Two Rolls, Three-Way Tie

Two grand slams have created a three-way tie in the East Division of my 1981 APBA baseball replay with only two games left to play for each team.

Two slams; two swings; it’s all knotted up.

I began this replay in December 2011, rolling three to five games a day. Now, at Game No. 2071 on Oct. 2, 1981, I’ve got the closest pennant race I’ve ever played.

For those of you new to the game, or to this blog, APBA is a statistical-based game that recreates baseball seasons. Baseball players for that particular season are given a card with numbers on it. Game players roll dice, match the rolls with the numbers on the cards and then compare them with play results. It generally takes 15-20 minutes to play a game.

I’ve played APBA for nearly 36 years. However, I only got into the baseball game 15 years ago. But since 1998, I’ve rolled at least one baseball game nearly every day (unless I was sick or on some news assignment). This season is the tightest pennant race I’ve seen.

New York, Baltimore and Detroit are all sitting atop the American League East with 95-65 records. Early on, it appeared the Yankees would run away with the division, but Detroit and Baltimore stormed back.

Today, I rolled two games before leaving town on assignment. Both featured game-turning grand slams.

In the first contest, Baltimore hosted New York. The Yanks took a 4-1 lead in the third, but Orioles’ third baseman Doug DeCinces hit his first grand slam of the season in the bottom of the third and the Birds ended up winning, 8-4.

In the next game, Milwaukee led 4-0 after two innings against Detroit, but Brewers’ pitcher Jim Slaton gave up a single to Lou Whitaker and then walked two in the third to load the bases. Steve Kemp then hit his slam. For APBA fans, Kemp’s home run was somewhat backwards. I rolled a “33” for Kemp’s double-column card. It resulted in a “0,” meaning I needed to roll the dice again for his hit. The dice tumbled around on the second toss, ending on the “66,” APBA’s  signature roll for home runs.

Dan Petry then shut down the Brewers and the Tigers ended up taking the game, 9-4.

Two simple dice rolls, well, three actually when factoring in Kemp’s second one. Two outcomes that really make this game interesting.

I’m hitting the road soon today, heading to Little Rock to cover a conference on school shootings. I’m sure while at this meeting I’ll relive my coverage of the 1998 Westside Middle School shooting where four children and a teacher were killed. It won’t be fun.

But I know when I return home, I’ll have more games to play and I’ll know that as the season draws to a close, each roll could really mean something big. Two of them already have.

I Don't Hate The Red Sox Anymore

A funny thing happened while I replayed the 1981 ABPA baseball season. I found myself rooting for the Boston Red Sox, which goes against the very grain of my existence, I had thought.

I’ve always been a Yankees fan, since nearly birth. I know, I know. “Evil Empire” and all, but I come by the fandom with righteous reasons. 

First, my father instilled the Yankees in me when I was a youngster. He grew up in New Jersey just across the river from New York and would watch and root for DiMaggio, Berra, Mantle and Maris. With a teacher like that, how could I not favor the Yanks?

And, when I moved to Arkansas as a teenager from northern Minnesota, my following the Yankees set me apart from the rest of my classmates, many who tormented me because I was from the north. They called me “Yankee,” with the same vile invective that they reserved for racial slurs. Rather than be offended, I turned it into them calling me by one of my favorite teams.

Despite being a Bronx Bomber, I didn’t hate the Red Sox for years, though. In fact, I rooted for them in the 1975 World Series against Cincinnati. When I was really young, I sent off Corn Flakes box tops and got patches for five teams. I remember getting Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Detroit and ... Boston.

But then 2004 happened and I learned how to hate like a real fan. 

The Yanks took their 3-0 lead against Boston in the American League Championship series that year, but the Red Sox battled back and won the next four. They then won the World Series against Colorado.

Two years later, they swept the Cardinals which, because of my proximity to them, became the National League team I followed.

So, my dislike of the Sox came naturally.

But when I replayed 1977’s baseball season with the APBA game a few years ago, the Red Sox defeated Cincinnati in the World Series and I found myself not broken hearted at that. Now, as my 1981 season comes to an end, Boston is out of the pennant race, but I find myself rooting for them to fare well.

How can you not really like the 1981 Red Sox with players such as Fred Lynn, Carl Yastrzemski, Dennis Eckersley, Tony Perez and Rich Gedman. 

When you do a replay, rolling dice for each game scheduled for that particular season, teams take on personalities, much like they do in real life. The APBA game is statically based. You roll dice, match up results with numbers on player’s cards, compare those numbers to game results and, voila, the game is played. 

You find yourself rooting for teams and players based on how they fare during the season. Quirks come out, and the Red Sox had some fun quirks to watch as I replayed 1981. Dave Stapleton hit home runs in the APBA game above his real totals for the season. In 1981, Stapleton hit 10 home runs for the real Red Sox. In my game, he has 22 homers. Pitcher Frank Tanana, despite receiving a “D” for his pitching grade in the game (grades factor in the determination of plays at times), won games and he struck out a lot of batters.

I don’t know how this will translate into the real season this year. Will my mild interest in the Red Sox carry over to the actual games? I doubt I’ll root for the Sox over the Yankees, but at least the APBA game helped absolve some of the hatred I had for that team.

Now, if the game can remove my dislike for the Cubs, it’ll really be doing something.

The Sound of the South

It’s spring and with it comes the annual sound of baseballs popping in gloves, the cracks of the bats and the ballpark vendors hawking expensive beer and meat byproduct hot dogs.

But here in the south another sound vies for our attention as the trees begin budding and the temperatures climb. It’s the sound of the wailing tornado sirens. Not that I’m rooting for them, but we should hear their cries this spring in Arkansas. 

We had an off year last year with only a few twisters. Meteorologists blame it on the drought; the dry conditions kept storm systems from strengthening over the state and producing the tornadoes. We had only 17 reported in the Natural State in 2012.

This year, though, the drought has improved and forecasters expect at least 50 tornadoes. And with the increase in storms, it means I’ll be heading out more to the various towns that get hit by the winds. One of my duties at the newspaper where I work is to cover weather.

I’ve seen a lot of tornado damage in my years here. In 2008, I drove through a storm cell that produced the longest on-the-ground twister in the state’s history. When I punched through the system, my car was covered in splotched mud and straw.

Once I had the rubber stripping along my car door frame blown off during a storm.  After that, whenever I drove over 50 mph, the wind would blow across the gap and make a whistling noise.

I’ve driven over the remains of a house scattered across a road and dodged downed trees. In 2007, I had to drive through a bumpy cotton field to get to a town that was decimated by a twister because the roads were closed with debris.

And once I covered a tornado in a small eastern Arkansas town that killed two people. Officials set up an area for storm victims in a school gymnasium and posted a large sign “No Media.” While I was there, a second tornado formed and bore down on the school. Police rushed everyone into the gymnasium for shelter, creating a dilemma. As a reporter, do I heed the sign and stay outside, or do I take cover? I took cover.

In 1999, the sirens blared near our home and my wife and I scrambled into a closet under the staircase. She got important papers and photographs to preserve and took them with her; I grabbed my 1998 APBA baseball season set. Priorities, you know.

This year, as we prepare for the storm system here in the south, I’m ready. I have all my APBA seasons already stored in a walk-in closet that, if I were inclined to, I would hunker down during tornado warnings. 

I’ve said here before that in APBA, I never have rain outs. Every team plays its full slate of games in all the replays I’ve done. But, as the winds begin howling and the sirens go off, there may be a few games delayed while I seek shelter and then track down where the damage occurred so I can report on it.

Replay Update, Sept. 24, 1981

Ten days are left in the 1981 baseball season I’m replaying with APBA and the American League East continues to be knotted. I find that, although this is not real, I think about the games while away from the cards and dice as if they were.

It’s quite a race, and it makes me stay up late at night rolling games to see how this turns out.

I’ve reached Sept. 25, 1981. I’m replaying every game scheduled that season and am ignoring the baseball strike that wreaked havoc on the actual season and converted the national past time into a goofy, minor league-like farce with its split playoff system.

I wanted to correct that and wanted to see what happened if each team played its full 162 games. Like I said here before, there’s no player strikes, lockouts or rainouts in APBA.

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, APBA is an amazing stat-based game that uses cards and dice. For the more high-tech players, the game does come in a computer format, but I’ve shied away, both because I am a traditionalist and I’m a computer idiot. (We've just changed computer systems at the newspaper where I work. The adjustment has been a bit rough and one of our techs actually told me that my inability to understand the newfangled stuff gave them job security).

Each player’s season is represented on a card. Players roll dice to determine play outcomes, corresponding the roll with numbers on the cards. It generally takes about 15-20 minutes to play a game. A full season replay, in my case, has taken about 17 months.

It seems like a long time, but when you have a pennant race like the one ensuing in my replay, it’s worth it.

Here are the four teams in the American League East Division as of games ending on Sept. 24, 1981.

Baltimore 91-62

Detroit 90-63

New York 90-63

Milwaukee    87-66

The Orioles will play three at Yankee Stadium and Milwaukee heads to Detroit for a three-game series. 

The National League is wrapped up. Montreal currently has record of 106-46 and is an amazing team to play. They lead Philadelphia by 14 games. Los Angeles, with its four 21-game winners in Fernando Valenzuela, Burt Hooton, Jerry Reuss and Bob Welch, lead Houston by 10 games with 10 to go. The Dodgers will play the Astros in Houston for three games and more than likely will wrap up the West during that series.

Kansas City leads California by 4.5 games with nine games remaining in the Royals’ season.

So, it’s late, but I plan to play a few games before bedtime tonight, advancing this great season. I’ll head to work a bit bleary-eyed tomorrow, but it’ll be worth it. And if it appears I’m zoning out, I’m not catching a nap, but thinking of the games I’ve yet to play and how this will all play out.

The End Is Near

I’ve been playing the games of the 1981 baseball replay game with more fervor lately, rolling up to six games a day. It’s because the end is near; I’m closing in on the conclusion of the season.

Those who roll the dice with the APBA game can attest that replaying a season game by game is a task that takes months or, in some cases, even years. Each game may take 15-20 minutes to play and that time must fit in with work, sleep and the other aspects of life. You may be married and have kids and friends and that takes time. You try and squeeze a few games in when it’s convenient; it’s tough to complete a season. Since I have no other life than work, and I hate sleeping, I can play more games daily than most.

I began the 1981 season in December 2011 and tonight I’ve reached Game No. 1,958. There are 158 games remaining to play and that is what drives me. I hope to finish the year by mid April and I figure that if I maintain my pace of six games a day  I can complete the season by April 1, when the actual baseball season opens.

There is the burnout factor replayers go through when doing a full season and I’ve hit it a few times. It’s hard to get motivated to play those meaningless games late in the season. Those San Diego-Atlanta clashes of the 1981 season don’t really make you want to grab the dice to see how the contest turns out.

But as the finish line nears and the marathon of replaying a season draws nigh, it’s enough to roll a few extra games each day. I’ve got a good pennant race ensuing in the American League East Division which is an additional draw.

So, with 158 games left, I set these higher daily goals to move along the game. When I’m finished with this season, I’ll immediately turn to doing 1942 and, because there were fewer teams in baseball then and they played 154 rather than 162 games, that season will go more quickly.

It’s not that I want to finish the season out of boredom or some felt tedium in playing game after game after game in 1981. In fact, there is a sadness in completing a season. When the games are done, the players’ cards are returned to their envelopes and the box holding those envelopes returns to the shelf where they probably will remain for the rest of my life. I have enough seasons left to play that I can never duplicate a year for as long as I live. The season will become a memory; the characteristics of that particular year will be shelved; the life that I experienced while playing the game will pass on.

But the next replay beckons and I’ll go through the same roller coaster routine of playing it out. The first few hundred games will fly by because of the newness of the season and players I’m dealing with. It’ll slow down in the midsummer of whatever year I’m playing, much like it does in real baseball. 

But as that season wraps up, I’m sure the games will pick up again and I’ll roll them with the maniacal glee I’m experiencing now.

Bad Date

I went out with a girl one night more than 30 years ago in what, looking back, I consider to be the worst date I've ever had. As that evening drew to a conclusion, I hoped I'd skid on icy roads and veer off the highway to end the pain of it all.

In the annals of dating, it was a bad one. But now, three decades later, I just learned that the girl recently died and the impact of that date has changed from being a disaster to a more nostalgic look at our youth.

I'm not pining over the girl by any means. I didn't even remember her last name until someone told me about her passing the other day. Instead, I guess I'm forlorn over a time when we were young and dates were an exciting venture and death was far away.

I don't remember exactly what year I went out with her. It was a one-time deal. I think I was in college and she may have been a high school senior. I know I was out of high school and able to avoid the awkward situation of meeting the girl in school in the following days.

I do remember, however, someone set us up, saying she was really nice person. And maybe she was. Just not to me.

We began the evening arguing over the song “Renegade” by Styx. She loved it; I hated it. We evolved to talking about what shows we liked on television; differing again. We were on opposite ends of which teachers we liked in the high school we attended. I mentioned I loved the New York Yankees. She hated them. When a girl hates your favorite baseball team, it's eminent that the date is doomed.

But I pressed on, despite the difficulty in conducting that fact-finding small talk you do on first dates.

We met another couple at a pizza restaurant about 15 miles from our town and the date continued to slide into a pit of despair. She flirted with the other guy in our foursome and, realizing this was heading for disaster, I didn't care. I may have even offered to drive the other guy's date home since my date and he were hitting it off so well.

The evening drew to a close and I drove her back home. There was none of that adolescent jitters of wondering if I should ask her out again, if I should walk her to her door, if I should even kiss her good night. This was one of those dates where stopping the car to let her out rather than driving by her home slowly and letting her tumble out was adequate enough.

It was the worst date I've been on and I hadn't given it any thought until just recently when I heard she died. I had not seen her since that night and I'm sure she never remembered me.

But now I find it sad that I've reached the time where people I may know are approaching the age when we begin dying. I don't know what she died of; but it happens now. It gives me the perspective of mortality, of time running out. At this age I begin wondering if this is it. Have I reached my goals, despite wanting more? Is time running out? Weird thoughts in a weird time.

So, I reflect back on that date with melancholy thoughts. If I could go back, I'd apologize to her for the date. I'd tell her that the date really didn't matter in the bigger scheme of life, that we had a long life ahead of us and we needed to take advantage of that and chalk up bad dates to youthful ignorance. I'd tell her that, really, I wasn't as bad as she probably thought I was that night and that I'm sure she wasn't the she-devil from the third level of hell, I met that night, either.

Other people have had far worse dates, I'm sure. I went to an Arkansas Razorbacks football game once on a double date with a guy whose date burped beer most of the night. Nice.

But my date with this girl was up there in bad ones. I mean, arguing about the New York Yankees?  

'Ball Four"

Whenever I hear people talk of books that changed their lives, I usually think they're simply being pseudo-intellectuals. You know the type: Those who admit to reading Ayn Rand's “Atlas Shrugged”, those who know how to pronounce Ayn's first name and those who understand the theme of individualism in Rand's “The Fountainhead.”

Notice how one-dimensional I am when making references to pseudo-intellectuals? I'm so bereft of brain I can only come up with Ayn Rand books as my examples.

Another display of my mental skill: A Facebook friend the other day posted an invitation for her friends to note their favorite presidents to honor Presidents' Day. Several of her friends were the high-brow type and they were quick to crow that Obama, Clinton, Kennedy and Roosevelt were the best. A few tossed in Washington and Adams. I, on the other hand, suggested William Taft. Anyone who invented the seventh-inning stretch and admitted to being stuck in a bathtub was all right by me, I wrote.

All that said, however, and in fear of sounding like a pseudo-intellectual myself, there is life-changing book that I've read.

Jim Bouton's book “Ball Four,” the diary of his 1969 season with the Seattle Pilots and the Houston Astros, is the most impacting book I've ever read. Sports fans, I'm sure, have read it over and over. It's one of the rites of spring. Every few Februarys, I take the book from my shelf and read it again. I've done it for more than 40 years now.

I actually remember when and where I got the book. My aunt and uncle were visiting and my family took them to the Headwaters of the Mississippi River in June 1971. (The same place I reference in the previous post about my flip calendar). I saw the paperback priced at the hefty sum of $1.25. I was 11; I begged my parents to buy the book and then they balked, my aunt bought it for me.

On one level, it would seem irresponsible for adults to let a child read Bouton's book. It contained curse words and adult situations and many of Bouton's observations of life went over my head at that early age. But it also had baseball and that was the draw then.

I remember taking the book to grade school the following fall and showing my friends the bad words. And while it was funny to see those words in print, it also put me on a different plane than the others in my reading, and it helped form the way I thought and how I questioned things. While my classmates were struggling through “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “The Outsiders” and “Harriet the Spy,” I was reading “Ball Four.”

A few years later, when my family moved to Arkansas, I left the book in my junior high English classroom after the class ended and we left for the next class. I realized what I had done and despite being really shy back then, I immediately walked back, barged into the room and picked up my book. It was that important of a read to me to shun my attempt at avoiding any attention to myself at that school.

The book is so much more than a baseball book and now, 42 years after I first read it, I still learn things when I read it again. It is an amazing story of how the system works, the ridiculousness of life and the acceptance of being different. Maybe now I tend to over analyze things and look at things from different angles because of this book.

I actually found Bouton once and called him on the phone to talk briefly with him about the impact his book had. I'm sure he gets calls like that all the time and, while I rambled on about the genius of his story, he was probably looking at the clock thinking, “I gotta get out of here.”

So, while the rest talk of the impact of reading the works of Emerson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway or even David Foster Wallace, I tout Bouton's “Ball Four” as the most influential book I've ever read.

It's February again. Time to read his book yet again.

But, despite my foray into the intellectual side, I still think Taft was a great president for that seventh-inning stretch deal.