Forty years ago today, Dec. 25, 1977, I began the APBA journey when my father slid a large package from beneath our Christmas tree and handed it to me. I had been hoping for the game company's football game that provided the means to replay the 1976 NFL season, but I wasn't completely sure if I my parents had gotten the set.
That was the season the Minnesota Vikings went to the Super Bowl only to get trounced by the Oakland Raiders. I grew up in Minnesota and,of course, the Vikes were my favorite team. I had to play the season if only to avenge Minnesota's loss to the dreaded Raiders.
So when my father handed me the package and I felt its heft, I knew, I knew it was the game. Kids' toys didn't weight that heavily. I tore off the wrapping paper, opened the box and pored over the players' cards. Fran Tarkenton, Alan Page, kicker Fred Cox, the wonderfully-named Wally Hilgenberg, Roy Winston, Chuck Foreman. They were all there. Hereos of my youth right there in my hand.
The game was complex; there were lots of rules and it was a far cry above the games of childhood. The previous gridiron contests I had were either a Tudor electric football game or the Mattel Talking Football game in which players inserted mini-records into a player, chose their offense, let the opponent select a defense and pushed a button to hear the play.
This APBA game was far more advanced and it was the first step into the life of APBA. I remember staying up late that Christmas night digesting the rules and finally rolling a game between the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins. Larry Brown returned a kickoff for a touchdown for the Giants, leading his team to a high-scoring victory. I am sure I didn't follow the rules exactly, but the die was cast, the seed was planted. APBA that day became a mainstay in my life.
I was hooked. A year later, I got the basketball game. I loved it; most didn't. It was a ploding game that took hours to play a single contest. I learned to play a shortened version that eliminated passing and strategy and instead became a simpler version of a shooting-rebounding game. But I played that game constantly and it stayed with me for years.
I bought the hockey game when it was first offered in the early 1990s and then, finally, I bought the baseball game in 1998 when, as an adult, I decided to buy myself a Christmas present of my own. I did the process backward - most APBA fans begin with the baseball game. But I became initiated with the company four decades ago my own way and remain with it.
Nothing else has lasted this long. Although I've slowed tremendously in rolling games in whatever replay I'm engaged in, I still toss them. I'm still on the 1991 baseball replay, a season I began in August 2015. Changes in life slowed that pace; I began traveling to northern Illinois a month after I embarked on that season to meet a girl I became enamored with and, when a year later, she moved to Arkansas, I started yet a new chapter in my own life. The game took a back seat. I worked as a daily newspaper bureau correspondent in my town for 19 years before the trend of print journalism took a personal toll and the managing editor opted to eliminate 28 positions at the paper including mine in late October. I was a victim of journalism economics Now, I have to find a new job and fear is prevalent. I spend time seeking new employment and writing freelance pieces for various publications to appease Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, my utility companies, my car financer and my family of Holly, a Siberian huskey and two cats.
But the game is still there as always.
Tonight, shortly after midnight when children everywhere fell asleep anticipating Santa's visit in the morning, I played the July 4, 1991, contest between New York and Montreal. The Mets won big; Howard Johnson hit his 19th homer of the season and the Mets clobbered the Expos, 14-4.
For 40 years this game has been part of my life. In some cases, it's been a major part. Nothing else has lasted with me that long, jobs, friendships, relationships. Nothing. During the APBA journey, I've had eight jobs, lived in three states, gotten married and widowed, lived through seven presidential administrations and went from being a peppy 17-year-old high school kid to an old, sarcastic, 57-year-old.
It's a different world now, 40 years later. Most youngsters aged 17 now vie for computer games, the Nintendos and X-Boxes and whatever else is popular, rather than a game featuring printed cards, dice and cardboard play outcomes. But that style remains with me and each Christmas, I think back to 1977 when it all began and thank Santa for placing that APBA game beneath the tree that year.
