With the completion of the Aug. 15, 1981, game of the New York Yankees at Detroit, I rolled game number 1,500 in my 1981 baseball replay. I have 10 days left before I’ll reach a year in playing this season, so I’m averaging about four games a day. Not bad, I think, when I consider I lost a week of games when I flirted with pneumonia earlier this year and I work at a place that seems to ramp up production quotas and stress as the year progresses.
The season so far has been a good one, and while I play 1981, I often think back on that year for me personally. It was somewhat of a turning point for me, one of many in life’s travels, I guess, but that year made an impression on in many ways. And this game provides a mechanism for me to look back and reflect on life 31 years ago.
As I’ve said here before, I’ve ignore the actual baseball strike that plagued the middle of the 1981 season. All is perfect in APBA. No strikes, no lockouts, no player discord, no rainouts. Every game intended to be played that year will be played.
All is perfect in APBA.
All, except for the Minnesota Twins, which endured a horrific 26-game losing streak in the replay, and now the Yankees,which are in a seven-game losing streak of their own.
Here are my standings after game 1,500 was just rolled.
AMERICAN LEAGUE
EAST W L WEST W L
Detroit 70 46 Kansas City 74 40
New York 69 47 California 71 46
Milwaukee68 47 Chicago 62 53
Baltimore 65 51 Oakland 60 57
Boston 56 59 Texas 55 61
Cleveland 52 63 Seattle 37 79
Toronto 41 76 Minnesota 30 85
NATIONAL LEAGUE
EAST W L WEST W L
Montreal 79 35 Los Angeles 78 36
Phil’phia 67 48 Cincinnati 68 48
St. Louis 61 54 Houston 66 48
Pittsbrgh 52 64 Atlanta 48 67
Chicago 44 72 San Fran. 48 68
New York42 73 San Diego 37 77
You are so right about a replay and memories of the year. I generally look at what was in the news at that time. As a New York Times subscriber I have unlimited access to their archives. One of the things I have drawn from this is to remember that there were proplems back then too. Anyway, good luck on reaching this point in the season.
ReplyDeleteI put up a post on APBA board on Delphi about your blog. This is a great blog you are doing.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this on your board. My read count went insane today and I thought Blogspot may have gotten whacky. Looks like the forum is widely read. Good to see other APBA lovers out there.
DeleteYou should come over to the message board and check in. A few people have responded to my post about your blog and they have also said they really like it. It is free to join in and it is all APBA players...most of them (like me and you) are solo players. I am going to try to post the link to the message board..not sure if it will work. In the meantime, please keep up this great blog.
Deletehttp://forums.delphiforums.com/apbabtl
Great stuff, Ken. A friend and I drove down to Minneapolis from Winnipeg in the summer of '81. We were both looking forward to seeing our first MLB game at the Met. Needless to say, it didn't happen. Unfortunately, I never got to see our Vikings play at the Met, either. Regrets.
ReplyDeleteMy girlfriend and I did see two games at the Humphrey Dome the next June and in the first one the Twins beat the Orioles to break a 14 game losing streak. They gave free tickets to everyone in attendance at the game that the streak was broken so we came back a few nights later to see the Royals. Sweet!
In between the two Twins games, we drove down to Milwaukee to see the Brewers and Orioles. Jim Palmer shackled Harvey's Wallbangers 7-2. Coincidentally, Daniel Okrent wrote his book "9 Innings" about one of the games in that series.
Keep up the great work and please do join us on the APBA Between the Lines forum on Delphi!
Thanks for reading the blog. I appreciate it. That must have been a great game to see, the 82 Series-bound Brew Crew against underwear-sportin' Palmer! I'll check the Between the Lines. Again, thanks for reading my therapeutic ramblings. Ken
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