9
November

Famous People who have played APBA

I’m starting this running thread of famous people who play or have played APBA.  If you know of anyone who isn’t already on the list, please comment and I’ll put them on the list. 

I’ll start with a couple:

 

george_bush George Bush former part owner of the Texas Rangers
davideisenhower David Eisenhower grandson of President Dwight Eisenhower, inspiration for CCR’s “Fortunate Son”
VXzZEelw[1] Walt Jocketty Cincinnati Reds General Manager
curt-schilling-760339 Curt Schilling MLB Pitcher
torre66card Joe Torre former player, currently Los Angeles Dodgers Manager

 

I know there are more.  Leave a comment if you know of anyone famous who rolled the bones and I’ll update the list.  If you have a web page reference, cite it and I’ll link it. 

thanks!

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7
November

A little off topic but…

A quick plug for my other blog, The Baseball Zealot.

My co-hort, Teddy Ballgame promises he’ll write some for The APBA Blog soon but he’s currently in Arizona watching some Arizona Fall League games (the lucky bum).

He’s been writing daily updates on The Baseball Zealot.

You can read them here.

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6
November

Predicting the Pitchers

In the time of year between the end of the MLB season and time that the cards come out, it seems all we have to hang on to are our hopes for the next season’s card set.  And a big part of that are predictions.  No one claims to have APBA’s secret formula for making cards but a few have come close to predicting what they may be. 

And in this in-between period, that’s all we have. 

Bruce Norlander has traditionally posted his predictions of pitcher’s grades on the APBA Between the Lines Forum for many years and judging by the forum’s comments, many are grateful, it seems, if only for a glimpse of what the upcoming set will look like.  Bruce’s tireless work is much appreciated by the APBA community.

You can find Bruce’s predictions on this post on the APBA Between the Lines forum.  If you’re not a member (and if you’re an APBA fan you really should be), you’ll need to register first.  Don’t worry, it’s free. 

Also, Mike Bunch, who is the commissioner of the Illowa APBA League, also puts out his yearly predictions.  A couple days after the last day of the season, Mike posts his predictions for hitters’ cards and pitching grades for those players in the IAL.  For my money, he’s pretty much on the mark.  Maybe next year, I’ll challenge him do the whole league.

You can find Mike’s predictions on the Illowa APBA League web site. 

What I thought I’d do was compare the pitching grade comparisons from Mike and Bruce and find out where they differ.  The point of this was not to see who is right and wrong (who are we to say?) but more a case of curiosity of which pitchers were borderline. 

A couple of points before we get started:

Again, Mike only predicted the pitchers in our 10-team league

Mike used letter grades… Bruce used MG grades

When I compared Mike’s and Bruce’s pitching predictions, I was impressed on how much they actually agreed.   Among the pitchers in the iAL at least, they only disagreed three times. 

And here they are:

 

Matt Cain

 

GS IP W-L BB K ERA
34 217 2/3 8-14 91 186 3.76

 

Bruce’s Prediction:  8Y

 

Mike’s Prediction:  BX

 

 

Zack Duke

 

GS IP W-L BB K ERA
31 185 5-14 47 87 4.82

 

Bruce’s Prediction:  4Z

 

Mike’s Prediction:  CZ

 

 

Daisuke Matsuzaka

 

GS IP W-L BB K ERA
29 167 2/3 18-3 94 154 2.90

 

 

Bruce’s Prediction:  15XW

 

Mike’s Prediction:  BXW

 

Even on the cases of Matsuzaka and Duke, the predictions differ by just one Master Game grade so they weren’t off by much. 

On Cain however, there’s a bit of a difference. 

Anyway, food for thought.  Thanks to Mike and Bruce for their hard work all these years making the wait for the cards that much more bearable. 

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3
November

League Profile: Yesterday APBA Baseball League

As soon as I post this about the Yesterday APBA Baseball League, I’m forwarding it to our league.  Because Chuck from our league is always asking me if I’m interested in undertaking a project similar to what they are doing.  And after looking at the YABL web site, it does look like fun.

You see, the YABL is a retro APBA league which progresses backwards through history.  A very fascinating concept which I’ve heard about but this is the first time I’ve gotten a chance to see the results up close.  The YABL started at year 1959 and is currently playing the 1952 season.

Here’s the scoop on the YABL:

League Name

 Yesterday APBA Baseball League
Contact Person Doug Burg
Sport Baseball
League Web Site http://webspace.webring.com/people/fb/burgda/
# of teams 12
Year of inception 2001
Basic/Master/Computer/
Combination		 Basic
Out of the box or with
modifications?		 with modifications
Geographic location United States

 

Doug writes:

 

We are an APBA basic dice/board game league. We are a retro league currently (2008-2009) playing the 1952 season. We progress backwards through history. The league is a continuous ownership draft league using the basic game with minimal innovations. We play an 84 game season from October through February.

 

One thing I like about the game of APBA is that we can make the into what we want.  If we want to implement modifications in gameplay or as in this case, totally re-invent how the teams are populated or games are scheduled, there’s no limitations to what we can do.

 

If you want to brag about your league, we’re listening!  Tell us all about the league you are in and we’ll post a profile about it. 

In the meantime, read about other leagues who have written in.

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3
November

APBA Card of the Week: 2006 Tom Glavine

glavine

By the 2000s, Tom Glavine lost his hit numbers he had in the early 90s not to mention his “Gretzky” nickname (bestowed because he was pretty good at hockey… good enough to be picked in the fourth round in the NHL draft).  But he did picked up a couple of other goodies, though.  As of late, he’s one of few pitchers who has 2 31s on his card making him a decent hit and run threat.

More importantly, in the last few years, he has managed to garner more than the one requisite 14 given to most pitchers.  In this 2006 card he got four.

On a personal note, I love Tom Glavine.  I managed to acquire Glavine in the Illowa APBA League back from Teddy Ballgame in 1991 and he’s been declared untouchable since.  Glavine, who was D then was a throw-in in a deal which had me giving up Kirk Gibson (at the end of his career) and Pete Smith (who never really had a career).  I probably got another player back in the deal (I’m thinking it was Melido Perez) but looking back, it was Glavine who was the key player in the deal.

Glavine who was 25 at the time, went on to have an awesome career both in the majors and for my Twin City Thunderchickens.  He might have been ungraded once in all those years.  Gibson and Smith both retired soon after.

And I never let Teddy forget it.

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1
November

League Profile: Illowa APBA League

Now that I’ve gotten around to updating the Illowa APBA League website, I figured it’s time to brag about my own league.  The IAL is in its 33rd season and we enjoy a rich history. 

First the sordid details:

League Name

Illowa APBA League
Contact Person Thomas Nelshoppen
League Website http://www.illowaapbaleague.com
Sport Baseball
# of teams 10
Year of inception 1975
Basic/Master/Computer/
Combination		 Basic
Out of the box or with
modifications?		 with modifications
Geographic location Midwest

 

Some of the modifications/rules that we use:

  • the unusual play card and the pitchers’ hitting card (for pitchers with <10 ab)
  • Players are limited to actual games/at-bats/IP
  • Play results of 18 and 20 with 2B-9 and SS-10 respectively, are considered groundouts with bases empty

 

Our constitution is online if you want to take a look.

One of my favorite aspects of the IAL is our baseball registry.  Thanks to a lot of hard work by a couple of managers, we have compiled all-time stats for every player that has played in our league since 1975,  It’s a trip through memory lane when we browse through our registry.  We also have an All-Time Leaderboard.  No surprise that Barry Bonds is the all-time leader in homers with 655.

Once we got our registry in order, we had the idea of instituting a IAL Hall of Fame.  Mike Schmidt with his  IAL career 535 homeruns and Steve Carlton with his career 214 wins were the charter members in 1996. 

Geographically, we have four teams centered around Chicago, four spread out around downstate Illinois.  The other two reside in Iowa and Pennsylvania.  Despite the geographic differences, we manage to get almost all of our games played face-to-face thanks to our schedule which gets us together for three annual weekends where we can play a good part of our games. 

Yes I’m biased but I think our league has some pretty committed members.  We have five managers who have been in the league at least  since the early ’80s plus one father-son rivalry.  Finally, I don’t think we wouldn’t be the league we are without our commissioner, Mike Bunch.  The league thought at much so we inducted him into our HOF.

 

If you want to brag about your league, we’re listening!  Tell us all about the league you are in and we’ll post a profile about it.  In the meantime, read about other leagues who have written in.

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