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.