Longevity of the Game

A friend of mine recently said she met a couple who had been married for 70 years. My first question was whether the couple still liked each other after all that time. I mean, each has seen seven decades of changes in the other person and chose to stay together.

But my second thought was the dedication to consistency they shared and I pondered on my own longevity.  Obviously, not being 70 years old yet, I’ve not done anything close to the time this couple shared.

I pondered. The longest I’ve stayed at a job is the one I have now — 15 years now. I was married 11 and a half years before my wife passed away. Next month, I’ll have lived in this state for 21 years.

So I realized, the longest thing I’ve done consistently is play this APBA sports replay game I write about. I know that’s weird when considering life’s travails, but so be it.

I began playing the football game in 1977 and then began rolling the basketball game a year later. Those who remember the old solitaire basketball game understand it could take 20 years to complete a replay season with its terminally slow, plodding pace.

Since I started rolling games, I have gone through a lot of changes in life. I’ve counted 22 moves I’ve made since I began playing. I lived in three states, had every girlfriend and wife relationship begin, ensue and end while playing the game. I rolled games while in college —during undergraduate work, my masters program and the failed attempt at earning a Ph.D. — and at my subsequent news jobs that followed.

And  it may seem sad to those who married at an early age, raised children and stayed at the same job for decades and think that’s what consistency really is about. But this game has helped. It eases the struggle of life; it provides the escape we all look for in some way. 

The game, as I’ve said before, is the only real consistency I’ve had. I’m at 35 years playing and counting, halfway to the 70-year mark. If I make it to 87, I’m sure I’ll still be playing the game and I may even finish a basketball season by then. 

The Kelly Hearn/Kenny Heard Callings

I’ve been besieged lately by calls from several online colleges. At first, when I saw the names and numbers on the caller ID of my phone, I ignored those calls.

But rather than take the hint, the callers intensified their attempts to reach me and often called early in the morning or late in the evening — both the times I generally reserve for playing the APBA game.

So, I began answering the phone.

And I found that the callers all sought “Kelly Hearn,” who apparently requested more information for the online services. I told them there was no one here by that name and the callers promised to take me off the calling list.

Hours later, each time, the phone would ring again and it would be the same online college calling for Kelly Hearn again.

I’ve answered calls from the University of Phoenix, Kaplan University, Capella University and Westwood College. There may have been others; “Caller Blocked” and “No Data” may also be names of Internet course providers, according to the caller ID function on the phone.

I don’t know if this is a joke or not. The name “Kelly Hearn,” is rather close to my childhood name: "Kenny Heard.” Change two letters in my name and I’m a course-seeking person. Perhaps someone submitted my name as a prank so I’d get swamped by calls. If that’s the case, it’s kind of funny. Once in high school, I sent off for a body building catalogue in the name of a fellow student. I used his name and his home address and requested the entire gamut of information the catalogue service offered. The joke was that the fellow student was in better shape than Charles Atlas or Jack Lalanne, or whoever the pitch man for that company was.

So, I appreciated the attempt at humor if my calls were done as a prank. Although, those early morning calls that disrupted whatever APBA baseball game I was playing became annoying. As did the professed promises from the representatives never to call again, only to have them call a few hours later. I was tempted at times to tell them that Kelly Hearn was here, but she decided to forego college and instead chose to make money as a prostitute or a drug dealer or a sports bookie.

But then I thought maybe Kelly Hearn is a real person and she’s sitting somewhere contemplating her future and wondering why all those colleges from which she requested information had never called her. Maybe she’s worried that the clock’s ticking and she wants to enroll somewhere by the first of the year, or for the spring semester and she has heard nary a word. Her phone, perhaps a transposed digit from my phone number, lies quietly while I field calls for her on a daily basis.

So, either someone’s yukking it up over the clever prank he pulled on me, or Kelly Hearn is sitting somewhere forlorn that her future looks bleak.

Either way, the 1981 APBA baseball season games I’m replaying are briefly delayed while I take yet another call for Kelly Hearn. And then they are delayed again while I contemplate the machinations for why the calls are coming to me in the first place.

Leaving Lubbock

Here’s another reason why the APBA replay games are so important to me and how they are the talisman and worry beads during trying times.

Twenty-one years ago, I was in Lubbock, Texas, brokenhearted with no money and no plan. It sounds like a country music song, I know. And, in fact, when I resolved this issue, a country song popped up in my head. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Twenty-one years ago, I chased my heart to the west Texas town, following a girl who enrolled in a masters program at Texas Tech University. I tried to enter the Ph.D. program in English to be with her there, but my entrance scores were a bit low.  (Ain’t that great? I bomb an English test and have made my living writing)

I persevered, though, and after writing a persuasive letter about how tests don’t indicate the true performance and how real merit is determined by heart and blah-blah-blah,  I received a teaching position and paid tuition. Yes, I bluffed like a Texas Hold ‘Em player to get into a Texas university.

I moved into a dorm and shared a room with a kid who was way too happy and optimistic on life. He was 18. I was 31. It wasn’t good.

Then, the girl I was smitten with wanted to get married. But it was to someone else she found at the school. Made for an awkward dating situation. She dumped me and all I could do was retreat to my dorm room and watch the giddy roommate smile about classes, social events and life.

So, I spent a lot of time in west Texas bars when I wasn’t in classes, watching the American League playoffs unfold on television screens while sipping gin and off brand beer.

It wasn’t much of a life or a future. But then I remembered the APBA game. I called my mother and asked her to order the 1990-91 NBA basketball cards and have them sent to her home. I then began the process of dropping out of college, all the while preparing the season I would soon replay when I returned home. I made pages for each team’s schedule and prepared stat pages for the players.

It was the Polaris of my life at that time. The guiding star that something was ahead. I loved that basketball game for years and, after a hiatus from playing it while I pretended to be university material, I was looking forward to returning to the game.

I quit college on Oct. 21, 1991, to coincide with an off-day during the World Series. Minnesota was playing Atlanta that year and I didn’t want to miss a game. As I left Lubbock at about 5:30 a.m. that day, I looked in the rear view mirror as I passed the airport on the north end of town and that Mac Davis song about Lubbock hit me.

Yes, happiness was Lubbock in the rear view mirror and the APBA game ahead of me.

I made it home that night, unpacked my car and slept. The next day, I watched Game 3 of the Series and opened the box containing the APBA basketball cards.

I, the romantic dreamer who chased my heart into west Texas, was hit for a loop on that venture. For three months I taught English to high school-aged kids and I faked my way through Ph.D.-level courses. It was a stupid excursion and I told my heart to knock it off so something like that wouldn’t happen again.

But fortunately the heart didn’t listen entirely and the love of the game brought me back from Lubbock and through so many other trials of life, albeit scathed, but ready to roll more games.

Milestone

I just reached a milestone in my 1981 APBA baseball game replay. After rollin’ the dice for the July 11, 1981, contest between Cleveland and Baltimore tonight, I now have less than 1,000 games to go before I finish the season.

It may not seem much of a landmark for some, and it’s not that big of an accomplishment when compared to other things in life, I guess. But longtime APBA players get the milestone and I bet someone out there is tipping the yellow dice cup in my honor.

As cliché as it sounds, replaying a season, rolling the dice game-by-game, is a journey. It takes me well over a year to play a season and I think I play more games each day than some do. I average four or five games a day. Divide by that by the 2,000-plus games required in a full season and you’re looking at 400 or more days.

A lot happens in real life while I’m replaying a season that happened more than 30 years ago and while I’m creating a made-believe, alternative life. 

I’ll go through two Christmas doing this replay. The country may elect a new president and we’ll have new Super Bowl and World Series winners along the way. Celebrities pass away, fads come and go quickly, gas prices continue to rise during replays.

As a newspaper reporter, I cover stories on a daily basis and, during my 1981 replay already, I’ve written about snowstorms, tornadoes, court cases and, recently, a bizarre deal where a kid apparently shot himself in the back of a police car after he was arrested. Rev. Jesse Jackson came to town questioning racial overtones in the subsequent shooting investigation.

Like I said, life happens while you recreate life.

Once, I met an old girlfriend, rekindled our high school romance and then broke up, all during my 1974 replay. I went through the hardships of a bankruptcy and newspaper economics as I played the 1932 season.  My wife’s health worsened, she rebounded and then passed away while I rolled the 1987 season.

And that may be why I enjoy the game so much. In the roller coaster that is life, the steady pace of an APBA season helps balance the level of sanity. The games pass by one by one. It’s not that I want the season over. Each season takes on a personality, and APBA players can attest to this. When a season is over, it’s like putting away a memory.

But there are other seasons ahead.

And there’s more life that will pass by while the stable, steady replays keep coming.