Despite losing my job recently and worrying about the consequences of such, there is one mantra that I, along with all APBA players follow. "The games must go on."
And go on they do. I've picked up the pace some in my 1991 baseball replay. I've found that being unburdened by the nasty contraints of a job, I have more time to roll games. (I say this facetiously, because if I don't find fruitful employment, I realize I will eventually end up rolling APBA baseball replays while living in an old refrigerator box under a train trestle, eating from a Dumpster and selling aluminum cans).
But for now at least, I am tossin' the games in the comfort of my home. I have an electric space heater turned on and aimed at my bum knee, a glass of Pepsi by the scoresheet and a 1991 season that if it continues the way it has so far should have a great pennant race or two at the end.
I've reached July 5, 1991 - just two days before the All-Star break - and there are several interesting story lines I'm following.
First, the standings.
American League
EAST W L GB
Toronto 54 27 -
Boston 42 36 10.5
Detroit 42 37 11
Milwaukee 36 42 16.5
New York 31 45 20.5
Baltimore 30 48 22.5
Cleveland 25 52 27
WEST W L GB
Minnesota 49 32 -
Seattle 47 33 1.5
Chicago 45 33 2.5
Kansas City 40 38 7.5
California 40 39 8
Texas 34 41 12
Oakland 34 46 14.5
National League
EAST W L GB
Pittsburgh 54 23 -
St. Louis 48 31 7
New York 42 36 12.5
Phil'phia 36 44 19.5
Chicago 33 47 22.5
Montreal 23 57 32.5
WEST W L GB
Atlanta 51 26 -
Cincinnati 45 33 6.5
Los Angeles 43 35 8.5
San Diego 41 40 12
Houston 29 50 23
San Fran. 28 51 24
As they do in replays of most seasons, teams' personalities are starting to develop. Pittsburgh, led by Barry Bonds' 11 home runs as of July 5 and Doug Drabek's 13-4 record, has the best record so far. Atlanta is also playing well, fueled by Tom Glavine's unbelievable 17-0 record on the mound.
In the American League, Toronto remains solid. After being swept in a three-game series in Minnesota, the Blue Jays returned the favor and beat the Twins in all three games in Toronto a week later. In each APBA replay I've done, there always seems to be a team that can win in many ways. Either the team will score a lot of runs, have good pitching or come from behind with clutch hitting. Toronto does all of these to win.
There are other notables: Detroit is 10-1 in its last 11 games. The Yankees have lost 11 of its last 13 games. Seattle, which led the American League West for a while, has dropped eight of its last 12 games. And the Cubs, oh, the woeful Cubs, at first seemed to be a competitive team. Andre Dawson has clubbed 20 home runs and Chicago was actually playing above .500 at the end of April. But in the last 30 days of play, the Cubs are 8-22.
And there's Montreal. The Expos lost its first 14 games to open the season and dropped 19 of 20 by May 1. Since then, Montreal has gone 22-36. Three of the Expos' pitchers each have lost 11 games already and the entire pitching staff has only four saves among relievers. But there is some life perhaps in the team, albeit faintly. The Expos took three of four games in Cincinnati and two of three in New York before being swept by the Pirates at home. After finishing a three-game set in Pittsburgh, the Expos will play West Division teams for a while after the All-Star break. The team has gone 15-23 against Western foes so far, which, considering the Expos, is not that bad. It beats going 0 for 14.
Here are league leaders so far.
American League
Home Runs- Canseco, Oak, 32; Tartabull, KC, 25
Wins - Candiotti, Tor; Erickson, Min; Tapani, Min; Wegman, Mil, 13 each
Saves - Harvey, Cal, 18; Reardon, Bos, 16' Eckersley, Oak, 15
National League
Home Runs - Mitchell, SF, 25; Dawson, Chi and Strawberry, LA, 20 each
Wins - Glavine, Atl, 17
Saves - Belinda, Pit, 16; Howell, LA, 15; Dibble, Cin 14
So, we've reached near the midway point of the season. The American League West looks like a dogfight. Can Minnesota hold its lead? Will Seattle surprise again? Will Canseco hit 61 home runs for the season? Can Boston or Detroit challenge Toronto? Will Pittsburgh maintain its dominance in the National League? Will Glavine keep on winning? Will the Expos find a way to win sometimes? It's sizing up to be another good replay season and a reason to roll games at a steady clip to answer these and many more questions.
Thursday, January 11, 2018
Thursday, January 4, 2018
The Lay-Off
Nineteen years ago in December, I began playing APBA's baseball game. After 21 years prior of playing the company's other games - football, basketball and hockey - I felt it was finally time to try out APBA's most popular product.
Eight months earlier I began work as the northeast Arkansas bureau correspondent for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. It was a good time in my life. I had a good, stable, reputable job and a new hobby.
I began work at the newspaper a month after two children pulled a fire alarm at the Westside Middle School near Jonesboro, Ark., and fatally shot four students and a teacher as they exited the school building. It was the biggest story I'd ever cover and I competed with national media. It was nerve-wracking and stressful, but I held my ground and realized I could do that job.
I began replaying the 1998 baseball season on Dec., 28, 1998, replicating the steroid-laced home run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. McGwire ended up hitting 77 home runs in my game, I recall. The Yankees beat the Braves in seven games in my World Series.
The newspaper and game became synonymous. When the stress of work got too much, I found the game provided a relaxing escape, a respite from the bad news I'd seen during the day.
The newspaper and the game. One of those venues ended recently. It wasn't the game.
On Oct. 24, the powers-that-be at the newspaper decided to lay off 27 people. I was one of them. In the declining economic world of journalism, the employees cut were seen as financial burdens, not enhancers. My editor drove from Little Rock to Jonesboro and sat outside the office that morning waiting for me. I was surprised to see him, but more surprised, of course, when he told me why he had come.
Nineteen and a half years gone in a blink. The editor took my laptop and company-provided cell phone and within about three hours of my notification, I was out. I was stunned, lost, confused.
The paper was really all I had and was the only identity I knew. When my wife died in 2006, I returned to work three days after her funeral- too soon, I later realized - but only to try to regain some sense of routine and normalcy. Now, that routine was shattered.
The next morning, for the first time in nearly two decades, I didn't have anywhere to go. I went through the five stages of grief identified by Kubler-Ross: Anger, Denial, Depression, Bargaining and Acceptance. I wavered among them, mostly depression and anger.
I realized, though, that the 26 others who were laid off also felt the same. And there've been so many more over the years. Hundreds of newspaper reporters all cut because of finances. It's a dying business. The paper was in my driveway the following morning. Life was going on; the paper still came out despite my absence; I was a blip, there and gone in its history.
I filed for unemployment a week later on Halloween, which was fitting. "Trick or Treat. Give me something good to live on." Holly had gone back to Illinois to visit her mother that week and I slunk home alone that evening, avoiding the trick or treaters that proliferated the neighborhood. I didn't want to see them at the door; the only difference between them and me was that the horror on their faces were masks. Mine was my own.
But, like APBA game players do so often, I returned to the game for the only semblance of peace I could find. That first night, while worrying what I was going to do next, I rolled a few games in my 1991 baseball replay. Boston beat Baltimore, 8-7, despite two home runs from Orioles' DH Sam Horn. The Red Sox won it in the eighth when Wade Boggs doubled in shortstop Luis Rivera. And Pittsburgh edged Montreal, 3-1, continuing the Expos' woes as the worst team in the replay and dropping them to a record of 21-52.
I'm looking for a new job now, but I also keep playing the game, I resurrected this blog, perhaps, as a way to still feel a writing deadline of sorts. I've not completely stepped away from the keyboard. I've also written some pieces for magazines and I had a thing published recently in a Chicken Soup for the Soul book. And I covered a first-degree murder trial as a stringer for the very paper that dumped me a few weeks ago. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage doesn't care where the house payment comes from as long as it is made, I've found.
So, I seek employment in this area and contemplate moving somewhere else if necessary and feel lost. But the game, the APBA dice and cards game, provides at least once thing that is stable and lasting.
Eight months earlier I began work as the northeast Arkansas bureau correspondent for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. It was a good time in my life. I had a good, stable, reputable job and a new hobby.
I began work at the newspaper a month after two children pulled a fire alarm at the Westside Middle School near Jonesboro, Ark., and fatally shot four students and a teacher as they exited the school building. It was the biggest story I'd ever cover and I competed with national media. It was nerve-wracking and stressful, but I held my ground and realized I could do that job.
I began replaying the 1998 baseball season on Dec., 28, 1998, replicating the steroid-laced home run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. McGwire ended up hitting 77 home runs in my game, I recall. The Yankees beat the Braves in seven games in my World Series.
The newspaper and game became synonymous. When the stress of work got too much, I found the game provided a relaxing escape, a respite from the bad news I'd seen during the day.
The newspaper and the game. One of those venues ended recently. It wasn't the game.
On Oct. 24, the powers-that-be at the newspaper decided to lay off 27 people. I was one of them. In the declining economic world of journalism, the employees cut were seen as financial burdens, not enhancers. My editor drove from Little Rock to Jonesboro and sat outside the office that morning waiting for me. I was surprised to see him, but more surprised, of course, when he told me why he had come.
Nineteen and a half years gone in a blink. The editor took my laptop and company-provided cell phone and within about three hours of my notification, I was out. I was stunned, lost, confused.
The paper was really all I had and was the only identity I knew. When my wife died in 2006, I returned to work three days after her funeral- too soon, I later realized - but only to try to regain some sense of routine and normalcy. Now, that routine was shattered.
The next morning, for the first time in nearly two decades, I didn't have anywhere to go. I went through the five stages of grief identified by Kubler-Ross: Anger, Denial, Depression, Bargaining and Acceptance. I wavered among them, mostly depression and anger.
I realized, though, that the 26 others who were laid off also felt the same. And there've been so many more over the years. Hundreds of newspaper reporters all cut because of finances. It's a dying business. The paper was in my driveway the following morning. Life was going on; the paper still came out despite my absence; I was a blip, there and gone in its history.
I filed for unemployment a week later on Halloween, which was fitting. "Trick or Treat. Give me something good to live on." Holly had gone back to Illinois to visit her mother that week and I slunk home alone that evening, avoiding the trick or treaters that proliferated the neighborhood. I didn't want to see them at the door; the only difference between them and me was that the horror on their faces were masks. Mine was my own.
But, like APBA game players do so often, I returned to the game for the only semblance of peace I could find. That first night, while worrying what I was going to do next, I rolled a few games in my 1991 baseball replay. Boston beat Baltimore, 8-7, despite two home runs from Orioles' DH Sam Horn. The Red Sox won it in the eighth when Wade Boggs doubled in shortstop Luis Rivera. And Pittsburgh edged Montreal, 3-1, continuing the Expos' woes as the worst team in the replay and dropping them to a record of 21-52.
I'm looking for a new job now, but I also keep playing the game, I resurrected this blog, perhaps, as a way to still feel a writing deadline of sorts. I've not completely stepped away from the keyboard. I've also written some pieces for magazines and I had a thing published recently in a Chicken Soup for the Soul book. And I covered a first-degree murder trial as a stringer for the very paper that dumped me a few weeks ago. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage doesn't care where the house payment comes from as long as it is made, I've found.
So, I seek employment in this area and contemplate moving somewhere else if necessary and feel lost. But the game, the APBA dice and cards game, provides at least once thing that is stable and lasting.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)