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.

APBA New Year, 2020 Version

Ten years ago, as we entered a new decade, I was mired two years into a medical bankruptcy after the death of my wife with no real positive outlook in sight. I struggled to make bill payments and forewent most entertainment opportunities because of the cost.  I was a frequent visitor to the public library because the books and videos were free.

Halfway through the last decade, I got out of the bankruptcy, began saving money and started living again. In the fall of 2015, I drove to Gurnee, Ill., about 45 miles north of Chicago, and met the girl of my life. She moved to Arkansas a year later and we began our life. I was at the top of the world.

But then the bottom dropped out.  I had a medical scare, my car quit running, I lost my job of 20 years and ended up working two jobs seven days a week and returned to the financial struggle of ago all within a couple of years.

You never know how life’s hilly path will take you. It’s random; people don’t set themselves up for collapses, usually, and it happens to lots of them. Despite my constant whining of things, I’ve met people in dire worse shape than I.

And now we enter a new decade – if you count 2020 as the first year of a decade. There is that debate that the decade doesn’t official begin until 2021. And with that new decade comes hope for another upswing. I’ve got a decent job in a field totally alienated from the news career I had created over the years. It’s a less stressful job and the hours are set. There are no breaking stories to cover, no tight deadlines to meet, no crazy editors screaming for copy.  I’m also starting to write more for magazines to help supplement income and create a fair life for Holly and me.

Despite all the changes, here’s the stable part. It’s something I’ve written about ever since starting Love, Life and APBA Baseball on Jan. 1, 2012. The APBA game has always, always been a constant. No matter what the circumstances were in life, I always knew I’d get some peace and reprieve by rolling a few games each day. You have the wavy line of life with its peaks and valleys, and running straight through it all is the game. No other game or even any other thing at all, can make a claim like that.

The only time I slowed down playing the replay games during the last decade was when I was making frequent trips to Chicagoland to visit Holly.

So, we’re beginning a new decade – depending upon your interpretation of a decade’s start – and who knows how any of our lives will go. Health issues? Money? New jobs? Who really knows? 

But we do know that the game that we found as youngsters will continue to be our companion as we trek through this new decade. Keep rolling the games into the Roaring 20s.

APBA New Year, everyone.

"For Christmas"

I think I may have seen the true meaning of Christmas the other day, a meaning that shuns the commercialization and stress of the holidays and gets to the heart of its meaning. Those of us who play this APBA game can probably relate.

I was in a drug store late this past week, grabbing up prescriptions and getting last-minute Christmas cards to send out, hoping they’d reach their destinations in time and, thus, conforming to the holiday requirements.

Without sounding too politically incorrect, I noticed an obviously handicapped woman in her 30s looking at a rack of toys in the store. She took one out and showed it to the person who was with her.

“An airplane,” she said with glee.

She looked at it, turning the toy plane in her hands, all while beaming a large smile.

“Do you want it,” the person asked her.

“For Christmas,” she said.

And there it was. Despite whatever reason life took a steaming dump on her and left her facing her handicap, be it genetic, environmental, whatever, she was happy. She found something she liked and wanted to get it, citing the holiday of giving.

I thought of my own life. We’re constantly on the treadmill of life, running to our job (in my case, two jobs and a freelance writing startup attempt); trying to pay bills on time; dealing with stresses, illnesses of getting older, aches and pains; and just trying to be a decent provider and human. Christmas lately seems more a stumbling block than a time of joy and celebration.

When I was in news, I’d usually work the holiday so others could be off to be with their families. Invariably, I’d end up writing some tough story. One year, on Christmas Eve, I went to a small airplane crash that killed the pilot. Another year, I covered a suspected arson fire of former Pres. Bill Clinton’s boyhood home. It was hard seeing the meaning of Christmas when you were covering the downside of humanity.

But the woman in the drug store sparked something in me.

And here’s where APBA comes in. Many of us, I assume, became initiated with the game at an early age through Christmas. I did. I had played various sports games as a youngster – electric football and baseball, Pop Tarts card baseball and Sherco II baseball.  My parents got me the APBA football game in 1977 as what I call the “headliner” of Christmas – the present pushed far beneath the tree and handed out at the last because it was the best gift.

Now, 42 years later, I continue to play APBA. It’s been baseball for the past 21 years mostly, but I still have the football game, along with a collection of hockey, basketball and baseball games and seasons accrued over the years.

And, like I’ve said here before, what other game have we carried with us and kept it as a mainstay through our lives? On Christmas night Wednesday, I plan to roll a few more games in my replay, this time the 1947 season, like I’ve done so many Christmas over the past four decades.

With all that is going on now in my world – dealing with life, a new job, depression and all, there is still joy in the game. I think that’s one of the great appeals of the APBA products. It gives us a chance to revert back to our younger days when life wasn’t so much of a struggle.

So this holiday season, think of how the APBA game still gives us joy and happiness, and try to hold onto that for a while. I know I will.

You know … for Christmas.

Pythagorean Theorem Applied

Each team in my 1947 APBA baseball replay has reached 40, or nearly 40 games, played this season. With 25 percent of the games completed, teams are beginning to show what they are capable of doing and how the season could turn out.

Of course, there’s still a lot of games to be played and, as APBA players know, anything can happen. Trends can change, players can get hot, teams can go on streaks. So, it’s somewhat premature to try and predict how the American League and National League will turn out.

But, that said, one of the characteristics of a true APBA fan is the obsession for statistics and math. I’ve noted before that I don’t keep many detailed stats for a replay. Every time I tried before, I ran into computer issues. I had two die on me and once, in a moment of confidence, I put my stats on a laptop I used at work. I was suddenly laid off and the computer was no longer accessible.  But, grabbing a calculator and a pen and figuring out batting average and earned run averages is still a vital part of why I do this game.

This year, I’m tracking home runs and RBIs, won-lost records and saves for all. And I’m keeping game-by-game batting averages for Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio. All are jotted down on paper so I won’t lose it by being either computer inept or a victim of journalism layoff economics.

So, with a quarter of the season completed, it looks like the Yankees and Red Sox are in a dead heat. Detroit is a good team as well, following closely behind. The Washington Senators are proving to be a really poor team in the American League. In the National League, fueled by Whitey Kurowski’s 11 home runs so far, the Cardinals are by far the best.

I decided to do some more math and applied Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem for baseball to this season. The formula, for those who are not into Bill James, is based upon runs scored and runs given up. Take the number of runs a team scores and multiply it by itself, squaring the figure. Then, divide that by the number of runs scored squared added to the number of runs given up squared.

What?

Here’s the formula: (Runs scored)2 /  [(runs scored)2 + (runs allowed)2]

Then, take that figure and divide it by the number of games played in a season. In my case of 1947, 154 games, to determine the expected won-loss record.

By doing this, I noticed a few things. Both the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees are expected to go 106-48 for the season. The Chicago White Sox, which are playing at about a .500 pace, have a collapse in their future, according to the theorem. Because the team hasn’t scored many runs so far and given up 50 more than scored, the Sox are predicted to win only 52 games. The hapless Senators will win only 47 game and finish last in the American League, based on James’ math.

In the National League, the Cardinals dominate. The theorem shows a stunning final record of 122-32. Brooklyn is second with a forecasted record of 95-59 – one game better than their actual record of 94-60, which was good enough to win the real 1947 National League pennant. Pittsburgh is predicted to win only 44 games, which doesn’t seem too far-fetched of a record when considering the Pirates are 10-28 now in my replay.

Obviously, it’s still early in the season to really extrapolate firm predictions from the math. The Cardinals could face Braves’ pitchers Warren Spahn and Jonny Sain in a low-scoring weekend series ahead and the numbers could be skewed some.

Still, it’s fun to apply the theorem and get one idea of what could happen. The Red Sox-Yankees season race looks good no matter how you add it up.