The Silence of No Sports

The arenas and stadiums are all quiet today and the spring training parks are silent. The NCAA tournament brackets are empty and blank on what would have been the selection Sunday.

It’s so serene out there that when you step outside, no matter where you live, you can’t hear Dick Vitale howling about diaper dandies and  dipsy-doo dunks.

In a time when the world has gone crazy with fear of an unseen Covid-19 coronavirus, the silence is deafening in the world of sports.

It makes for the clack of the APBA dice to be all the more noticeable. No games on television or in the stadiums? There are still sports going on at my house, albeit it the 1947 baseball replay. On Thursday, a day in Arkansas when everyone rushed the stores and bought cleaner and handy wipes and toilet paper and it made the fall of Saigon look like a summer picnic, I returned from my local store, frazzled. I calmed down, rolling a handful of games that included the Brooklyn Dodgers’ 12^th win in a row to put them in first, half a game ahead of St. Louis.

Therein lies one of the attractions of this game we’ve played since we were kids. There is insulation to it all. The bad of the world doesn’t affect the good of the game. Games cancelled due to virus? Not in our replays. There are no strikes, no stoppage of play. APBA players can play the 1994 baseball season to its fullest and even have a World Series if they choose, foregoing the real life stoppage of play and the cancellation of the fall classic. In my own replay of 1981, I ignored the mid-season strike and played a full season to see what happened.  When I do the 1972 replay, I won’t acknowledge the strike that began that actual campaign.

There are no major injuries if we don’t want our players hurt. When I did the 1925 season, Babe Ruth was healthy, unlike in real life when he played only 98 games that year due to his medical "ailment" of anything from kidney stones to syphilis, depending upon who was asking. I figured I paid for the season, I’ll use all the cards if I want.

We don’t have to have goofy commissioners, no bench clearing brawls, no steroids. It may sound like a Pollyanna type atmosphere, but we have the chance to keep a season pristine and clean with APBA. I’m tired of all the bad; APBA showcases the good.

Yesterday and today, at my weekend job at an assisted living facility, I had to screen all visitors and take their temperatures to ensure we weren’t letting any viruses inside. It became depressing. I brought my APBA notebook to work and during breaks set my daily schedules and even jotted down starting lineups for a week of upcoming games. By Sunday evening, after I had scanned the temperatures of more than 140 people, the depression of what’s going on was setting in. I look forward to escaping later tonight with a few games.  I have the New York Giants up soon; it’ll be fun to see the big bats of Mize, Marshall, Thompson and Cooper come alive.

Tomorrow, I'll head to my job with the local prosecutor. Courts are closed, I was told; a murder trial set for Tuesday has been postponed. I don't know if I'll be working or at home next week. The uncertainty is alarming at a time when rumors are rampant and truth is one of the first casualties, as they say.

So, we have to trudge through all this weirdness and confusion of our times. It’s all we can do. But in the silence that’s created by the vacuum of no sports, roll more APBA games. Use that yellow, plastic dice roller to make the ivory dice sound louder. It may be an irresponsible escape, but it’s a welcome one.

Babe Ruth in Hot Springs, Ark

One reason why I've slowed down on writing blogs is that I'm also writing for an Arkansas monthly magazine. Here's a story I did for the March issue of About You on Babe Ruth's massive home run during spring training in Hot Springs, Ark., in 1918. The blast changed the perception that Ruth should play as a pitcher every four or five days to that of an every-day batter.

Click on the link below:

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Slow

Question: What’s slower than the 5 p.m. traffic on the Tri-State Tollway near Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport?

Answer:  Nearly 40 percent of the players in the 1947 baseball season.

I’m finding there are not a lot of stolen bases in my APBA replay of the season and there’s more than the average number of outfielder-to-catcher double plays because of slow runners. It’s a far cry from the previous replay of the 1991 season I finished last summer where players like Marquis Grissom of the Expos and Rickey Henderson of the As blazed the base paths.

Of the 400 players carded by APBA for the 1947 season, 157, or 39 percent, have been given the dreaded “S,” meaning they are rated as slow runners. Slow as in turtle slow, molasses slow, New York Giants slow!

Only 21 percent of the players who were carded for the 1947 season received “F” for “fast” on their cards.

APBA, for those who don’t know the game, creates cards for players in various seasons. Gamers toss dice and match the results with numbers printed on the players’ cards. The game company uses a formula to replicate a player’s actual performance for the season. A player with many home runs, for instance Ralph Kiner in the 1947 season, have more 1s and 5s on his card indicative of more home run chances.

The game also reflects if a player strikes out a lot and, as in the case of my 1947 season replay, if he’s pretty slow.

I’ve tallied the number of stolen bases and players caught stealing through 400 games of this season. So far, players have combined for only 160 stolen bases and have been caught 108 times for a success rate of 59.7 percent. In 1991, the National League successfully stole bases 67.1 percent of the time and the American League swiped bases 65.9 percent of the time.

Projecting the 1947 season to the end (based on me having played about 33 percent of the replay so far), it looks like teams will take a total of 480 bases. In the actual 1991 season, Montreal alone stole 221 bases.

So, the players in 1947 are generally slow. Of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 25 carded players, 13 are rated as “slow,” including nine of its pitchers.  I may be wrong, but I think it was Mickey Lolich, the portly Detroit Tigers pitcher, in Jim Bouton’s classic “Ball Four” who talked about being slow. “You don’t run the ball over the plate, you throw it,” he said.

The New York Giants have eight slow players, including the heart of its line up with sluggers Johnny Mize, Willard Marshall and Walker Cooper. On a few occasions, the “slow” player rankings have caught the Giants twice in the same inning. Mize will get a single. Marshall’s roll will result in an “8,” or a single and should move Mize to third. But because Mize is a slow runner, he’s nailed at second. Then, Cooper bloops a single and, again because Marshall is rated as slow, Marshall is caught at second.

Of course, the Giants are blasting home runs. Mize has 15 home runs so far and Marshall has 12. You don’t have to zip around the bases at jackrabbit speed following a home run. You just have to be sure to touch all the bases.

Still, the slowness has cut short scoring opportunities for the Giants and may be responsible for their less than stellar 27-29 record so far. The Pirates, with their 13 slowpokes, have crawled their way to the major league worst record of 18-41.

Brooklyn and Philadelphia have the most fast-rated runners in the National League with 10 of their 25 players rated as “F.” Both teams have done well so far, too.

On the inverse, the Washington Senators have nine fast runners to lead the American League. That lead doesn’t translate into wins, though, as the Sens are at the bottom of the league with a 22-36 record.

It’s obvious that 1947 is a different era than 1991 in terms of speed by looking at the statistics. It’s even more evident when playing the season.

Woe is Knee

I had hoped my knee injury occurred due to doing something really heroic. Like carrying children from a burning orphanage or scoring the winning goal against the Russians in some World Cup hockey contest while a feisty defenseman hacked at me in a futile attempt to stop me.

No, instead, the medial meniscus tore in my left knee as I was hauling my fat ass up some steps at work.

I stepped, turned and…. Ouch. The “pop” noise was almost as loud as the bad word that fell out of my mouth.

Such is the price of getting old, I guess. I ended up going to the doctor two days later when the knee continued to swell and I had the gait of a wooden peg-legged pirate with termite issues. The doc took an x-ray which showed a chip of cartilage floating around. He diagnosed it as a torn meniscus and said I had a better than 50-percent chance of facing surgery. Because I have two jobs and no time for operations, I vowed to prove that theory wrong. (I also have a horrid fear of catheters installed during surgeries. My friend once told me a doctor pulled his catheter out as if he was starting a lawn mower. Also, I don’t want the last thing I hear before succumbing to anesthesia is a nurse saying, “Get the six-year-old boy-sized catheter for this one…”)

Two weeks later, I went to an orthopedic doctor who waggled the knee around , gave me a cortisone shot and bade me well, saying if it kept hurting to see him again. He said the x-ray showed arthritis and wear and tear and he equated my knee situation to a large rock (my body, apparently) being held up by a flimsy soda straw (my left knee hinge). Eventually the knee threw in the towel, saying it was tired of hefting my heft around all the time.

Age is a bummer at my age. When I was young, I never thought of how a body wears down. We used to sneak out of our grade school by jumping out of second story windows and scampering off. I’d fall on my knees constantly while trying to play hockey and we’d leap off of shed roofs while playing, slamming to the ground, rolling around and then getting up to run again.  When I was 16, I had an x-ray that showed a faint, old hairline fracture in my left knee cap. The doctor said standing could be a problem. I promptly got an afterschool job as a dishwasher, standing for the entire eight-hour shift while using a high-pressure sprayer to soak the dishes and my clothing.

I ignored any signs of aging until I did get old. We have a couch at home that sinks in. I need a forklift, rope and Sherpa to lead me out of its clenches because my knees aren’t good enough to propel me out. Holly could just glide right up, but I was straining and popping and cursing the existence of the couch each time I got up.

Now, I sit on a chaise couch thing to put my knee up for quelling the swelling. It helps, but, again, because I’m old, I tend to fall asleep in the thing at the Olde Age Hour of 8 p.m.

And here’s the APBA part: Because of all this, I’m not getting to play the 1947 APBA baseball replay I’m doing at the pace I’ve become accustomed to. Sitting at the baseball game desk for longer than 30 minutes now tends to stiffen the knee.  It’s awful saying that. It seems like it was just recently I was running to my friend’s house in northern Minnesota to play football and baseball in his back yard. Now, I limp to the television set to turn on football and baseball.

I was given a shocking reminder of how old I’ve gotten. I was driving back from the pharmacy late last night. I had a different radio station on than usual and heard the old Elton John song “Someone Saved My Life Tonight.” I was immediately transported back to when I was a 17-year-old driving around playing that song on the Elton John’s Greatest Hits 2 album on the 8-track player in my car.

Although I hadn’t heard the song in a long while, I knew all the words and actually sang along (I was alone in the car and it was close to 2 a.m. Most people were sleeping and didn’t have to hear my ‘singing’ as I cruised through their neighborhoods.) I remember how the 8-track split the song up when it shifted tracks and could actually sing the “ka-chunk” of the track change when it happened during the tune.

Then, I realized, that album came out in 1977… 43 years ago (and coincidently the same time I began playing APBA). It just seemed like a moment ago I was driving around howling the same lyrics.

The knee, like the rest of me, is aged. It’s done its job holding me up for more than five decades and I understand the phrase “Wear and tear” a lot more now than when I was a kid. I’d tap my foot to the beat of Elton John’s song like I used to, but it hurts my knee, so I keep that leg still.

The APBA Community

I don’t think there’s a closer group of people who share the kinship and bonding of community than those who play APBA.

Sure, there’s probably other groups that have similar likes and have the comradery of togetherness. Sometimes, the more obscure the organization, the closer the members seem to be. I’m sure the Left-Handed Morticians Association of America group has a secret handshake and an offshoot group of the Flat Earth Society – some gathering of folks who think the earth is flat, but has rounded edges – probably sings a rousing club song together.

But the APBA community, in my opinion, has to be the closest collection of people there is.

And here’s my reasoning: Our people reach out to each other. Just the other day, a member asked me which season I’d like if I could chose one. I said I’d probably next get 1927 because of Babe Ruth and the Yankees. I’m working on a story for a magazine about how Ruth hit a spring training home run in Hot Springs, Ark., in 1918 that changed the perception of him from being a pitcher to a batter and I was interested in that era. I also mentioned that I would like to eventually buy the 1965 season set of cards since that was the Minnesota Twins’ first World Series year.

A week or so later, I came home to find both seasons on our dining room table. The APBA member, knowing of my financial pitfalls of the past couple of years due to being laid off and medical, etc., sent me the sets. There was Henry Aaron and Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle and Lou Gehrig on the table! I was stunned at the kindness.

Since I’ve joined the community, mostly chatting with members on the APBA Facebook page and emailing them after they’ve read this blog and sending me notes, I’ve received the 1961 season set of cards, a collection of some cards from 1962 and 1963, a football game, books, a framed display of the Twins’ logos and – the most stunning of all – a laptop computer on which I’m writing this now. A person who read of my ineptness with computers and how a laptop I bought in Northbrook, Ill., in 2016 was a junker sent me a refurbished one he had. The same fellow read a goofy blog I recently wrote about being particular to certain types pens for doing replays. He sent me a box of blue, black and red pens and highlighters. I’ll never have to sneak any pens from churches, banks or hospital information desks again.

This is not to say the closeness I receive from this group is only because I get things. It works both ways. I’ve sent books to other members and the 1981 card set to a fellow APBA player in Michigan. He was having a hard time with making ends meet, but his attitude toward his job and his devotion to his wife was one of the most inspirational things I’ve seen. I was glad to help in some small way. I’ve also told Holly that when I pass away, she should send all my APBA cards and games to our APBA minister friend in Michigan. I trust him with my more prized possessions to dispense them to other members who would like them.

Most of us have never met in person, but that doesn’t matter. When one APBA member announced his mother passed away a few years ago, the outpouring of prayers and condolences from the group was massive.We also wish each other happy birthdays and root on our replays. When someone has a no-hitter and writes about it on Facebook, the congratulations are akin to those given to new fathers.

I did get to meet a handful of APBA guys in 2015 when, during my constant driving to Chicagoland to see Holly, I went to a tournament held in a nearby town. I had never seen any of them in person before, but felt like I knew them.

I doubt the Left-Handed Morticians develop that quick of a bond. 

Is it like demographics? I was a geeky, nerdy kid growing up who mostly preferred the company of my cards and replays over hanging out with other kids. I was very inept at sports, but I loved keeping up with teams, standings and stats. The APBA world I created by doing replays filled that need.

So, are there similar characteristics of an APBA player? I’m not so sure. I’ve met outgoing players and more loner types, those who excel in sports and klutzes like myself, rich ones and poor ones, old and young.

I’m not sure what the bonding drive is for ABPA. Maybe it’s just the unsaid knowledge we have about the game and what it means to us. It’s like policemen who share the bonding of chaos and seeing crime all the time. They don’t talk about it, but they all know of it.

Whatever it is, I offer that the APBA group is an amazing eclectic group. We may have diverse backgrounds, but we share a common bond over the dice and cards and computer games that draw us close.

Baseball Books and Replays

As I was reading Henry Aaron’s autobiography, “I Had a Hammer” recently, I found myself  interested in getting out my 1957 APBA baseball cards and reliving that season, or the 1974 season – the year Aaron became the Home Run King when he surpassed Babe Ruth’s 714 home runs.

Now, I just began reading “The Selling of the Babe,” Glenn Stout’s book on how Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees in 1920 and I’m now itching to do a replay of the 1927 season.

It’s something I’m sure APBA replayers all go through. We read books of a certain era in baseball and the natural response is to delve into it further by holding the cards and rolling the dice. I first found that out after reading “Cobb,” the questionable biography on Ty Cobb by Al Stump. Upon finishing the book, I immediately called the APBA company and ordered the 1919 season. Soon, the cards arrived and I pored over them, recognizing names that Stump mentioned in his book.

I think part of it all is the demographics of the APBA fan. This is not bragging and I am sure there are some who will refute what I say based on my own actions. But, APBA replayers, I surmise, are intelligent folks who have both the dedication to playing out a lengthy replay and the desire to read more about baseball. They are two passions I think we share.

And what better way to further understand seasons and author’s inputs than doing a replay while reading of a particular season. One of my favorite seasons I ever did was 1957. I enjoyed it even more after reading John Klima’s “Bushville Wins,” the tale of how the Milwaukee Brewers beat the Yankees in the 1957 World Series. The Wisconsin town gained that nickname when Yankees manager Casey Stengel was upset that the hotels near County Stadium in Milwaukee were all booked and he had to take his team to a town some 30 miles from Milwaukee. He retorted that the town was so much smaller than New York based on its accommodations and called it “Bushville’ in a reference to Bush League towns.

I plan on re-reading Jane Leavy’s “The Last Boy,” about Mickey Mantle soon. I’m sure that’ll rekindle desires to do a season in which Mantle played.

Of course, probably the most motivational replay-driving book has to be Jim Bouton’s “Ball Four,” his chronicle of the 1969 season and his role as a relief pitcher for the expansion Seattle Pilots. Doing a replay of that season gives us a closer perspective of some of the players Bouton names in his book. Sure, we know Ray Oyler’s name from the book, but we know him more when rolling the dice for his at bats in a replay.

There are scores of baseball books out there and each adds a dimension to replays we are all doing. It makes the season more interesting; if we know of some anecdotes from reading a book, it enhances the replay,  just as we may remember a player in our replay who is mentioned in a book.  It goes hand in hand.

I’m currently doing the 1947 season. One of the books I checked out from the library for the sole purpose of adding to the experience is Ed Henry’s “42 Faith,” the book on how Jackie Robinson ended up breaking the color barrier in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers.  It’s up next on my to-read list right after I finish Stout’s Babe Ruth book.

If you’re doing a replay, and you haven’t already done it, try reading a book on that particular season or era.  I think you’ll enjoy your replay even more.

1947 Replay Update: June 1

I’ve reached June 1 in my 1947 APBA baseball replay and a few things are evident. The Yankees and Red Sox look like they’ll have a close battle to the end of the season, the St. Louis Cardinals are playing above what they did in the real game and Ted Williams will have a monster season.

All this is based upon the completion of about 30 percent of the season; there’s plenty to play and, as APBA players know, anything can happen during a full season replay.

Here are the standings and highlights for the American League so far:

                       W      L    GB

New York       31     16   --
Boston           28     17   2
Detroit           29     18   2
Cleveland      22     21   7
St. Louis         18     25   12
Philadelphia  16     30  14.5
Washington  16     31   15

Ted Williams is the Triple Crown winner so far. He is batting .402 with 15 home runs and 54 RBIs. Williams dipped below .400 in late May , but a few good outings boosted his average above the coveted mark again by June 1.

Joe DiMaggio, who was quiet for the first part of the season, is second in the American League with 12 home runs and 40 RBIs. He’s batting .348.

The Detroit Tigers are a playing well, too. Roy Cullenbine has 10 homers and Fred Hutchinson leads the team with six wins so far  Joe Gordon, who was traded from the Yankees in October 1946 to Cleveland for pitcher Allie Reynolds, has helped pace the Indians to a fourth-place mark. Pitcher Bob Feller, who George Kell once told me was the most difficult pitcher he ever faced, has a 6-2 record for the Tribe.

It looks like Washington and Philadelphia will clash for last place honors. Those late season As-Senators doubleheaders will  be a chore to play.

Here are the National League standings and some highlights:
         
                          W     L     GB
St. Louis         30     15   -
Boston           29     17   1.5
Brooklyn        26     19    4
Philadelphia  25     22   6
New York       22    22     7.5
Cincinnati      22     25     9
Chicago          15     31   15.5
Pittsburgh     14     31    16

Ralph Kiner, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ outfielder, and New York Giants first baseman Johnny Mize are tied for the league lead in home runs with 13 each. The two led the real season with 51 dingers each.

Mize also leads my replay with 44 RBIs. The Giants are somewhat of a disappointment; they are clobbering the long ball. Willard Marshall has 12 home runs and Bobby Thomson has 11. But the team is only playing .500 ball. Part of that reason is because of the slow runners, and I intend to write an entry on that soon. Seems like the Giants’ slow runners – those marked with an ‘S’ on their card – are often thrown out at second when running from first to second on a batter’s single. It’s happened twice in an inning for the Giants several times and has been a major rally killer.

The Cubs are simply bombing. Other than Bill “Swish” Nicholson’s 11 home runs, there’s nothing to see at Wrigley Field. They are on a tailspin lately and have a chance of toppling the Pirates for a lock on the cellar spot in the standings.

On the top of the league, the Cardinals are playing way above what the real team did in 1947. After 45 games in the real season, the Cards won 19 and lost 26 games. The Birds are playing 11 games above that pace in the replay and part of that is a combination of both hitting and pitching. Whitey Kurkowski has 12 home runs so far and Stan Musial is in second place in the RBI race with 42. Harry Breechen and Red Munger each have 7-1 records on the mound.

So, I’ve reached June 1, 1947. It’s a day where most teams will play doubleheaders. The standings are bound to change as teams and players get hot or cool off. Despite the statistical-based nature of the APBA game, I’ve found over the years there are some teams that get streaky and roll off several wins, or losses. The same with the players. DiMaggio had been pretty quiet early on, but lately he’s on a huge tear, hitting seven home runs in his last 10 games.

We’ll see how the season progresses. It’s why we roll all these games.