I'm Back ...

… Or at least I hope so.

An observant APBA friend noticed it’s been nearly a year since I wrote anything on Love, Life and APBA Baseball (tomorrow will be the one-year anniversary of absence), and that’s sad. I enjoyed writing these things and sharing ideas, game and season recaps and any observations I had while rolling the games.

But life stepped in the past year and the blog took a back seat. I began working two jobs a year and a half ago to make ends meet after I was laid off from my newspaper job of 20 years. I work seven days a week, pulling two 12-hour shifts on the weekend at a security guard job. I found work at a local newspaper for a while, but the stress of the job and the low pay didn’t cut it and three months ago, I got a new, better job. I come home, watch TV with Holly and then fall asleep on the couch a lot. 

When I am awake, Holly, my Illinois girl who moved here three years ago, and I continue to develop our own life with late jaunts to Wal-Mart, walks around the neighborhood and trips back to Chicagoland. We also just got a new young cat that takes time and energy. (No word yet if he's an APBA cat like a cat I had several years ago.)

There’s not much time for rolling games, let alone writing about them. And, in an effort to save some money, we cut the cable and internet from the home. I couldn't really access the blog site, or Facebook well. I do have access on my cell phone to the internet, but it’s hard writing spontaneous blog pieces on a tiny phone that has a limited data connection speed.  We’ve just added a “hot spot” to our phone to allow slow Wi-Fi at home, so I can start writing again.

So, now, 364 days after the last one, it’s time to start writing Love, Life and APBA Baseball again. I’ve been able to find some time to roll games; I finished the 1991 season replay the other day – one day before the four-year mark of when I began it. I’ll recap that season in the next post, but I’ll offer that in my playoffs, Minnesota beat Toronto, four games to one, and Pittsburgh edged Atlanta four games to two to meet in the World Series.

The Series went seven games and Game 7, like in the real Series, went into extra innings. More on that in a bit.

I’ve not completely quit writing. I’ve had two columns appear in the Duluth, Minn., News-Tribune paper recently. I pitched stories to their Op-Ed page just to be able to say I was in a paper near my northern Minnesota home town. And I should have an article in a veterans’ magazine coming out in the near future.

But at its peak, the blog was the most fun to write. The APBA readers got what I was saying and we shared a common bond of the experience of playing the game.

So, there’s lot more to write. I’ll do a recap of the 1991 season with standings, stats and outlines of the playoffs. And tonight, when I get off my weekend shift and I’m not too tired, I hope to roll a couple games of the 1947 season that I will do next. Hopefully, it won’t take four years to complete that.

Life changes, but APBA has still remained part of it, albeit a lessened role for a bit. Still, there are lots more stories to share in this blog.

I’m back.

*Also, please feel free to send any comments to my email since I don't have easy access to Facebook anymore. You can write to me at kenbobwrites@gmail.com.