APBA Christmas 2020

Another Christmas has arrived and for most of us, I’m guessing, the magic of it all, the excitement of the times, has somewhat passed by.

I’m not being a curmudgeon saying “Bah,” to the holiday, but I’m offering that as we age, the tables of this season have tipped. When we were kids, we got things. Now, those of us who ended up with kids, we give things.

I never had kids and I worked at the newspaper on Christmas days so others could be with their families during the nine years between when my wife died and I met Holly, who is now my family. One Christmas, I covered a deliberate fire set at the boyhood home of former Pres. Bill Clinton in southern Arkansas. Another year, I wrote a story about people who had to work on the holiday and then filed a late story about a snow storm that hit northern Arkansas that night.

But, despite the negative tone of all this, there is still some magic for those of us who play the APBA games. Most of us who play this game are probably reaching middle age or beyond. We grew up in a time before Play Stations and other video games and our sports games consisted of cards or spinners or dice. But we loved those games and for many of us, I bet, we got our initiation into APBA through Christmas.

I did. In 1977, 43 years ago, my parents bought me the APBA football game. It was the headliner present of the season. It beat the shirts, sweater, books and other things I received then and I remember the heft of the package. I still recall that Christmas night, poring over the cards and realizing I had a sports universe right there. I played Washington and the New York Giants in my first game. I probably did it wrong, but I entered the realm that I’m still in. A year later, the APBA basketball game was under the Christmas tree and I was hooked with the game company.

Flash forward nearly half a century. I am no longer toiling in news and instead work for the prosecuting attorney in the county in which I live. We are off Thursday and Friday for the holiday. I spent Christmas Eve Day playing games in the 1965 APBA baseball replay I began two weeks ago.

The Christmas magic is still there. I’m 60, but I still had that feeling of wonder as a child as I rolled a game between the Milwaukee Braves and the Chicago Cubs. The wind must have been blowing out of County Stadium in Milwaukee. Eddie Mathews hit two home runs, Henry Aaron, Joe Torre, and Gene Oliver each hit one for the Braves. Billy Williams and reserve catcher Chris Krug, who with a “5” has one of the lowest ratings for a catcher I’ve seen, each hit homers for the Cubs.

Earlier in the day, Willie Mays hit his second home run of the season, pacing the Giants to a doubleheader sweep over the New York Mets. And even earlier, Pittsburgh and Houston split games in their doubleheader. Later tonight, as Santa loads his sleigh and heads out on his run, the Los Angeles Dodgers will face the Philadelphia Phillies. Sandy Koufax is scheduled to start his second game of the season.

So, despite my age and the loss of the childhood awe of the overall season, there still is that spirit of excitement with this game.

And, raise your hands if you’re with me on this: Whenever you order a season from the APBA company, you wait for it to arrive with anxiety. And when it comes, regardless of the month, you tear into it much as you did when you were a child opening a Christmas present. There’s a shelf by our kitchen door in the garage where the postman leaves packages. I’ve always gotten a charge when I saw a box on that shelf with unmistakable red APBA logo.

What else have we carried through our lives this long? The game still has that innocence we had as youngsters. It’s a simple game. Roll two dice, look at the results on a player’s card, match that with the results on a chart and see what happens. But it’s also a complex game. Things can happen that inspire our imagination. Willie Stargell hit two home runs in a game I played a week ago. I didn’t need to see it occur on a video game screen. I could see Stargell do his hitch swing and then clout one over the Pittsburgh fence.

And there’s that magic that we hold onto that is the spirit of Christmas. Despite changes in life, whether it’s loss or failed dreams or not having enough money or just being alone on the holiday, those of us who roll the game still have that feeling we had when we were young and first played the game.

Merry Christmas, APBA brethren.