My ascension into the sports replay game obsession I have is in a direct inversion to the noise that the game makes. As I progressed through the years, the games got quieter.
And I have my father to thank for that.
My first delving into games was during the Christmas season in 1969. I asked for, and received, an electric baseball game, which those of you who have played it recognize it as one of the loudest games created.
It was made out of metal and featured small magnetic baseballs. Since I was an only child, I couldn’t pitch to myself with the game so instead I placed the ball at home plate, pulled a plastic lever to draw a bat back and then let ‘er rip. The ball would crash either into the outfield wall or on the field itself with a metallic ‘clank’ akin to the noise a car crusher makes in a junkyard. It sounded like l was throwing rocks at a barn made of tin siding. Looking back, I'm sure my parents would rather have had me develop an interest in quieter avocations like jack hammering or machine gun sport shooting.
I’d turn the power on and the electric baseball field would vibrate to make the runner move around the bases. A small cup mounted on the end of a spring atop the center field wall was the outfielder, and the player would pull the cup back and release it, throwing the ball to a base.
So, the game consisted of a continuous “Clank, whirr, clank” that eventually drove my father over the edge. I was mandated to only play the game when he was at work. I guess I could have gotten a 50-foot extension cord and taken it outside when he was home, but I didn't think of that at the time.
When I switched to the dice games that I play now, I believe my father was relieved — to a point. But at first, I used a plastic dice shaker that rattled the two dice used in the APBA games and that clacked loudly as well. I often played late into the night; as a high school student, I worked as a dishwasher and cook at a local bar and restaurant and came home late. I’d have to unwind before sleeping so I’d play a game or two well past midnight. The dice noise often woke my father.
It was he who suggested I forego the plastic cup and simply role the dice in my hand. It eliminated the noise. I even use a computer mouse pad now for the dice to tumble on to soften the noise.
It’s a technique I’ve used for some 35 years now and I’m sure I’ll keep doing that. Now, living alone, I could fire the dice out of a cannon into a pile of broken glass and no one would hear it.
Instead, maybe as a nod to my father’s influence so many years ago, I continue playing the games quietly.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
Street Scenes, Part 1
Santa drove a red Monte Carlo and he didn’t look too jolly talking on his cell phone.
I saw Santa the other day while driving downtown to work. He wore a tan tee-shirt and suspenders and he had a full white beard. He had glasses and, had I looked closely, he may even have had a twinkle in his eye.
But instead of being hearty and festive, Santa looked pissed.
He had his cell phone jammed to his ear and he was waving with his free hand while stopped at a light. I don’t think it was some child on the other end asking for a pony next Christmas. Instead, it was probably Mrs. Claus reaming him out for unpaid bills, unfilled dreams and unaccounted time he spent away from home.
I didn’t make eye contact with Santa when I lined up next to him at the traffic light. You don’t look at Santa directly during the off season and expect to get the good presents the following year. But I saw enough to get the impression that he was saying “No, hell!” rather than “Noel.”
Then I realized how far I had fallen in my tumble into cynicism. Most people, when seeing someone looking like St. Nick, would be thinking of happy thoughts, memories of Christmas past, cookies and milk, family gatherings and trips across snow-blanketed fields to Grandma’s.
I see a broken-down, out-of-work Santa catching grief from his ol’ lady.
The light changed and we both drove through the intersection. The red Monte Carlo sputtered a moment before catching; the muffler popping a couple of times. I was disappointed in my negative thoughts about the situation.
I was more disappointed I didn’t get a chance to ask for a pony.
I saw Santa the other day while driving downtown to work. He wore a tan tee-shirt and suspenders and he had a full white beard. He had glasses and, had I looked closely, he may even have had a twinkle in his eye.
But instead of being hearty and festive, Santa looked pissed.
He had his cell phone jammed to his ear and he was waving with his free hand while stopped at a light. I don’t think it was some child on the other end asking for a pony next Christmas. Instead, it was probably Mrs. Claus reaming him out for unpaid bills, unfilled dreams and unaccounted time he spent away from home.
I didn’t make eye contact with Santa when I lined up next to him at the traffic light. You don’t look at Santa directly during the off season and expect to get the good presents the following year. But I saw enough to get the impression that he was saying “No, hell!” rather than “Noel.”
Then I realized how far I had fallen in my tumble into cynicism. Most people, when seeing someone looking like St. Nick, would be thinking of happy thoughts, memories of Christmas past, cookies and milk, family gatherings and trips across snow-blanketed fields to Grandma’s.
I see a broken-down, out-of-work Santa catching grief from his ol’ lady.
The light changed and we both drove through the intersection. The red Monte Carlo sputtered a moment before catching; the muffler popping a couple of times. I was disappointed in my negative thoughts about the situation.
I was more disappointed I didn’t get a chance to ask for a pony.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
It's All About Sports
My mother once told me when I was young that I’d never be a good husband unless I shed the sports obsession I possessed.
I didn’t tell her that my dad — her husband — was the one who instilled the mania in me in the first place. He regaled me with tales of watching the Yankees when he lived in New York in the 1940s and 1950s. With my father’s fodder about seeing DiMaggio and Mantle play baseball, how could I avoid the fervor?
The obsession didn’t parlay into actual skill. I couldn’t play the games well. I had the coordination of a drunk at last call. I tried sports, but I was sloppy and, like the drunk, probably shed a few tears.
So, I watched sports and studied the players, the statistics and the strategy. I figured out how to compute a pitcher’s ERA when I was nine. Quite an accomplishment for a youngster, but none of my friends cared. They were busy playing the sports I read about.
And the obsession grew. When I was in high school, I wrote Major League Baseball previews for our school newspaper. I bore down on homework on Mondays, wrapping it up unusually early so I could watch the Monday Night Football games.
I even ended a high school relationship in conjunction with sports.
It was March 26, 1979. Indiana State was playing Michigan State in the NCAA basketball finals. My girlfriend and I were circling the drain for some time, but neither had the gumption to really end it. Finally, that evening, I decided to break it off. I told my dad I was leaving, but I’d be back in time for the tip-off.
“You’re going to miss the game,” he said, concerned that the breakup may take a while.
“I’ll be back,” I said.
And I was. I met my girlfriend at, fittingly, a church basketball court and ended a two-year fling with little negotiations. I returned home and watched the game. I’ve looked back on that day and realized it was the day I became a man in my dad’s eyes.
Fast forward 30 years. Same girlfriend. We got back together after the three-decade break. Again, we were circling the drain. Again, I decided I had enough. She and her kids came to my house to live when a ice storm killed their power. It was Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 1, 2009.
I pulled the plug this time during half-time of the game and was able to catch the second half unscathed.
Once, years ago, my wife forced me to quit watching a college basketball game featuring Minnesota and Arizona because I was getting too animated and she feared my heart would end before the game did.
It’s all about sports. Maybe I use the game as a crutch to avoid the situations that I could possibly have avoided if I were not so gung-ho about sports. Maybe had I spent more time in reparations and negotiations with the high school girlfriend back in 1979, or 2009 for that matter, I could have salvaged the relationship.
But then I would have missed the game.
Maybe my mom was right.
I didn’t tell her that my dad — her husband — was the one who instilled the mania in me in the first place. He regaled me with tales of watching the Yankees when he lived in New York in the 1940s and 1950s. With my father’s fodder about seeing DiMaggio and Mantle play baseball, how could I avoid the fervor?
The obsession didn’t parlay into actual skill. I couldn’t play the games well. I had the coordination of a drunk at last call. I tried sports, but I was sloppy and, like the drunk, probably shed a few tears.
So, I watched sports and studied the players, the statistics and the strategy. I figured out how to compute a pitcher’s ERA when I was nine. Quite an accomplishment for a youngster, but none of my friends cared. They were busy playing the sports I read about.
And the obsession grew. When I was in high school, I wrote Major League Baseball previews for our school newspaper. I bore down on homework on Mondays, wrapping it up unusually early so I could watch the Monday Night Football games.
I even ended a high school relationship in conjunction with sports.
It was March 26, 1979. Indiana State was playing Michigan State in the NCAA basketball finals. My girlfriend and I were circling the drain for some time, but neither had the gumption to really end it. Finally, that evening, I decided to break it off. I told my dad I was leaving, but I’d be back in time for the tip-off.
“You’re going to miss the game,” he said, concerned that the breakup may take a while.
“I’ll be back,” I said.
And I was. I met my girlfriend at, fittingly, a church basketball court and ended a two-year fling with little negotiations. I returned home and watched the game. I’ve looked back on that day and realized it was the day I became a man in my dad’s eyes.
Fast forward 30 years. Same girlfriend. We got back together after the three-decade break. Again, we were circling the drain. Again, I decided I had enough. She and her kids came to my house to live when a ice storm killed their power. It was Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 1, 2009.
I pulled the plug this time during half-time of the game and was able to catch the second half unscathed.
Once, years ago, my wife forced me to quit watching a college basketball game featuring Minnesota and Arizona because I was getting too animated and she feared my heart would end before the game did.
It’s all about sports. Maybe I use the game as a crutch to avoid the situations that I could possibly have avoided if I were not so gung-ho about sports. Maybe had I spent more time in reparations and negotiations with the high school girlfriend back in 1979, or 2009 for that matter, I could have salvaged the relationship.
But then I would have missed the game.
Maybe my mom was right.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
She's Back
Shhhhhhhh, be very quiet. She’s back.
I am holding my breath and typing softly. I am afraid to move, lest my movements create sound. Even the soft clicking of my APBA dice could be an indicator I am stirring inside.
After a two-month break, the church lady has returned. She’s outside right now. I just happened to look out the window when I saw the tan Buick roll up to the front of my driveway. I peeked as the car door opened and the lil' lady — this time wearing a purple skirt and dark sweater — walked up the driveway, the thick heels of her shoes making a clacking noise much similar to the pounding of nails into Christ's hands and feet.
I need to sneeze, but I can't.
She began coming here on Saturday mornings about five years ago, right after my wife passed away. I guess she felt I was vulnerable with my loss and susceptible to her creed.
And I answered the door at first. But then I began working late on Friday nights and I tended to sleep in on Saturdays. And if I were awake, I’d not be dressed yet when she came a-callin.’ I didn’t want to answer the door in my relaxed state. Nothing worse than seeing a fat guy in baggy underwear and ripped sleeping tee-shirt, scratching and mussing my hair.
I thought her departure for the past 60 days meant she felt I was a lost cause. I left a bottle of scotch in a bookshelf in my garage in November, about the time the visits stopped. I sit in a rocker and read books, watching the neighborhood through the never-closed garage door, and I polished off my bottle of Dewars. I thought the bottle may have kept her away, much like a scarecrow keeps the birds away.
Instead, it must have been the holidays and now that Christmas and New Year’s are over, she’s returned. I'm back to being a fugitive of fundamentalism, hiding in my house, ironically offering a silent prayer to God that the woman touting God will leave.
The one small advantage is that I've become trained to the possibility of her appearance on Saturday's and, in a subconscious way, I'm ready. It's the Pavlovian dog thing. Hear a bell, salivate. See the tan Buick, cower. I don't turn on the stereo or television until after noon so to mask any sounds that may indicate life abides inside.
Thankfully, I delayed my living room plans of dancing in my shorts to KC and the Sunshine Band's Greatest Hits. "I'm Your Bogeyman" would take on a different meaning had it been playing when The Arrival came.
The car is leaving; she’s gone. I can return to the land of the noise.
For at least two weeks again.
I am holding my breath and typing softly. I am afraid to move, lest my movements create sound. Even the soft clicking of my APBA dice could be an indicator I am stirring inside.
After a two-month break, the church lady has returned. She’s outside right now. I just happened to look out the window when I saw the tan Buick roll up to the front of my driveway. I peeked as the car door opened and the lil' lady — this time wearing a purple skirt and dark sweater — walked up the driveway, the thick heels of her shoes making a clacking noise much similar to the pounding of nails into Christ's hands and feet.
I need to sneeze, but I can't.
She began coming here on Saturday mornings about five years ago, right after my wife passed away. I guess she felt I was vulnerable with my loss and susceptible to her creed.
And I answered the door at first. But then I began working late on Friday nights and I tended to sleep in on Saturdays. And if I were awake, I’d not be dressed yet when she came a-callin.’ I didn’t want to answer the door in my relaxed state. Nothing worse than seeing a fat guy in baggy underwear and ripped sleeping tee-shirt, scratching and mussing my hair.
I thought her departure for the past 60 days meant she felt I was a lost cause. I left a bottle of scotch in a bookshelf in my garage in November, about the time the visits stopped. I sit in a rocker and read books, watching the neighborhood through the never-closed garage door, and I polished off my bottle of Dewars. I thought the bottle may have kept her away, much like a scarecrow keeps the birds away.
Instead, it must have been the holidays and now that Christmas and New Year’s are over, she’s returned. I'm back to being a fugitive of fundamentalism, hiding in my house, ironically offering a silent prayer to God that the woman touting God will leave.
The one small advantage is that I've become trained to the possibility of her appearance on Saturday's and, in a subconscious way, I'm ready. It's the Pavlovian dog thing. Hear a bell, salivate. See the tan Buick, cower. I don't turn on the stereo or television until after noon so to mask any sounds that may indicate life abides inside.
Thankfully, I delayed my living room plans of dancing in my shorts to KC and the Sunshine Band's Greatest Hits. "I'm Your Bogeyman" would take on a different meaning had it been playing when The Arrival came.
The car is leaving; she’s gone. I can return to the land of the noise.
For at least two weeks again.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
I Don't Live In My Parents' Basement
How, as an adult, do I tell someone I play a game consisting of dice and cards and baseball players without looking either childish or creepy?
I’ve tried to explain the hobby and how APBA is really a complex game that many adults — some older than I — have played for decades. I’ve tried to tell them about how each player card replicates his real season; a great season is reflected with great hitting numbers on the player’s stat card; a bad season has lots of ground out and strikeout numbers.
In other words, I try and make it sound more, for lack of better wording, adult like.
But as I get more fervently involved in my description, discussing the uncanny realism of the game and the zen and peace it brings me during stressful times, I notice my audience fading.
They take on either a muted horrified look, as if I were going into detail about maiming animals or selling children into slavery, or a more pitied expression. It’s that look of, “That’s nice. How long have you lived in your parents’ basement?” Or, “Wonderful. Are you a Master Wizard in Dungeons and Dragons, too?”
So, I oft keep it to myself about my obsession of the game.
And that’s difficult because some things happen that bear sharing. For instance, the other day, I was replaying Cincinnati vs. Houston’s April 25, 1981, game. Tom Seaver was pitching for the Reds in my game. The contest was scoreless through nine when I realized Seaver was pitching a no-hitter. I kept Seaver in through the 10th and he mowed down three Astros in a row. In the top of the 11th, Ray Knight singled in Dan Driessen and the Reds led, 1-0. All Seaver had to do was get through the 11th,which he did.
It was the most amazing pitching performance I’ve ever had in this game. And, of course, while I talk like it is, it’s not real. So, if I were to babble on about it, the person I was sharing this with would not have the same perspective and I would come across as a sad, lonely person.
It’s a great example of irony. This game that keeps me from being some brooding introvert is the element people use to think that I am some brooding introvert.
And the baseball world I create that gives me relaxation and peace of mind is the cause for a fine line of differentiated tension between me and others.
I’ve tried to explain the hobby and how APBA is really a complex game that many adults — some older than I — have played for decades. I’ve tried to tell them about how each player card replicates his real season; a great season is reflected with great hitting numbers on the player’s stat card; a bad season has lots of ground out and strikeout numbers.
In other words, I try and make it sound more, for lack of better wording, adult like.
But as I get more fervently involved in my description, discussing the uncanny realism of the game and the zen and peace it brings me during stressful times, I notice my audience fading.
They take on either a muted horrified look, as if I were going into detail about maiming animals or selling children into slavery, or a more pitied expression. It’s that look of, “That’s nice. How long have you lived in your parents’ basement?” Or, “Wonderful. Are you a Master Wizard in Dungeons and Dragons, too?”
So, I oft keep it to myself about my obsession of the game.
And that’s difficult because some things happen that bear sharing. For instance, the other day, I was replaying Cincinnati vs. Houston’s April 25, 1981, game. Tom Seaver was pitching for the Reds in my game. The contest was scoreless through nine when I realized Seaver was pitching a no-hitter. I kept Seaver in through the 10th and he mowed down three Astros in a row. In the top of the 11th, Ray Knight singled in Dan Driessen and the Reds led, 1-0. All Seaver had to do was get through the 11th,which he did.
It was the most amazing pitching performance I’ve ever had in this game. And, of course, while I talk like it is, it’s not real. So, if I were to babble on about it, the person I was sharing this with would not have the same perspective and I would come across as a sad, lonely person.
It’s a great example of irony. This game that keeps me from being some brooding introvert is the element people use to think that I am some brooding introvert.
And the baseball world I create that gives me relaxation and peace of mind is the cause for a fine line of differentiated tension between me and others.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
1981
For me, 1981 will always be the “what if” year.
My college sweetheart and I had broken up a few days before that year began, sending me into a reeling despair.
She was a great girlfriend; pretty, smart, intelligent, edgy, sarcastic. It was my first real love and, at that time, I felt it was perfect.
We had a great summer together, but she moved to New York in the fall of 1980 to go to art school and we drifted apart. I’ve always said, “Absence makes the heart forget.”
She came back home for Christmas and we spent a lot of time together in that no man’s land between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. We both knew it wouldn’t work. The 1,000 miles of geographical distance between us was much shorter than the differences between us emotionally and culturally. She was a big city girl now. I was still a goofy small town boy.
It was tough.
So, like I always do, I relied on sports. I focused on baseball.
But in 1981, sports fans remember, the players went on strike in June and for several weeks baseball stopped.
When it resumed, the leagues decided on having split seasons much like the minor leagues. Win the first half, play the second half winner to determine who would go on to divisional championships. It was a weird way to do it because it took away the urgency to win the pennant if the team won the first half.
And there were the controversies. St. Louis got ripped off. They had the best seasonal, combined record in the National League East, but because they finished second in both halves they didn’t make the playoffs.
All that to say that I’m doing the 1981 baseball replay with my APBA game to see what would happen if there were no strike. And, correspondingly, I wonder what would have happened if my college girlfriend hadn’t moved to New York. Would we have stayed together? Would we have gotten married? Would we have broken up, embittered like couples get?
But more importantly, would the Cardinals win the East if there were no strike?
I’ve played 168 games in the season so far and have reached April 25, 1981. The Cardinals look good so far, but it’s early and, as I’ve found doing so many other APBA replays, things can happen.
The game will answer the “what if” in the baseball season.
The other question, the personal one, will never be answered.
My college sweetheart and I had broken up a few days before that year began, sending me into a reeling despair.
She was a great girlfriend; pretty, smart, intelligent, edgy, sarcastic. It was my first real love and, at that time, I felt it was perfect.
We had a great summer together, but she moved to New York in the fall of 1980 to go to art school and we drifted apart. I’ve always said, “Absence makes the heart forget.”
She came back home for Christmas and we spent a lot of time together in that no man’s land between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. We both knew it wouldn’t work. The 1,000 miles of geographical distance between us was much shorter than the differences between us emotionally and culturally. She was a big city girl now. I was still a goofy small town boy.
It was tough.
So, like I always do, I relied on sports. I focused on baseball.
But in 1981, sports fans remember, the players went on strike in June and for several weeks baseball stopped.
When it resumed, the leagues decided on having split seasons much like the minor leagues. Win the first half, play the second half winner to determine who would go on to divisional championships. It was a weird way to do it because it took away the urgency to win the pennant if the team won the first half.
And there were the controversies. St. Louis got ripped off. They had the best seasonal, combined record in the National League East, but because they finished second in both halves they didn’t make the playoffs.
All that to say that I’m doing the 1981 baseball replay with my APBA game to see what would happen if there were no strike. And, correspondingly, I wonder what would have happened if my college girlfriend hadn’t moved to New York. Would we have stayed together? Would we have gotten married? Would we have broken up, embittered like couples get?
But more importantly, would the Cardinals win the East if there were no strike?
I’ve played 168 games in the season so far and have reached April 25, 1981. The Cardinals look good so far, but it’s early and, as I’ve found doing so many other APBA replays, things can happen.
The game will answer the “what if” in the baseball season.
The other question, the personal one, will never be answered.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
The Game
First, this is by no means an endorsement of the APBA game company. I haven’t talked to anyone at their Lancaster, Pa., headquarters and, other than my name appearing on a few previous order forms — if they keep them — I am not a blip on their radar.
I don’t think I’m even on their mailing list anymore.
I’ve also delved into other sports replay games. I own an old Sports Illustrated college football game, a Sherco baseball game from 1977, a Replay basketball set and, in a fleeting moment that I later felt like a cheating spouse, I bought a Strat-o-Matic hockey game.
But I’ve always stuck with APBA, and the consistency of the game in my life has become profound. With all the other changes I’ve endured from childhood to adulthood — jobs, heartbreaks, marriage, the death of both parents, moving, bankruptcy, the death of my wife — the game has remained the one constant. I know that for a while I can shed the travails of life and hide in the sports world I created with the dice and cards.
I began with that 1976 NFL season. It was a complex game that took a long time to complete. I then got the 1978-79 NBA season. The APBA game, many criticized, was too plodding for solitaire play. But I loved it. I’d stay up late rolling the dice and recording shots, goals, free throws and rebounds. I got the following season a year later and became hooked.
In 1991, after I returned from a failed romance in Lubbock, Texas, I played the 1990-91 NBA season and then when APBA introduced it, I bought the first hockey card set for the 1992-93 season.
It wasn’t until Christmas of 1998 that I tried the baseball game. I’ve been playing it since.
And it has been a companion. When my wife’s kidneys failed and we entered a three-year period of medical hell, I toted the 1957 baseball season with me to the Memphis hospital where she was treated. I followed that with the 1987 baseball season. I let my wife toss the last dice roll of that season. She rolled a 32, a fly ball that ended the World Series that, in my game, featured Kansas City and St. Louis. It was one of the last healthy things she did. A few months later she passed away.
The game became my lone companion. In the quietness and the emptiness of what became my life, I rolled the 1932 season, the 1974 season, the 1977 season and the 1964 season.
And I roll on. I’m now about 150 games into the 1981 baseball season. It takes a year or more to finish a season, replaying each game — in the case of the 1981 season, 2,106 games — one by one.
Life keeps changing. The dice keeps rolling.
I don’t think I’m even on their mailing list anymore.
I’ve also delved into other sports replay games. I own an old Sports Illustrated college football game, a Sherco baseball game from 1977, a Replay basketball set and, in a fleeting moment that I later felt like a cheating spouse, I bought a Strat-o-Matic hockey game.
But I’ve always stuck with APBA, and the consistency of the game in my life has become profound. With all the other changes I’ve endured from childhood to adulthood — jobs, heartbreaks, marriage, the death of both parents, moving, bankruptcy, the death of my wife — the game has remained the one constant. I know that for a while I can shed the travails of life and hide in the sports world I created with the dice and cards.
I began with that 1976 NFL season. It was a complex game that took a long time to complete. I then got the 1978-79 NBA season. The APBA game, many criticized, was too plodding for solitaire play. But I loved it. I’d stay up late rolling the dice and recording shots, goals, free throws and rebounds. I got the following season a year later and became hooked.
In 1991, after I returned from a failed romance in Lubbock, Texas, I played the 1990-91 NBA season and then when APBA introduced it, I bought the first hockey card set for the 1992-93 season.
It wasn’t until Christmas of 1998 that I tried the baseball game. I’ve been playing it since.
And it has been a companion. When my wife’s kidneys failed and we entered a three-year period of medical hell, I toted the 1957 baseball season with me to the Memphis hospital where she was treated. I followed that with the 1987 baseball season. I let my wife toss the last dice roll of that season. She rolled a 32, a fly ball that ended the World Series that, in my game, featured Kansas City and St. Louis. It was one of the last healthy things she did. A few months later she passed away.
The game became my lone companion. In the quietness and the emptiness of what became my life, I rolled the 1932 season, the 1974 season, the 1977 season and the 1964 season.
And I roll on. I’m now about 150 games into the 1981 baseball season. It takes a year or more to finish a season, replaying each game — in the case of the 1981 season, 2,106 games — one by one.
Life keeps changing. The dice keeps rolling.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Roll of the Dice
When I was 16, I asked a girl out for the first time in my life. The high school prom loomed with all its angst and trauma, and my friends and I had reached that age when asking girls out was the norm, in addition to the rejection that would follow for years to come. We had left the collective nest of the chaste and forced celibacy that embraces youth and stands out in its geekiness like a new Christmas sweater.
It was time and I had to take a chance. I espied a girl two years younger than me who was cute, but not popular. I knew my limitations. I was a nerd, therefore I couldn’t ask out the class whore, the perpetual beauty queen or the All-American Girl.
I don’t remember the details of the negotiations; I’m sure it involved several middlemen and hand-scrawled notes passed in the hallways of the school.
It didn't matter the process. She accepted and I entered the world of confusion that has remained a constant now, 35 years later.
At about the same time, my parents bought for me my first APBA sports board game. It was a game using dice and cards that replicated a professional sports season. Gamers tossed the dice, matched its results with numbers printed on individual players’ cards and read results on printed boards to discover the action. A low number could indicate a running back busted a long run or a quarterback hit a receiver for substantial yardage. A roll of a 25, say, could indicate an incomplete pass.
My first game was the 1976 NFL season, a hefty game for a kid of 17. A year later, my parents got the 1978-79 NBA season and away I went.
The prom date went only fair, as can be expected on a first date. We continued misstepping in the dance of young romance for two years; all the while I continued playing my APBA games. They provided the only consistency, the only normalness in the bizarre world of hormones, young love and misunderstood commitments.
And now, more than three decades later, I’m still playing APBA — having graduated to the more popular baseball game — and I’m still dealing with the same girl after a 30-year break.
Ever since I was old enough to really remember, I’ve been taking chances on love. And I’ve been playing APBA games just as long.
Yes, I’ve been rolling the dice all this time.
Both figuratively and literally.
It was time and I had to take a chance. I espied a girl two years younger than me who was cute, but not popular. I knew my limitations. I was a nerd, therefore I couldn’t ask out the class whore, the perpetual beauty queen or the All-American Girl.
I don’t remember the details of the negotiations; I’m sure it involved several middlemen and hand-scrawled notes passed in the hallways of the school.
It didn't matter the process. She accepted and I entered the world of confusion that has remained a constant now, 35 years later.
At about the same time, my parents bought for me my first APBA sports board game. It was a game using dice and cards that replicated a professional sports season. Gamers tossed the dice, matched its results with numbers printed on individual players’ cards and read results on printed boards to discover the action. A low number could indicate a running back busted a long run or a quarterback hit a receiver for substantial yardage. A roll of a 25, say, could indicate an incomplete pass.
My first game was the 1976 NFL season, a hefty game for a kid of 17. A year later, my parents got the 1978-79 NBA season and away I went.
The prom date went only fair, as can be expected on a first date. We continued misstepping in the dance of young romance for two years; all the while I continued playing my APBA games. They provided the only consistency, the only normalness in the bizarre world of hormones, young love and misunderstood commitments.
And now, more than three decades later, I’m still playing APBA — having graduated to the more popular baseball game — and I’m still dealing with the same girl after a 30-year break.
Ever since I was old enough to really remember, I’ve been taking chances on love. And I’ve been playing APBA games just as long.
Yes, I’ve been rolling the dice all this time.
Both figuratively and literally.
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