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!