Sunday, December 22, 2019

"For Christmas"

I think I may have seen the true meaning of Christmas the other day, a meaning that shuns the commercialization and stress of the holidays and gets to the heart of its meaning. Those of us who play this APBA game can probably relate.

I was in a drug store late this past week, grabbing up prescriptions and getting last-minute Christmas cards to send out, hoping they’d reach their destinations in time and, thus, conforming to the holiday requirements.

Without sounding too politically incorrect, I noticed an obviously handicapped woman in her 30s looking at a rack of toys in the store. She took one out and showed it to the person who was with her.
“An airplane,” she said with glee.

She looked at it, turning the toy plane in her hands, all while beaming a large smile.
“Do you want it,” the person asked her.

“For Christmas,” she said.
And there it was. Despite whatever reason life took a steaming dump on her and left her facing her handicap, be it genetic, environmental, whatever, she was happy. She found something she liked and wanted to get it, citing the holiday of giving.

I thought of my own life. We’re constantly on the treadmill of life, running to our job (in my case, two jobs and a freelance writing startup attempt); trying to pay bills on time; dealing with stresses, illnesses of getting older, aches and pains; and just trying to be a decent provider and human. Christmas lately seems more a stumbling block than a time of joy and celebration.
When I was in news, I’d usually work the holiday so others could be off to be with their families. Invariably, I’d end up writing some tough story. One year, on Christmas Eve, I went to a small airplane crash that killed the pilot. Another year, I covered a suspected arson fire of former Pres. Bill Clinton’s boyhood home. It was hard seeing the meaning of Christmas when you were covering the downside of humanity.

But the woman in the drug store sparked something in me.
And here’s where APBA comes in. Many of us, I assume, became initiated with the game at an early age through Christmas. I did. I had played various sports games as a youngster – electric football and baseball, Pop Tarts card baseball and Sherco II baseball.  My parents got me the APBA football game in 1977 as what I call the “headliner” of Christmas – the present pushed far beneath the tree and handed out at the last because it was the best gift.

Now, 42 years later, I continue to play APBA. It’s been baseball for the past 21 years mostly, but I still have the football game, along with a collection of hockey, basketball and baseball games and seasons accrued over the years.
And, like I’ve said here before, what other game have we carried with us and kept it as a mainstay through our lives? On Christmas night Wednesday, I plan to roll a few more games in my replay, this time the 1947 season, like I’ve done so many Christmas over the past four decades.

With all that is going on now in my world – dealing with life, a new job, depression and all, there is still joy in the game. I think that’s one of the great appeals of the APBA products. It gives us a chance to revert back to our younger days when life wasn’t so much of a struggle.
So this holiday season, think of how the APBA game still gives us joy and happiness, and try to hold onto that for a while. I know I will.

You know … for Christmas.

Saturday, December 21, 2019

Pythagorean Theorem Applied

Each team in my 1947 APBA baseball replay has reached 40, or nearly 40 games, played this season. With 25 percent of the games completed, teams are beginning to show what they are capable of doing and how the season could turn out.

Of course, there’s still a lot of games to be played and, as APBA players know, anything can happen. Trends can change, players can get hot, teams can go on streaks. So, it’s somewhat premature to try and predict how the American League and National League will turn out.
But, that said, one of the characteristics of a true APBA fan is the obsession for statistics and math. I’ve noted before that I don’t keep many detailed stats for a replay. Every time I tried before, I ran into computer issues. I had two die on me and once, in a moment of confidence, I put my stats on a laptop I used at work. I was suddenly laid off and the computer was no longer accessible.  But, grabbing a calculator and a pen and figuring out batting average and earned run averages is still a vital part of why I do this game.

This year, I’m tracking home runs and RBIs, won-lost records and saves for all. And I’m keeping game-by-game batting averages for Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio. All are jotted down on paper so I won’t lose it by being either computer inept or a victim of journalism layoff economics.
So, with a quarter of the season completed, it looks like the Yankees and Red Sox are in a dead heat. Detroit is a good team as well, following closely behind. The Washington Senators are proving to be a really poor team in the American League. In the National League, fueled by Whitey Kurowski’s 11 home runs so far, the Cardinals are by far the best.

I decided to do some more math and applied Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem for baseball to this season. The formula, for those who are not into Bill James, is based upon runs scored and runs given up. Take the number of runs a team scores and multiply it by itself, squaring the figure. Then, divide that by the number of runs scored squared added to the number of runs given up squared.
What?

Here’s the formula: (Runs scored)2 /  [(runs scored)2 + (runs allowed)2]
Then, take that figure and divide it by the number of games played in a season. In my case of 1947, 154 games, to determine the expected won-loss record.

By doing this, I noticed a few things. Both the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees are expected to go 106-48 for the season. The Chicago White Sox, which are playing at about a .500 pace, have a collapse in their future, according to the theorem. Because the team hasn’t scored many runs so far and given up 50 more than scored, the Sox are predicted to win only 52 games. The hapless Senators will win only 47 game and finish last in the American League, based on James’ math.
In the National League, the Cardinals dominate. The theorem shows a stunning final record of 122-32. Brooklyn is second with a forecasted record of 95-59 – one game better than their actual record of 94-60, which was good enough to win the real 1947 National League pennant. Pittsburgh is predicted to win only 44 games, which doesn’t seem too far-fetched of a record when considering the Pirates are 10-28 now in my replay.

Obviously, it’s still early in the season to really extrapolate firm predictions from the math. The Cardinals could face Braves’ pitchers Warren Spahn and Jonny Sain in a low-scoring weekend series ahead and the numbers could be skewed some.
Still, it’s fun to apply the theorem and get one idea of what could happen. The Red Sox-Yankees season race looks good no matter how you add it up.

Sunday, December 15, 2019

Gym Nauseam

The fitness center Holly and I are members of has a long-standing tradition of leaving scores of Tootsie Rolls in a bucket on the counter for customers. It seems kind of counter-productive. Work out for two hours in an attempt to lose weight and tone up and then grab gooey chocolate on the way out.  But, it’s the gym’s signature, I guess, and who doesn’t like a Tootsie Roll after riding a bike for miles or pushing weights or walking aimlessly on a treadmill?

The Tootsie offering is long-standing because it had been more than 200 days since we last went there and the bucket was sitting on the counter back then, too. I know this because when we signed in the other day, I mentioned it had been a while since we had been there. The check-in guy, who, like all fitness center guys was too fit for his own good, looked up our account and felt it necessary to tell us we last graced the place 210 days ago.

I felt guilty and way out of shape. Standing next to the check-in guy, I felt like a huge blob. I tried to suck in my gut some and hoped Holly wouldn’t notice.
Welcome to our return to the chain exercise place I call “Planet Fatass.”

We had been meaning to go for some time. But finding the time is difficult. Weekends are shot since I work 12-hour shifts each day. Wednesdays are church nights, Thursday is garbage collection night and Fridays are Dateline NBC date nights.  We used to watch a show on Tuesdays night as well. That leaves Mondays.

So, we decided to go last Monday. Holly has been having some pain in her shoulder and back that doctors suggested could be eased by physical therapy. Lately, my left knee feels like it’s about to fall off and I think exercise would strengthen the hinge. We could work out some and I could catch the Monday Night Football game on one of the 2,000 television monitors hanging in the gym.
We donned our sweat pants and tee-shirts and headed there. Holly looked cute. I looked like the Michelin Man going on a donut binge.

Holly and I approached our gymnastic tasks differently. She began slowly, leisurely pedaling a stationary recumbent bike and then stretching on a mat. I got on the bike and thought, “Wonder how fast I can get this sumbitch up to?”
It went downhill from there. While Holly did meticulous exercises, doing gentle “reps” on the various machines, I got bored and wandered around. I got on a stair climber and felt like my knee cap was going to blast off into the gym when I began ascending flights of steps. I stumbled off the climber and looked for a recumbent elevator instead.

I also stacked on weights, trying to look like some strong guy. None of this wimpy small stuff for me. Bring on the he-man “reps.” I began pushing on one machine with my injured knee, hoping to strengthen it.  My knee started weeping.
We left two and a half hours later. Philadelphia beat the Giants in overtime on the televised game and we felt like we had completed our workouts. Two days later, I walked in muscle-stretched pain, strutting around like a cowboy who rode a porcupine from Denver to San Antone.

We vowed to come back sooner than the 210 days we last returned, hoping we could turn this into a routine. If my knee got worse, I could quit, using it as an excuse to become stationary and roll more APBA games at home. If it got better, it was something I had done right.
We felt good about the first routine. At least Holly did. But I thought about making improvements, about being able to do the stair climber thing without stringing multiple  curse words together, about losing weight and  looking – if not as good as the fit check-in guy – at least better than a stunt double for when they remake the movie “The Blob.”

So, we left the gym happily. And on the way out, I grabbed a fistful of those Tootsie Rolls for the trip home.

Sunday, December 8, 2019

Squeaky the Cat

I swore I’d never get another cat as I drove back from the veterinarian in January 2015. I was forced to put to sleep May, a cat I had for eight years, after she got sick. A grief counselor I was mandated to see by my job after my wife passed away in 2006 suggested I get a cat to replicate the care I gave my wife during her illness. May got sick and on Jan. 28, 2015, I had to take her to the vet for a final time. I couldn’t handle more loss, so I vowed no more pets.

A year and a half later, I was driving through Effingham, Ill., late at night with two cats in carriers in the back seat of my car when I looked back for a glance. Both cats were yowling and both had tipped their water bowls and litter pans, making a pretty pungent paste. One cat was reaching through the bars of her cage in an apparent attempt to trip the latch on the other cat’s carrier. They were Bear and Weasel, Holly’s cats, who were moving to Arkansas.

In December of 2018, I held Bear as he had seizures and died on the way to the vet. The following spring, I found Weasel between some boxes and a shelf. She had passed away, too.
So, again, I swore I’d never have another cat. I deal with abandonment issues as it is, having lost pretty much anyone or anything close to me. Losing pets was heart-breaking; creating lasting bonds is tough.

But this past June, I found myself and Holly heading to our town’s Pet Smart to adopt another cat. We saw him a week earlier in the store’s kennel, a lanky black cat that appeared shy, reserved, quiet and lonely. Both of us are somewhat shy and reserved, so his personality seemed to match ours. Little did we know he was putting on an act, perhaps to better his chances at adoption.
He was shy, reserved and quiet for a few hours after we took him home. He slunk out of his carrier and skittered off under a bed to hide where we thought he’d stay for a while. But he came out at 3 a.m., jumped on the bed and, after we pet him and welcomed him to our little fold, he became the crazy cat that he is.

We renamed him Squeaky because of his odd, squeaking meow. He’s less than a year old, but long like a panther and quick like, well, a panther, too.  The world is his scratching post. He uses the leg of our wooden dining room table to sharpen his talons; the table now looks like we have a pet beaver in the home that enjoys frequent gnawing. He also runs up to me when I come home from work, stands on his hind legs, props his front legs on my knee as if he wants to be picked up and then sinks his claws into me.
I’ve had four cats since I moved to the town I’m in. Each had distinctive personalities. May was the first and she was an APBA cat. Replayers know what I am talking about. I mentioned this fact years ago on the APBA Facebook page and several shared photographs of their cats sitting by their game tables, looking at the dice and players’ cards.

I’d roll games in the baseball room and May would sit with me, either on the floor or another chair. I used to leave the room open and one day I found the two APBA game dice missing.  I always left them on the table, but I assume May began playing with them when I was away and ate them. I sifted through her little box for a few weeks, searching for the missing die (Gives a new meaning to rolling craps, doesn’t it?), but never found them.
The other two cats, Bear and Weasel, would stop in to see what I was doing when I played my various replays, but then would move on.
Squeaky watches as baked potatoes 
cook in a microwave

Squeaky hasn’t shown any interest in the game yet.
However, the other night, Holly and I were watching television in the living room when Squeaky trotted through the room. Jutting from his mouth was a long pretzel rod. I keep a bag of the pretzels on the APBA game table to chomp during games and accidently left the room door open. Squeaky jumped up on the table and, without disturbing the cards laid out for the next game, the dice, notebook and pens, he was able to pull a pretzel rod from the bag and jump back down. He proudly pranced through the living room, the pretzel clenched in his mouth like an old George Burns cigar.
There’s hope Squeaky may become an APBA cat after all.

Sunday, December 1, 2019

Cornucopia of Games

It was going to rain all day Thursday and Friday, knocking out any chance for cutting limbs and doing any yard work. We only had a brief Thanksgiving lunch outing planned and Holly intended to sleep in both Thursday and Friday.

Even Squeaky, our rambunctious cat, was settled down, skipping his hobby of knocking things off flat surfaces, chewing plants and using furniture as his personal scratching posts.

After spending most of my career in news, for the first time in three decades, I had two days off for the Thanksgiving holiday and there was nothing to do.

It was the perfect time to roll out the dice and make some headway in my 1947 APBA baseball replay.
I’ve been averaging about two games a day since I began the replay in August. A decent pace compared to my previous venture – the 1991 replay that took nearly four years to complete. But it was slower than my other attempts back when I had no personal life.

Like all replays I’ve done, I get into the season and live it, learning players and watching for their trends. Will Ralph Kiner hit another home run for the Pirates like he did 51 times in the actual season? Will the New York Giants clobber home runs, but also get caught on the bases because of their plethora of slow runners?  Will the hapless Washington Senators ever win a game?  Will the schizophrenic Chicago White Sox figure out if they are winners or losers?

I intended to start answering some of those questions during the two-day holiday.
I ended playing 25 games. I had five shutouts, one game that more closely resembled a football score and several double-headers that were scheduled for May 18 that included the White Sox and Yankees splitting games with scores of 5-2. And the Senators actually won.

The run of replay games actually began Wednesday night.  The Cubs opened the stretch with a quiet 2-0 victory over the Giants. Chicago pitcher Johnny Schmitz gave up only two hits and struck out six – a hefty amount considering the pitching of that year. Washington then surprised Cleveland, winning 4-3, as Early Wynn went the distance.

Then, the Giants beat the Cubs on Bobby Thomson’s seventh home run, despite Cubs’ outfielder Bill Nicholson clubbing his 10th home run of the season.
The White Sox and Yanks split their doubleheader and then Brooklyn and Pittsburgh kicked off their contest.
Six home runs later, including two each by Kiner and Carl Furillo, the Bums pasted the Bucs, 25-17. Furillo had eight RBIs and Dixie Walker added six RBIs for the Dodgers. Even Gil Hodges, who wasn’t used much in 1947, hit a three-run home run in the second inning. Kiner drove in 5 RBIs.
Pittsburgh led, 11-10, in the fifth inning and then remembered they were Pittsburgh who, at 9-23, is the worst team in the replay. The Pirates pitchers gave up 12 runs in the sixth inning on 11 hits. Pete Reiser added a field goal of RBIs, driving in three on two singles. In the actual game played on May 17, 1947, Pittsburgh beat Brooklyn, 4-0. Hank Greenberg hit the only home run in that game for the Pirates.
Here lies the oddity of APBA and what makes the game so fun. Twelve replayed games later, Pittsburgh hosted the Giants again. Kiner hit his ninth home run, but instead of a score-fest, the Pirates won, 2-1. Same players, different outcome. The anything-can-happen aspect gives the joy to this game.
The Phillies continued their shocking start, beating the Reds, 6-2, and compiling an 18-17 record. The Cardinals still lead the National League, although the Boston Braves are playing well and are only a game behind the Birds. Red Munger beat the Phillies for his league-leading sixth win and back-up Cards’ catcher Joe Garagiola hit his second home run of the season to help Munger.
I went to my weekend job on Saturday, ending the run of games. I played nine that Wednesday night, seven on Thursday and eight on Friday. I could only muster enough awakedness to roll one game on Saturday after pulling my routine 12-hour shift at work.
The point of all this is that a replayer becomes immersed in the game. Playing a lot like I did got me into the season better. I remembered players’ outcomes the games before. I noticed Bobby Thomson was coming around for the Giants, getting key hits at important times. Kiner, like he did in the real season, was good with the bat, but, like Sammy Sosa did in 1998, hit the home runs at inopportune times for his team, padding the stats, but not helping much in the team’s win column.
Playing the series of games was like reading the sports page and checking standings daily. Most teams played each day during my three-day run, so the stats and records were constantly changing.
It was a great holiday.
My next days off are Christmas Eve and Christmas. Holly and I don’t have any travel plans for the holiday. Looks like another APBA marathon could occur while we wait for Santa to show up.

Sunday, November 24, 2019

APBA Thanksgiving, 2019 Version

For the first time in nearly three decades, I’ll have two days off for Thanksgiving and I’ll be able to resume a tradition that I began when I first got involved in playing APBA games as a youngster.

While everyone is digesting their turkey and pies and then watching Detroit play football, I’ll be rollin’ the dice for a lot of games in my 1947 APBA baseball replay.  And on Friday, while shoppers camp out in front of stores and prepare for the onslaught of Black Friday shopping maneuvers akin to the violent pick and rolls of the 1980s NBA, I’ll be cozy in the APBA room watching how Ralph Kiner, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Enos Slaughter, Warren Spahn and all do on the field.
It all began with the APBA football game in 1978. I got the game the previous Christmas when I was in high school. The following Thanksgiving, I played several games during the turkey break, setting the routine that has become a tradition despite so many changes over the years.

I had worked in news and had only the Thanksgiving Day off, if any. Two days off? Forget it. News, as they say, takes no holiday. When I worked as the northeast Arkansas bureau correspondent for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for 20 years, I’d always see the day after Thanksgiving as either the slowest news day of the year or a day of total chaos. One year, I had to speed off to a town some 45 miles away suddenly when a woman decided to plead guilty that day to killing her niece. Another day after Thanksgiving, police got into a shootout with a bad guy in someone’s crawl space.
After my wife passed away in 2006, I ended up in various places for the actual holiday. I went to my in-laws that first Thanksgiving, but when I walked into the home and heard my father-in-law, a spiritual man who prays akin to an Old Testament prophet, thanking God for the fantastic year, I, who was still bitterly reeling from the loss of my spouse, didn’t think it was so fantastic.  I left.

On others Thanksgivings, friends invited me to their homes to eat. They took pity on me, fearing I would be eating alone that day. I ate every day alone, but other days were not celebratory feasts and there were no invitations for the other 364 days of the year.
Twice I took friends to the airport in Memphis to either fly out to family or to bring family home. Once, I ate a Burger King in West Memphis, Ark. My festive cornucopia came in a wrapper marked “Whopper” that year.

Regardless of where I was during the day, I’d always come home and, while others slept off their meals, I’d begin playing whatever APBA season I was doing.  It helped any seasonal depression that some feel when alone during the holidays and it was a time to really focus on the replay season. On those holidays I was off, or the evenings when I came home from work, it was a quiet time with no calls. I’d venture back to the APBA room and start rolling, continuing the tradition.

This Thanksgiving, I’m about a month into the 1947 replay. One of the nice things about the earlier seasons is that there are fewer teams, meaning there’s more frequency in playing teams. Back then, there were 16 teams. A full day of the real schedule meant eight games were played. On a good, productive day, I can have a team play at least two games, meaning I can see if a player has the hot bat, if he continues a hitting streak or if he suddenly has a tendency to strike out.
So while others are sleeping off their meals, I’ll be playing the games. And with the extra day off, I’ll get even more games in and I can see how the season is developing. It’s a tradition that began long ago and keeps on going.

APBA Thanksgiving, everyone!

Sunday, November 17, 2019

Fat Butt

For the past 20 years, I’ve been on, shall we say, the slightly heavy side. We can say that, but it’d be a lie.

All right, I got large. The medical term, I believe, is lardassicus flabbelly. It happened after my wife passed away in 2006. When dealing with depression, some survivors turn to gambling, others chase women, many indulge in alcohol or food in a self-destructive mode. I fell into a habit of Jim Beam bourbon and potato chips. It got bad enough when I went to the doctor’s office and weighed in, the nurse looked at the scale to see if two people were standing on it. Nope. Just me and my ass.
I quit the Jim Beam since meeting Holly in Illinois four years ago, but dropping the chips is much more difficult and something I’ve not accomplished. I also have become addicted to pretzel rods. I chomp on them like an old weathered Brooklyn sports reporter chomping cigars while rolling the games in my 1947 APBA baseball replay.

“Get me the copy boy,” I’d holler, flicking salt off the end of the rod like Red Smith would dump ashes. “Rewrite! Stanky just hit one out and the Bums won after all.”
Bless Holly. She’s not said anything about my weight issue. She’s not judgmental at all, hence, why she has stayed with me over these years.

 I’m not that bad in girth. I used to be worse. I once dated a girl who told me she was embarrassed to be seen with me because of my size. She ended up dumping me for an illiterate guy.  He may not be able to write well, but he didn’t have to run to the stockyard to weigh like I did.
A friend who worked in the same building as I did during my newspaper days asked me to walk with her on the weekends several years ago. She wanted to exercise, but was afraid to do it alone on a park path that led through remote wooded areas, so I went more as a bodyguard than a fitness buff.

But something happened. I began losing weight and felt better, both physically and about myself. I lost nearly 100 pounds in the year we walked.  I met Holly shortly after. Maybe it was a reward for my trying to get fit.
But now, as I’m getting older and, after getting laid off from my newspaper job, I’ve gotten a weekday job that’s a lot more sedimentary. The weight, alas (all ass?), is slowly coming back.

It was perfect timing a few weeks ago when Holly gave me a Fit Bit, the wrist-watch thing that records heart beat, breathing rate, sleep patterns and steps taken.  In my case the Fit Bit should be called the Fat Butt, but I digress. She did it not as a complaint of my weight, but a means to think about staying alive. She got one for herself, too, although she’s tiny.
I can track my mileage daily and it serves as a motivator in a sense. It also acts as a reminder when I slow down too much. A few minutes ago, while I stopped to think about writing transitions for this, the Fit Bit buzzed. “Only 224 more steps to go,” it harkened.  It could easily have said, “Get up, ya lard bucket. You ain’t moving any.” It served the same purpose. I got up, walked some and added to the daily total. I’m at 2.2 miles today. Last weekend was busy and I logged over 6 miles.

It’s a heartfelt gift and I take it that Holly wants me to stick around for a while. I keep it on often and I’m not one to wear watches usually. I catch myself checking my mileage and heart rate and act accordingly – either slowing down or walking around more when I can.
And if I’m rolling APBA games and become too stationary, watching the Philadelphia As lose another game and rolling yet another home run for Ted Williams, I know the Fit Bit will buzz me back into action.

Sunday, November 10, 2019

Game #195: Why replayers play every game

Game No. 195 of my 1947 APBA baseball replay didn’t size up to be much of a contest. The 9-14 Chicago Cubs were in Cincinnati to face the 9-17 Reds on May 9, 1947, It definitely wouldn’t be featured on NBC’s Game of the Week had they televised the show back then. (Note: 10 years later, in 1957, NBC began airing the Saturday baseball game of the week.)

The game before this one featured the Boston Braves and the New York Giants – two teams that have started off well and are interesting to play, both because of the Braves’ pitching and the Giants propensity to hit home runs. Johnny Mize hit his 7th homer of the season and the Giants won, 4-3.

The Cubs-Reds clash was just a minor speed bump for better games ahead. The Yankees were scheduled to face the Red Sox three games later and the Cardinals, who have been a surprise so far, were up for Game No. 197. There were definitely better games ahead.
But season replayers must replay each game no matter how drab they may seem. I’m sure there are a lot of replayers with stories of drudging through those late August San Diego vs. Montreal games during replays of mid 1970s seasons. When I did the 1977 replay, I almost dreaded seeing Texas and Cleveland coming up.

There are times, though, when looks may be deceiving. And that’s why we replay each and every game.
Since I’ve been playing the ABPA baseball game in 1998, I’ve played more than 19,000 replay games. Each game counts in the standings, regardless of who the teams are, and each game has the opportunity for something different to happen.
For those uninitiated with APBA, it is a statistical-based game that uses players’ results from real seasons and transposes those stats onto cards. Replayers role dice (or click mouses on the computer version) for each player at bat and those results dictate how the games progress.
So, Game No. 195 was up and I began rolling. I wasn’t disappointed.

Cincinnati took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first when Babe Young hit a home run. But, rather than fade away like they have in previous games, the Cubs fought back. Four singles and a walk gave Chicago four runs in the second. The Cubs then scored three more in the third and two in the fourth on nine singles and three walks.

They led, 9-2, after four innings.
But the Reds returned the favor. Augie Galan pinch hit a two-out homer in the fourth and Cincinnati battered Cubs’ pitcher Doyle “Porky” Lade for five runs in the sixth. The standards for obesity must have been different back then. Ol’ hefty “Porky” stood 5-10 and was a portly 180 pounds.

The Cubs took an 11-8 lead in the seventh, but the Reds answered with four more in their half of the seventh, giving Cincinnati a 12-11 lead. By then, I knew I needed help and was forced to summon resources.
I called Holly, my Illinois sweetie, in to roll for the Cubs. She rolled several Cubs’ contests during my 1991 replay and uncannily seemed to constantly roll 66s for Andre Dawson, the universal dice roll for home runs.

Sure enough, she rolled well; Bill “Swish”Nicholson, the Cubs’ early version of Dave Kingman who mostly either homered or struck out, blooped a single and drove in catcher Bob Scheffing in the top of the ninth to make it a 13-13 tie.
The Reds were scoreless in the bottom of the ninth and the game went into extra innings.
Both teams failed to score in the 10th and the contest continued.

Apparently, Holly was getting tired and, wanting to wrap up the game and get on with her own life, did her best rolling of the season so far in the 11th inning.
With one out, Scheffing singled and Nicholson added his own single, driving Scheffing to third. Eddie Waitkus then hit a sacrifice fly to drive in Scheffing. Fans remember Waitkus as the idea for Bernard Malamud’s novel “The Natural,” which later became a movie with Robert Redford and Glen Close. Waitkus was shot in 1949 by an obsessed, love-struck fan upset when he was traded to Philadelphia.
Then, the gates opened and the Cubs followed with a triple, single, walk, single, error and single before Scheffing, batting around, flied out for the final out. Seven runs scored and the Cubs took a 20-13 lead.

Cubs pitcher Bob Chipman closed out the game, giving up only a one-out double before getting two ground outs to win the game.
The score seemed more like a Bears-Bengals game with Chicago winning on a fourth-quarter touchdown. Instead, it was one of 1,232 games I’ll play in this replay and there were many elements to this game that made it stand out. The score, Holly’s rolling of the dice, the stories associated with the players such as Waitkus and the fun of a really wild game.

Even though some of the games on the schedule may appear boring and pointless, we have to play them out. You never know what will happen.

Sunday, October 27, 2019

A Tale of Two Cities

Teams in two cities are making impacts during the first month of my 1947 APBA baseball replay.  Boston and Philadelphia, two of the five cities then that featured teams in both leagues, are pretty much book-ending the standings so far.

The Boston Red Sox, fueled by Ted Williams’ amazing start (.429 8HR 20 RBIs), Tex Hughson’s 4-0 month on the mound and Robert Klinger’s three saves, have given the team the lead in the American League. The Sox are also serving notice to New York that the Yankees might not win the League by 12 games as they did in the real season.
Boston is now 14-6 for the year, 1.5 games ahead of both the Yankees and Detroit Tigers. Their National League counterpart, the Boston Braves are also challenging the lead with a 15-8 record. That’s good enough for second place behind the surprising St. Louis Cardinals’ 15-5 record so far. In the real 1947 season,  the Cards were 6-14 after 20 games and ended up in second place by season’s end.

The Braves had a seven-game winning streak in my replay and, after losing two to the Cardinals in their last series, they beat St. Louis, 6-2, in a quick game I was able to get in after stumbling home from work late last night.
The bats are carrying Boston. The Braves have only hit six home runs, with Robert Elliott’s two leading the team.  Pitching is the Braves’ forte, with Warren Spahn going 4-0 and Johnny Sain at 3-2 by the end of May 5. Outfielder Thomas Holmes leads Boston with 17 RBIs so far.

The Braves’ decent start is not that much of a surprise. Remember, a year later, the real 1948 Braves went to the World Series with the mantra “Spahn and Sain, and pray for rain.”The Red Sox finished third in the actual 1947 season, but if they continue to play like they have so far in this APBA replay, it should be a good American League race.
On the other end of the standings, the other city – Philadelphia is mired down, although the Phillies have had a sudden surge, moving out of last place by winning six of their last seven games after starting off losing seven of their first 11.

How the Phillies are doing it is a mystery. Catcher Andy Seminick has 20 RBis and five home runs, including a grand slam, but the rest of the team has been hit and miss. The team is similar somewhat to the 2011 Cardinals with various player stepping up at needed times. That’s by no means saying I think the Phillies will challenge for the League title. Schoolboy Rowe is 4-1 on the mound so far. It’ll take more the Rowe and Seminick to pace the Phils.
There’s no question the Philadelphia As are a struggling team. Ace Philip Marchildon is 1-4, Richard Fowler is 1-3 and Joe Coleman has yet to win a game in three decisions. Sam Chapman leads the As with two home runs and Barney McCosky has nine RBIs.
Two cities. Two directions. Meanwhile, a third city, New York, may have something to say as well. The Yankees are, well, they’re they Yankees. And the Giants are lurking behind Boston in the National League hoping to make some noise as well.

Sunday, October 20, 2019

Two-Home Run Games

Other than Ralph Kiner, Johnny Mize and Ted Williams, the 1947 baseball season wasn’t really known for the long ball. In fact, only five players in the league that year hit more than 30 home runs. Four were in the National League.

The Pittsburgh Pirates’ left fielder Kiner and the New York Giants’ first baseman Mize tied with 51 each; left fielder Willard Marshall, also of the Giants, hit 36; and Walker Cooper, the Giants’ veteran catcher, hit 35 homers.
Williams led the American League with his 32 clouts.

It’s a far cry from recent seasons when players hitting 50 home runs are almost common. By comparison, the steroid-soaked 1998 season featured 32 players with at least 30 home runs.

The 1947 season is much tamer. For those not initiated with APBA games, the company creates cards for players. Rather than pictures, the cards contain numbers that are statistically based upon their actual season’s performance. If a player has the proclivity to strike out, there will be more “13s” on the card, numbers signifying strike outs. Home run hitters are given “1s,” “power numbers,”   that indicate home runs.
Ralph Kiner,left, and Johnny Mize
But, there’s something that happened in that era that I’ve taken notice while replaying the first month of the 1947 season with the APBA game.  I’ve had three players in the replay have two-home run games so far. I’ve reached May 4, a day when most of the teams are playing Sunday doubleheaders, and have had three players each hit two homers in a game.

Not a lot when comparing my replay to the real 1947 season. By May 4 in the actual year played, eight players had two-home run games and Mize had a three-home run outing. Two players to do this – Jeff Heath and Wally Judnich – were with the less-than-powerhouse St. Louis Browns.
In my 1947 replay, Cardinals’ catcher Del Rice was the first to hit two home runs in a game against Cincinnati. Of course, Ted Williams had to have his own time, belting two against hapless Washington on the way to his league-leading eight home runs for the season so far. And, the icon of home runs that year, Mize, hit two for me against Brooklyn.

It’s still early to see if the trend continues. I’ve only played about 160 games of a 1,232-game season, or 13 percent. Joe DiMaggio has gotten off to a slow start in my replay and is due for a big game. Mize and Kiner, with their power cards, are always a potential for multi-dinger games. The other night, Ron Northey hit a home run for the Cardinals early in a game I was rolling. Northey had a two-home run game on May 4 for the real Cardinals and I was waiting to see if he’d do it in the replay. He didn’t.
The 1947 season is a balance of home runs, clutch hitting and decent pitching. I’ll keep watch to see if others in my replay have multi-home run games. It’s yet another reason to play this game.

Sunday, October 13, 2019

Being Pen-sive

The red and white die and the player cards are key parts of the APBA game. Actually, they are the most important aspects of the replay. Without them, for example, I’d never know if Ted Williams could bat .400 in my 1947 APBA baseball replay, if Bob Feller could strike out the side in the ninth inning of a close game or if the Yankees and Dodgers could each make it to the World Series.

But another vital element of the game is the pens we replayers use. You’ve got to have a decent writing utensil to record statistics, keep score and set up replays.

As a former news reporter for more than three decades, I’ve become an aficionado of pens. You can’t be hindered with a dragging ballpoint pen when scribing quotes from some fast-talking politician or from a poignant source in a spot news story. 

I first learned the importance of pens when covering football at a small Arkansas weekly newspaper. I used to rely on felt-tipped black markers. They were thin-pointed and easy to use, gliding over my notebook quickly. I covered one game in a blinding rain storm in the western edge of the state, though. The black ink, looking really nice when first on the page, began running when the notebook became soaked. The ink blurred and looked like those advertisements that depict cheap women’s mascara that runs when wet.  My story that week, alas, was pretty much devoid of any exciting game details and relied only on statistics provided by the coach the following day.

I also had to have pens that, after hastily jotting down comments, I could read later. Mike Huckabee was the fastest-talking governor of Arkansas. Jotting his quotes required a strong wrist, decent penmanship and an ability to transcribe hieroglyphics.
So, after years of using  pens in the workplace, I’ve become pretty particular with them.

And, because I have a tad bit of OCD, I use black and blue ink pens for different aspects of a replay. I’ll rely on a blue pen to create team pages. I’ll write every game the team plays – in the 1947 season, that’s 154 games – for each team. Then, when I play the games, I’ll write the scores in using black in. I also set up my stat pages, albeit somewhat limited, the same way. Blue ink for names, black ink for home runs, wins and saves. And this year, I’m including RBIs as well. In black ink.
I also use a pencil for compiling standings. That way I can erase team wins or losses after games and only change the standings page out after a month of games are replayed.

I’ve found that some of the cheaper pens are the best. I used to scamper to a Dollar General to buy college-ruled paper, index cards and pens when I planned to start a replay. Now, I head to three places for pens, and they are all free. 

I used to grab up pens whenever I visited a friend in the hospital near my home. The hospital kept a cup of blue pens near the entrance and I’d pick one up on the way in and one on the way out. Once, my friend had a lengthy stay there and I got a dozen pens that I’m still using.

My bank also has great pens. I’ve got several pens with a bear emblazoned on the side; the bank used to have a bear logo.
And the church I attend has great black ink pens that I pick up.

There is some guilt, though, in getting those pens. Each place has eyes watching. The hospital and bank have security cameras and the church, well… you know who’s watching there. But they are there for customers, so I rationalize. Call it APBA advertising akin to the billboards you see on outfield walls.
Replays are long ventures. You’ve got to have decent pens to make the journey a tad easier. You can grab the good ones up at churches, hospitals or banks … as long as they aren’t chained to a teller’s desk.

Sunday, October 6, 2019

Replay Update: April 30, 1947

After whining here yesterday about not having any time to roll games, I went home last night, tossed two and completed the first month of the 1947 APBA baseball replay I’m doing. Actually, it’s not really a month since that season began on April 15. Make it half a month, but at least April is done and I’m getting a feel for how the season is going.

Each replay is a great learning experience. I just finished the 1991 season, a year full of home runs and high-scoring affairs. This year, it’s different. There are fewer home runs and more walks. And scores, for the most part, are lower as well, although I’ve had a few double-digit contests so far with 1947.

I’m also learning the players and their abilities. I knew most of the 1991 players from being alive during that real season. In 1947, other than a handful of stars on each team, I was relatively ignorant about the players then. That’s one of the fun parts of APBA. You see some of the tendencies of players as the season progresses.

So, with April games finished, here are the standings:
AL                  W      L   GB.
Boston            11    5    -
New York       11    5    -
Detroit           9       7    2
Cleveland      8       6    2.5
Chicago          7      9    4
St. Louis         7      9    4
Wshngton      5     10   5.5
Phil’phia         4     11   6.5

NL                   W      L    GB
St. Louis         11     3      -
Boston           12     5     0.5
New York        9     6     2.5
Brooklyn         8     7      3.5
Cincinnati       8     9      4.5
Chicago          5     10    6.5
Phil’phia         6    11     6.5
Pittsburgh      4    12     8

Ted Williams leads the American League with six home runs and is batting .414. His 16 RBIs are one behind league leader Phil Rizzuto of the Yankees.

Three New York Giants are tied with five home runs to lead the National League. They are Walker Cooper, Willard Marshall and Johnny Mize. Ralph Kiner of Pittsburgh has four home runs – the same number of wins as his hapless Pirates. I’m keeping RBI stats this year but, because I forgot who’s leading the National League and am at work now and have no access to my stats, I can’t list the NL RBI leader.

I’m also keeping detailed batting stats for the two signature players of that era: Williams and Joe DIMaggio. Williams has his above .400 average and Joltin’ Joe is hitting at a .349 clip. DiMaggio was the first player to drive in a run in my 1947 replay, but he’s been quiet since. He also has no home runs so far. In the real 1947 season, DiMaggio hit his first home run on April 20 against the Philadelphia As. He didn’t get his second homer until May 13.

Both the Yankees and Red Sox won their first four games of the replay and it looks like there’ll be a close fight the entire season between the two.  At the bottom of the American League, the Philadelphia As were shut out in three of the team's first four games, outscored 22-2.

As for team home runs, it’s a lot less than the teams that blasted away in 1991. So far, the Giants, with the trio of Mize, Marshall and Cooper, lead all teams with 22 homers. St. Louis is next with 16 and Pittsburgh has 15, anchored by Kiner and Hank Greenberg. The National League has 80 home runs total so far. 

The American League, led, surprisingly by Cleveland’s 11 home runs, has 67 total. Just as Boston and New York are tied in the American League, both teams are also knotted in total home runs with 10 each.

So, April is finished and now we head into May. It really looks like a good, fun season to replay.

Saturday, October 5, 2019

Seven Days a Week

It’s hard to knock down many games in my 1947 APBA baseball replay while working seven days a week, but it’s a task I’m faced with. After I was laid off from my newspaper job two years ago, I fell back into a financial pit that I have feared since I was an adult.

I hired on at another newspaper and then in May took a job totally out of my career in order to make a living. And, I got a second job -- a part-time, weekender where I work 12 hours a day. There’s not much time to roll games unless I stay up late and, because I work seven days a week, I’m not as deft at staying awake much.
Ask my Illinois girl, Holly. We’ll be sitting on the couch at 9 p.m.  watching Dateline on NBC when she’ll turn to me to talk about the show.  I’m out, like one of the victims Keith Morrison is always profiling. All I need to complete the scene is a chalk outline ‘round my body, police tape sealing off the sofa and Morrison’s quirky dialogue. “He often rolled the dice in his baseball replay, but this time, the dice rolled him,” he’d say.

I’ve played the 1947 replay now for seven weeks and have rolled 128 games so far. That’s an average of 2.6 games a day. Not too bad, but there was a time when I could average half a dozen games each day. 

So, it’s tough to maintain the pace I like. When you can play five or six games a day, you really get the feel of the season and how it actually went day-by-day in the real world.
But, like I said so many times before, the game is always waiting for us. It’s a game that’s made the transition with us from childhood to adulthood and it’s remained a mainstay for us. No other game, I can say assuredly, has kept the popularity that APBA has through our lifetime.

And, on a side subject, although I don’t play the game as often as I’d like, it’s still there in some form. I was feeling kind of down and tired the other day at my weekday job. I strive to make money and to provide a decent life for Holly and, because I am somewhat a defeatist, I never feel I do good enough. But, a person who works in the same building as I and who also plays APBA, stopped in the office and asked how 1947 was doing. We talked about players and teams and, of course, Jackie Robinson and it perked me up. I have never met anyone else in person who plays the game. Here’s a guy who’s in the same building just one floor down. The game picked us both up and carried us through the day. I went home and rolled a few games and really enjoyed it.
Replays are an adventure meant to be enjoyed, not a task that has to be completed at a certain time. But there are so many games left ahead and each one contains something new to experience. Will Johnny “Big Cat” Mize and Ralph Kiner each hit 51 home runs in my 1947 replay like they did in real life? Will Ted Williams flirt with batting .400? Can the Red Sox challenge the Yankees, like they are doing now in my replay? Lots of questions that are hard to answer when working seven days a week.

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Mow is Me

I declared my lawn mower dead a few weeks ago when I attempted to start it and it mocked me.

It did that slow “chug-chug-chug” noise like an evil chuckle before the engine quit. I tried pull starting it several times, raising blisters on my hand and nearly yanking my arm out of socket only to hear that chugging. The noise sounded like the mower was laughing. “Yeah, sure, you’re going to get this started,” it said. “Heh-heh-heh-heh.”

Half of my front yard was cut when the mower gave up the ghost. I tried repairing it. For some reason, I have a talent for fixing lawn mowers. I can’t balance a checkbook or tie my shoe normally, but I can repair a Briggs and Stratton small engine blindfolded. It’s like when God was dishing out the skills, he pointed at me and said “Lawn engine repair.” I would like to have bargained that my chosen talent could have been business savvy or professional athlete or some other money-making gift. However, negotiation, alas, was also not the talent I was deemed with, either.
I stood in the yard, looking at the half-mown yard (half-grassed?)  and realized I had no other option but to roll out a 70-year-old rotary mower to finish the job. For some reason, during Holly’s move  from Illinois to here, we were able to bring along her grandfather’s Scotts’ Silent  “reel mower.” The rotary mower, for those who are less than 90 years old, is the type with no engine. Blades rotate along the wheels’ axle, quietly clipping the grass. I think Pa on “Little House on the Prairie” was the last to use one.
It sounded good in theory. I actually embraced the idea at first. I wouldn’t have to buy gasoline, the job would be quiet and peaceful and there’d be a sense of accomplishment in some nostalgic form.  I could free myself from the shackles of subdivision standards and do away with the gas-powered tradition.

So, I rolled the rotary, or “clippy mower,” out and finished the yard. It was slow going and, because the blades were somewhat dull, it wasn’t the greatest cut. But at least the yard was finished and I thought I found something new to do.  I rationalized that I needed the exercise of pushing a heavy wheeled thing around the yard all evening.  Despite my sloth-like existence, I do like the concept of health. It may be somewhat ironic that I love watching the NBC’s “American  Ninja Warrior,” the television show that features constants running through a gauntlet that requires them to crawl hand-over-hand on some narrow beam or to swing on a bar and leap across a pool of water.  My Ninja moves including dragging myself out of the sunken couch in our living room, dodging the cat, weaving among his scattered toys and opening the refrigerator for my giant bottle of Pepsi. Me, a Ninja? None ya’ business.
The following week, I rolled the clippy mower out again. The yard had grown because of several rains and pushing the Scotts’ Silent was difficult. And it wasn’t silent. My noises of exertions and cursing rendered the product’s name moot. It was like pushing a plow through mud without a horse. I’d back up, rear up and go at again, only to clip two or three blades of grass.
I was the neighborhood show, too. I looked like an Amish person. All I needed was suspenders, a long beard and a better attitude than I had .

Some lawn care business guy stopped his truck by our yard to gaze at my work.
“Ain’t seen one of those in a long time,” he said, pointing at the clippy.

“Yeah, there’s a reason for that,” I replied.
I finished the yard in three days. Three days! I’d come home from work, change into the mowing clothes and tackle the yard, trying to get as much done before the light faded … both the sunlight and my own personal  light called my soul.

Finally, I realized my return to the days of yore was not going to work. Holly and I went to a local hardware store last week and I ended up buying a gas-powered mower and returned to the 21st century. I cranked it up the next day and mowed the entire yard in 40 minutes. No one stopped to point at me and, as far as I know, the mower made no cutting remarks about me. (I know, dumb pun)
How does this all apply to APBA? Well, considering it took three days to mow a yard and adding in the prep time, the showering afterward and the general  tired malaise that followed each session, there was little time to roll games.  By the time I became civilized again, it was late and only enough time to roll a game or two in my 1947 replay before I had to go to bed, get up and do it all over again the following day.

On the day I breezed across the yard with the new mower, I got three or four games in.
Because it’s a Briggs and Stratton engine, I can repair it and keep it running for a long while. Mowing will no longer cut into APBA time.
Mowing.  It’s such a pain in the grass.

Sunday, September 15, 2019

1947 Begins

Starting an APBA replay of a new season is always fun and interesting, and I think that’s why most of us do it. It takes dedication and determination to plow through an entire season, rolling the dice game by game, but it is also rewarding.

And, you can learn something along the way. Sure, we know about the “headliners” of whatever season we’re doing. We know all about the Ty Cobbs, Henry Aarons, Mickey Mantles, Barry Bonds et al.  Because APBA is an intellectual game, most of the players are also avid readers as well. I’m sure we’ve all delved into our share of baseball biographies and histories. But, there are also the other, less known players that pop up in a replay and, after rolling many games, we begin to learn their characteristics.
I began rolling 1947 about a month ago after finishing my four-year odyssey of the 1991 season. Based upon my own baseball likes and particulars, this may be the best season for me to replay.

Examples: I’m not one of those “managers” who replaces pitchers for every batter in the late innings. I’m still of the old school of leaving a starter in until he really gets into trouble and then, finally, bringing in a relief pitcher to mop up. I may end up using only three or four pitchers in a game, which works because the APBA company only designates cards for a certain amount of players. Generally, when you buy the basic set, you get nine to 11 pitchers on average. Subtract the regular starters and spot starters and you have three or four relief pitchers.
That said, in 1947, managers didn’t go to their bullpens that often.  New York Yankee pitchers completed 47 percent of the games they started that season. Brooklyn starters finished 42 percent of their contests.  Last year, the Yankees had one pitcher, Masahiro Tanaka, complete a game. The other 161 games New York played in 2017 had at least two pitchers.

So, I can leave pitchers in longer and, because it’s that era, I don’t completely skew the game.

There were no designated hitters in 1947, so that lets managers have at least one more element of strategy. Despite my penchant for keeping pitchers in longer, do I pull a starter late in the game and pinch hit for him when it’s his turn to bat?
Home runs are at a premium. It’s not a slugfest like it is today. The National League’s 1947 home run hitters, Ralph Kiner and  Johnny Mize, each had 51 dingers to lead the league. That’s more than enough.  Ted Williams’ 32 home runs lead the American League.

Other interesting observations from 1947 include a lot of walks. Pitchers almost toss as many base-on-balls as they do strikeouts. In the first replay game for the Boston Red Sox, Williams had four walks. In his complete, 2-1, victory over the Chicago White Sox, Cleveland pitcher Bob Feller notched six walks to his 2 strike outs.

Scoring varies. In my replay, the St. Louis Cardinals clubbed Cincinnati, 17-0. A few games later, the Pirates edged the Reds, 2-0. Many games are pretty close and entertaining to the end.  In one contest, Brooklyn beat the Boston Braves in 17 innings when, with one out in Brooklyn, Pee Wee Reese singled in Dixie Walker who was on second for the win. Where else can you say something like that but APBA?
And here are a couple of other notes from the first month of the 1947 replay. Fitting, Joe DiMaggio had the first RBI of the season, leading his Yankees to a 10-4 win over the Washington Senators.  Thomas Henrich had a grand slam for the Yanks in that game, too.

Kiner hit a home run in his first game against Chicago. Willliams hit two home runs against Washington. Mize and Terry Moore also had two-HR games.
Williams leads the AL now with four home runs after games through April 27, 1947. Bill Nicholson of the Cubs also has four homers to lead the National League.

And there are a few surprises with the teams. The Cardinals lead the NL with an 8-2 record, 1.5 games ahead of the New York Giants and their 7-4 mark. The Dodgers, those Bums, are, surprisingly, only 5-6. In the American League, sparked by Williams’ early Triple Crown run of 4 HRs, 12 RBIs and .395 batting average, the Red Sox are 8-3 and lead the Yankees, who are 7-5. DIMaggio has yet to hit a home run, but is batting .370 and has seven RBIs.
It’s early in the season and anything can happen as the games progress. But so far, 1947 looks like a very interesting and enjoyable season to do.

Saturday, September 7, 2019

Life Happens During Replays

A lot can happen in your life while you do an APBA season replay, especially if the replay takes nearly four years. While rolling the dice and recreating the past, playing game-by-game of some season of ago, at the same time the game-player is also creating his or her own new history.

I began my 1991 APBA season replay Aug. 16, 2015, with no idea what my future would present.
A week later, I called Holly, my soon-to-be Illinois girl, for the first time and embarked on a journey that’s still going. Before The Call, I could finish a season replay in about a year. I had a pretty shallow life of just working and going home. I’d think nothing of tossin’ several games each night; there was no other thing to do. In previous replays, it was a routine. Throw a frozen dinner in the microwave;  throw Bruce Springsteen, U2 and Joe Cocker on the CD player; and throw dice each night. Lather, rinse, repeat and there you had my life.

But after making The Call, I drove to northern Illinois in September of that year to meet Holly and promptly fell head over heels for her. The games suddenly became secondary, a thing done to pass time before my next trip. And that’s why it took so much longer than before for me to complete a season replay.

A lot of life happened, though, between the first pitch and the last out of the 1991 season.
During the length of my 1991 replay, this is all that happened in my own life: I went from being a single loner to a near-married guy with domestic responsibilities and constant trips to Wal-Mart for hairspray, cleaners and pet food. I found companionship and someone to watch shows like "Dateline"  and to go on neighborhood walks with.

I was laid off of my newspaper bureau job and I had five different jobs during the replay’s tenure. I now have two jobs and work seven days a week and I got out of the newspaper business entirely, something I never thought would happen.
I cut the cable television and internet services at home to save money and have become even more culturally illiterate. Speaking of culture, during the replay, the country elected a new president and shows like “The Bachelor” grew in “popularity” during peak dramas and then returned to their limited relevance.  The Cubs won the World Series  in 2016, about 15 months after I began the replay.

We lost Holly’s mother, who, sadly, passed away suddenly in June. We also lost two cats and Thor, an old Siberian Husky who may have been the greatest dog of all time. We got another cat in late June who is extremely rambunctious. I have to watch him to ensure he doesn’t bite the APBA cards or eat the dice during games.

We got a new car after my trusty Honda Pilot bit the dust (Must have been all those road trips to Chicago). And, on that subject of travel, since I started the 1991 replay, I’ve driven to Chicago 38 times now.
Physically, I continue falling apart. My knees are in constant pain and my hair is even whiter than when I began the replay. I ended up in the emergency room in 2016 after I got  pretty sick once. Doctors actually told me I was showing early signs of bladder and prostate cancer. Thankfully, I got much better and the cancer scare is no longer around.

Despite all the trauma, the losses, the job changes over the past four years, the frustration and stresses of it all, Holly and I continue to be strong together and we continue to grow in the relationship.
There’s a lot of life that goes on during replays. Everyone who does replays, or who is alive for that matter, experiences life and its changes.

Like I said, while we are recreating games that happened in the past, we are forging ahead with our own live and creating things that will eventually become part of our own pasts.
And there’s something worth noting about the APBA game itself. While life was going on, the game was always part of it. You can’t say that about many games, but APBA has always been there. Since most of us began playing APBA as children, the games have taken a back seat in various points along our lives. Going to college, getting married, job changes, moves, things happen that take precedence for a while.

But the game always comes back. It always does.