I've never played an APBA game against
someone in person before, but now I can say I played a game with
someone.
Ever since I began playing the replay
sports games with the football version of APBA in 1977, I did it
alone. I never experienced the fun of competition with someone, the
strategy of outthinking an opponent by using certain players at
certain times.
A year later, I graduated to the APBA
basketball game, a plodding venture that took hours to play a single
game. Had I been playing against someone else, my strategy would have
been to stay awake longer than my opponent. In 1993, I bought APBA's
hockey game and played it alone and in 1998 I finally obtained the
baseball game.
I've probably rolled more than 50,000
games in my four decades with this game. All of them alone.
Until the other night.
I had reached June 2 in my 1991
baseball replay and was set to play San Francisco hosting Atlanta.
The Giants were the second worst team in the National League in my
replay and Atlanta was only two games behind surprising upstart
Cincinnati in the National League West Division. It had all the
makings of a rout, and it was.
But this time, I had company watching
the outcome.
Holly, my Illinois girl, who moved down
here nearly a year ago came into the APBA room when I began the game.
I had tossed the first roll; Otis Nixon got a single and promptly
stole second base while Mark Lemke was at bat.
Holly asked if she could roll the dice.
She has tossed a few rolls before, maybe rolling an inning for me
while I explained the nuances of the game and did a sort of
play-by-play for her.
This time, she pulled up a chair and
rolled the entire rest of the game for me. And I was enhanced by the
conversations we had.
Lemke followed Nixon with his own single off Giants'
pitcher John Burkett and the Braves took a 1-0 lead. After San
Francisco failed to get a hit in the bottom half of the first, Brian
Hunter hit a home run — the first “66” roll-inducing homer
Holly had done — and Atlanta was up 2-0.
Then, it got ugly. In the fourth, the
Braves scored six runs. In the fifth, they got six more runs and led
14-0. The Giants got only one hit off Braves' starter Steve Avery.
Holly noticed how quickly San Francisco batters came to plate in
their halves of the innings and then were retired.
At the end of the sixth inning, she
realized there was no way the Giants would come back and she uttered
one of the more horrific things an APBA player true to the game could
hear.
She said her personality was not suited
for playing games day after day after day the way I do in replays.
“No offense to the game, but I'd just
make it so the team I wanted to win won and then call it a day,”
she said.
“Make” the team win? You can't do
that. It's all up to the dice rolls.
At one point, I tried explaining how
the statistics of the game generally worked and how players carded by the APBA game company usually
replicated their real seasons. But, there were always exceptions to
the rules. APBA players call it “dice magic,” when players either
produce way above their actual season performances or they fail to
meet up to their real stats. Seattle Mariner's Richie Zisk in my
1977 replay played far better than he did in real life. And Mickey
Mantle's 1957 season in my replay was a disappointment.
I was about halfway into my
dissertation about the dice's fickle ways when I saw Holly's eyes
began glazing over.
She continued to roll the game.
It was time for a pitching change again
for the Giants in the seventh inning.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because Kelly Downs gave up four
earned runs in less than two innings,” I replied. “His arm is
tired and we need a new pitcher." Jeff Brantley, an A-rated reliever,
got the call from the bullpen.
“You do realize these are virtual
arms,” Holly said, pointing to Downs' APBA game card. “They can't really be tired.”
The Braves won, 15-0. Avery only gave
up that one hit for the entire game and Atlanta improved to 30-16 on the season.
I thought I had lost her interest in
the game. Making teams win and virtual arms sort of quelled the magic
and ambience of the game; it shattered the make-believe world that us
APBA players can escape to and avoid the travails of real life for a
bit.
But, Holly did return to roll other
games, sometimes tossing an inning or two for me before going to do
something else.
And, that APBA magic, while perhaps
deep within, hidden behind her sense of reality and literalness, did
show up once. A few days later, I was rolling the June 4 game between
San Diego and Chicago. Holly, a life-long Cubs fan, took interest and
wanted to roll her team's first inning. Mark Grace got on base with a
single and then Ryne Sandberg flied out.
Andre Dawson was at bat. Holly rattled
the dice in her hand and tossed them on the mousepad I use. The dice
tumbled on the mat and, of course, two sixes resulted. It was a home
run!
Holly stood up, smiled and swung a
virtual bat of her own, replicating Dawson's clout.
I think she'll be back to roll more
games.
