a decision we made lightly. We recognize that not everyone will be satisfied. But it is an exciting time for Challenge Games. Our goal has always been to make Baseball Boss the greatest baseball game ever, and that has not changed. We believe this transition to social gaming will bring all our games to an entirely new audience while doing what is best for our players, our company, our employees, and our investors.

Let’s review the tale of the tape:

Alex Rodriguez:

Ryan Howard:

I’d choose the Subway sub over Kate Hudson, too. Aside from that, I’m not sure whether to go with the guy who’s as productive as the Eagles offense and looking to tie Lou Gehrig’s 77-year-old record for consecutive postseason games with an RBI, or the guy who’s shedding demonizing labels and looking to reclaiming his GOAT status. Not scapegoat: Greatest of All-Time.

I’m torn. Rather let the pitchers decide who to throw to.

Phillies win 8-6 with timely power hitting, return to form of its once dominant closer, blahblahblah.

But let’s get down to brass tacks: I loves me a good hoax, and oh, did the Balloon Boy Incident have it all. There was a Pixar-inspired UFO, reality-TV parents, a spooky box in the attic, and all of it caused a media swell for a truly spectacular couple of frenzied hours. The national live feed of the low-speed chase following the homemade saucer’s flightpath from the local-affiliate newscopter might just be our generation’s white Ford Bronco on the lam coverage. [And notice that O.J. reference comes without any “bizarro” alternate-universe connotation.]

I laughed, I was shocked, and there was even the suggestion of death. Is it too much to ask the internet if we can we have one of these every month or so?

In the meantime, allow me to continue Falcon Heene’s original mission: to usurp the Goodyear blimp with aerial, weather-specific coverage of the ALCS. Looks like it’s going to be very cold and very damp, but (by all estimates) playable. Still: anybody want to take odds on the prospects of November baseball? Or is that already a foregone conclusion?

Say hello to our sleek-looking football counterpart.

We have a new game in the Challenge Games family, and it’s on Facebook! Our sports game team has been hard at work on GridIron Live, the first 3D football game that plays in a web browser, and it just went live.

Check it out, give us your feedback and - if you enjoy it - share with friends. Thanks!