I played two games recently in my APBA replay of the 1981 baseball season that, while probably insignificant in the overall season, really showed why I love this game.
APBA, for those of you who don’t know, is a statistics-based game that features cards for each player of a particular season. The cards include numbers that correspond with dice rolls that then correspond with outcomes of the game. You roll a set of dice, check that number on the player’s card and match the ensuing number with a set of plays that can occur.
There are 36 numbers on a player’s card. If, for example, a player hit .250 in real life that season, more than likely, his card will feature 9 hit numbers (9 out of 36 is 25 percent). If he had a propensity for walks, the card would reflect that with the number 14, a result for bases on balls.
So, it’s a mathematical, statistical, chance-based game.
But then there’s the magic of it all that supersedes the probability of what happens and that’s what draws me to the game.
There are two games that bear this out.
The first was my replay of a May 18, 1981, game with Boston hosting Seattle. The Mariners were 12-24 coming into the game; the Red Sox were 15-18. It wouldn’t have been chosen as NBC’s Game of the Week, what with the two participants.
In my replay, Seattle took a 3-0 lead into the bottom of the ninth and the Red Sox had one out with Carney Lansford on second. Tony Perez drew a walk and then catcher Rich Gedman was at bat.
In real life, Gedman didn’t even play in that game, according to www.baseball-almanac.com. But in my fictional game, he smacked a home run, tying the game at three and sending it into extra innings.
Then, in the bottom of the 11th inning, after Seattle took the lead, 4-3, Gedman came to bat again, this time with one on and two out. He hit another home run and the Red Sox won 5-4. Gedman, in the real 1981 season, hit only five home runs.
The second game came on my replay of the May 20, 1981, game with Kansas City traveling to New York.
The Yankees took a 4-2 lead into the top of the ninth with Tommy John giving up only five hits to the Royals. But then he fell apart. He gave up a single to Frank White to lead off the ninth and George Brett followed with his own single, driving White to third. Brett then stole second and John intentionally walked Willie Aikens. With the bases loaded, Amos Otis hit a grand slam and the Royals held on to win, 5-4.
Two games that never really happened, but to me in my game, in the small spare bedroom I converted into a baseball room, they did. And, while it may be odd to revel in something as inane as this, it helps me. As a reporter, I deal constantly with the truth, and sometimes the truth is overbearing what with the crime and injustice and moral decay we cover on a daily basis.
Something as innocent as a fictional baseball game replayed on a desk top provides an escape that I often need. And the Rich Gedmans and Amos Otis’ help take me there briefly.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
The APBA Closet
I have a walk-in closet that was once home to a bundle of clothes and scores of shoes. It was like every closet. It did what it was supposed to do.
But now, in my sports-obsessed world, the closet instead serves as a portal to the future of my sports replay games I play constantly, and to the past of those same games I played as a child.
When my wife passed away in 2006, I gradually moved out her clothing and took her shoes from a shelf built inside the closet. I hung my own clothes in it, but because I’m a guy, I don’t own that many. And shoes? I have one pair of sneakers that I’ve worn daily for the past four years. I think I’ve almost broken them in now. The shoe shelf was empty. Totally empty.
The idea hit me to consolidate my APBA sports games and store them in that closet.
I found the boxes that hold the cards of the various seasons of baseball, football, basketball and hockey I own and placed them in the shelf. I also shelved notebooks used for the previous seasons, instruction books for the games and the seasons' statistics I’ve kept over the years.
Above, on another shelf, I store game boxes. I still have the box that my first APBA game — a 1976 NFL season — came in.
It may seem childish, or even obsessive-compulsive, to do this, especially at my age.
But it provides a focus for me when things may get bleak.
Each morning, I enter the closet to get clothes for the day and I see those boxes of cards. And each day, I think of the seasons I still have to play. There’s the 1942 baseball season that’s up next as soon as I finish the 1981 baseball season I’m currently enmeshed with. There’s 1991 beckoning and 1954 with Willie Mays. I have 1901 and 1906, the early era of baseball I need to learn about while playing.
And then, there’s the 1993-94 NHL season I want to complete some time.
There’s also the 1977-78 NBA card set, still in the same box sent to my parents’ address when I was 18 years old.
So, the room is both a reminder of my past and a glimpse into the future of what I have left to do. On really dark, depressive days, I go into the closet and think, “I can’t leave yet. I have so many more seasons to complete.”
It’s a good thing, this closet. And it’s a room where I know I’ll have at least 15-20 more years ahead of me just playing the games.
But now, in my sports-obsessed world, the closet instead serves as a portal to the future of my sports replay games I play constantly, and to the past of those same games I played as a child.
When my wife passed away in 2006, I gradually moved out her clothing and took her shoes from a shelf built inside the closet. I hung my own clothes in it, but because I’m a guy, I don’t own that many. And shoes? I have one pair of sneakers that I’ve worn daily for the past four years. I think I’ve almost broken them in now. The shoe shelf was empty. Totally empty.
The idea hit me to consolidate my APBA sports games and store them in that closet.
I found the boxes that hold the cards of the various seasons of baseball, football, basketball and hockey I own and placed them in the shelf. I also shelved notebooks used for the previous seasons, instruction books for the games and the seasons' statistics I’ve kept over the years.
Above, on another shelf, I store game boxes. I still have the box that my first APBA game — a 1976 NFL season — came in.
It may seem childish, or even obsessive-compulsive, to do this, especially at my age.
But it provides a focus for me when things may get bleak.
Each morning, I enter the closet to get clothes for the day and I see those boxes of cards. And each day, I think of the seasons I still have to play. There’s the 1942 baseball season that’s up next as soon as I finish the 1981 baseball season I’m currently enmeshed with. There’s 1991 beckoning and 1954 with Willie Mays. I have 1901 and 1906, the early era of baseball I need to learn about while playing.
And then, there’s the 1993-94 NHL season I want to complete some time.
There’s also the 1977-78 NBA card set, still in the same box sent to my parents’ address when I was 18 years old.
So, the room is both a reminder of my past and a glimpse into the future of what I have left to do. On really dark, depressive days, I go into the closet and think, “I can’t leave yet. I have so many more seasons to complete.”
It’s a good thing, this closet. And it’s a room where I know I’ll have at least 15-20 more years ahead of me just playing the games.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
1981 Season Update: May 15
Here’s a quick update on the progress of my 1981 APBA baseball season replay. I’ve reached May 15 and I’m less than a month away from the actual baseball strike, which began June 12, 1981.
It took me three months to reach reach May 15 in the game and based on the progress, I anticipate reaching June 13, 1981, and playing games in my replay that never really happened because of the strike, by mid June of this year.
I also look back and attempt to figure out where I was on May 15, 1981. I probably had just gotten out of my junior year of college and returned home for the summer. It was the year I began my short-lived career as a greenskeeper and maintenance person.
In fact, it was sometime in May of 1981 that co-workers tied me to a rope and lowered me into one of the town’s two swimming pools. I had a hose in one hand and a industrial-strength vacuum in the other and I was charged with cleaning the leaves, sediment and general nastiness out of the bottom of the pool.
Ah, memories.
Here’s my standings so far, for all those APBA fans:
AMERICAN LEAGUE
East Division W L GB
New York 22 11 —
Baltimore 20 10 .5
Milwaukee 20 11 1
Detroit 20 12 1.5
Boston 15 16 6.5
Cleveland 14 15 7
Toronto 7 27 15.5
West Division W L GB
California 24 12 —
Kansas City 19 11 2
Oakland 18 17 5.5
Chicago 14 16 7
Texas 11 21 11
Seattle 11 23 12
Minnesota 10 23 12.5
NATIONAL LEAGUE
East Division W L GB
St. Louis 20 10 —
Philadelphia 20 12 1
Montreal 20 13 1.5
Pittsburgh 17 13 3
Chicago 13 18 7.5
New York 13 18 7.5
West Division W L GB
Houston 19 15 —
Los Angeles 18 15 .5
Atlanta 15 18 3.5
Cincinnati 15 18 3.5
San Francisco 15 21 5
San Diego 10 24 9
It took me three months to reach reach May 15 in the game and based on the progress, I anticipate reaching June 13, 1981, and playing games in my replay that never really happened because of the strike, by mid June of this year.
I also look back and attempt to figure out where I was on May 15, 1981. I probably had just gotten out of my junior year of college and returned home for the summer. It was the year I began my short-lived career as a greenskeeper and maintenance person.
In fact, it was sometime in May of 1981 that co-workers tied me to a rope and lowered me into one of the town’s two swimming pools. I had a hose in one hand and a industrial-strength vacuum in the other and I was charged with cleaning the leaves, sediment and general nastiness out of the bottom of the pool.
Ah, memories.
Here’s my standings so far, for all those APBA fans:
AMERICAN LEAGUE
East Division W L GB
New York 22 11 —
Baltimore 20 10 .5
Milwaukee 20 11 1
Detroit 20 12 1.5
Boston 15 16 6.5
Cleveland 14 15 7
Toronto 7 27 15.5
West Division W L GB
California 24 12 —
Kansas City 19 11 2
Oakland 18 17 5.5
Chicago 14 16 7
Texas 11 21 11
Seattle 11 23 12
Minnesota 10 23 12.5
NATIONAL LEAGUE
East Division W L GB
St. Louis 20 10 —
Philadelphia 20 12 1
Montreal 20 13 1.5
Pittsburgh 17 13 3
Chicago 13 18 7.5
New York 13 18 7.5
West Division W L GB
Houston 19 15 —
Los Angeles 18 15 .5
Atlanta 15 18 3.5
Cincinnati 15 18 3.5
San Francisco 15 21 5
San Diego 10 24 9
Saturday, March 3, 2012
25 Years Later
There are parallels in life that are unexplainable, yet seem to balance the harsh and bitter with things that are a bit easier to accept. And it seems the worse one end of the spectrum is, the better the other is to maintain a flat line of being when it’s all added up.
Case in point. My father passed away 25 years ago today after a lengthy illness. We knew it was coming, but it was still devastating. I had yet to become seasoned in the death of loved ones and his passing stung me deeply. But his passing made what happened in October so much more amazing, and it gave me a chance to hold on to my father for a long time.
He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s on July 24, 1970, in Fargo, N.D. I remember the date because that was when former Pres. Richard Nixon visited the town. We stayed in a hotel by a large medical complex — the same hotel Nixon stayed when he addressed a governor’s conference there.
My dad battled the disease bravely. But Parkinson’s limited his physical abilities and I didn’t get to play catch or shoot baskets with him like other children did with their fathers. Instead, he taught me to think and to analyze. And to enjoy sports.
Living in northern Minnesota at the time, we watched the Twins play baseball each summer. It was during their bleak years and we saw a lot of losses then, yet we continued to watch and we continued to root for them.
When we moved to Arkansas, we still followed the Minnesota Twins while they continued to play dismally.
My dad began getting worse and, as is the case with those dying, he recalled the past in an attempt to grasp a shard of mortality. He often told me about watching the New York Yankees as a child and seeing Mantle and DiMaggio and Berra play.
When he died, it began unraveling the safety net we feel from our parents even though we are adults.
Soon after he passed away, the Minnesota Twins opened their 1987 training camp. I didn’t know that it’d be a special year.
In August, I made a trip to Minnesota and caught a Twins' game in the old Metrodome. Stunningly, the Twinkies were in a pennant race and the fever hit Minneapolis. Kirby Puckett could run for governor and win. Kent Hrbek was a cult figure and Frankie Viola was throwing his “chin music” at opposing batters.
I often thought of my father during that season, hoping he could see the success of our team.
They won their division and then dispatched the Detroit Tigers in five games. They were heading to the World Series. Meanwhile, St. Louis defeated San Francisco in seven games, meaning the Series would be 200 miles from me.
I went to Game 5 in St. Louis, wearing a Twins tee-shirt and sitting way above third base in Busch Stadium. The Twins lost that game, but then returned to the Dome where they won both games and the Series.
I cried when the final out of the 1987 Series was over and the Twins rejoiced on the field, serenaded by the 55,000 who were at the game. But the tears weren’t for joy or the fact that it was Minnesota’s first championship. Instead, it was for my father who remained close by me during that season and who I believed had some hand in trying to ease the pain of losing him.
Case in point. My father passed away 25 years ago today after a lengthy illness. We knew it was coming, but it was still devastating. I had yet to become seasoned in the death of loved ones and his passing stung me deeply. But his passing made what happened in October so much more amazing, and it gave me a chance to hold on to my father for a long time.
He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s on July 24, 1970, in Fargo, N.D. I remember the date because that was when former Pres. Richard Nixon visited the town. We stayed in a hotel by a large medical complex — the same hotel Nixon stayed when he addressed a governor’s conference there.
My dad battled the disease bravely. But Parkinson’s limited his physical abilities and I didn’t get to play catch or shoot baskets with him like other children did with their fathers. Instead, he taught me to think and to analyze. And to enjoy sports.
Living in northern Minnesota at the time, we watched the Twins play baseball each summer. It was during their bleak years and we saw a lot of losses then, yet we continued to watch and we continued to root for them.
When we moved to Arkansas, we still followed the Minnesota Twins while they continued to play dismally.
My dad began getting worse and, as is the case with those dying, he recalled the past in an attempt to grasp a shard of mortality. He often told me about watching the New York Yankees as a child and seeing Mantle and DiMaggio and Berra play.
When he died, it began unraveling the safety net we feel from our parents even though we are adults.
Soon after he passed away, the Minnesota Twins opened their 1987 training camp. I didn’t know that it’d be a special year.
In August, I made a trip to Minnesota and caught a Twins' game in the old Metrodome. Stunningly, the Twinkies were in a pennant race and the fever hit Minneapolis. Kirby Puckett could run for governor and win. Kent Hrbek was a cult figure and Frankie Viola was throwing his “chin music” at opposing batters.
I often thought of my father during that season, hoping he could see the success of our team.
They won their division and then dispatched the Detroit Tigers in five games. They were heading to the World Series. Meanwhile, St. Louis defeated San Francisco in seven games, meaning the Series would be 200 miles from me.
I went to Game 5 in St. Louis, wearing a Twins tee-shirt and sitting way above third base in Busch Stadium. The Twins lost that game, but then returned to the Dome where they won both games and the Series.
I cried when the final out of the 1987 Series was over and the Twins rejoiced on the field, serenaded by the 55,000 who were at the game. But the tears weren’t for joy or the fact that it was Minnesota’s first championship. Instead, it was for my father who remained close by me during that season and who I believed had some hand in trying to ease the pain of losing him.
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