26
June

Do real life off-field actions affect who’s on your league team?

willie_wilsonLR

APBA to the masses sometimes gets rolled in with the fantasy leagues ala rotisserie leagues.  One difference among many, I think, is the connection to the players.  The connection (at least for us board game players), comes from handling and viewing the individual player cards.  Corny as that may seem.

Which leads me to this question…  I’m just curious how many APBA leaguers out there take more than their players’ stats and performances into consideration when forming their team?? 

In other words, do players’ personalities and off-the-field actions have an impact on whether they play on your team.

Back in 1983, when it came out that Willie Wilson used drugs, the manager who had it him on his team, dropped him like a hot potato.  It was a big deal because Willie was his surprising first pick in a expansion draft.   There was no doubt about his action though as he did with quite a fanfare (as was his style). 

For my part, I traded pitcher Eric Show when I found out he was a member of the John Birch Society (ballplayers, as a general rule, don’t lean to the left and I’m okay with that but the JBS was a little much for me). 

I honestly don’t remember who I got but I think it was a comparable starting pitcher. 

So what about you?  Whether it be drugs (either the street kind or PEDS), wife-beating, other illegal activity or political beliefs… or maybe just being a jerk, do you have line that can be crossed?  Where you say, “Nope, I’m not going to put him on my team” or in the words of Donald Trump, “You’re Fired!”

Or is APBA purely a numbers game to you and as long as your players produce for your team, they stay?

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25
June

Keeping an eye on Lancaster

Not really APBA related but this article in the LA Times reports that Lancaster, Pa, home of the APBA Co, is probably the closely watched community.  The town of 55,000 has some 165 closed-circuit TV cameras monitoring public areas purportedly looking for crime.

 

Some 165 closed-circuit TV cameras soon will provide live, round-the-clock scrutiny of nearly every street, park and other public space used by the 55,000 residents and the town’s many tourists. That’s more outdoor cameras than are used by many major cities, including San Francisco and Boston.

Unlike anywhere else, cash-strapped Lancaster outsourced its surveillance to a private nonprofit group that hires civilians to tilt, pan and zoom the cameras — and to call police if they spot suspicious activity. No government agency is directly involved.

 

So if you go to the Company to pick up your cards in person, Smile!, you might be on camera!

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25
June

Loaded Pujols

I did a short post on Albert Pujols on The Baseball Zealot on how well he’s done this year in the majors with the bases loaded.  It’s nothing short of amazing.

 

For those who haven’t noticed, Albert Pujols has done amazingly well with the bases loaded this year.  Here are his stats with three runners on.

At this point in the season, Pujols is five for five with 3 homeruns and 16 rbis.

 

I’ve had Albert on my Twin City Thunderchickens since I drafted him as a rookie (first pick, of course!).  The Thunderchickens had Mark McGwire at first base for his whole career so we had big shoes to fill.  Fortunately, we were able to get some to get the job done right away. 

Our commish, who is a Cardinals fan,  warned me that he thinks it will be a matter of a couple of years before Pujols will be rated (S).

Heresy!

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11
June

USA Today piece on APBA, Strat-O-Matic

There’s a pretty awesome article depicting the fun of APBA (and Strat-O-Matic) baseball in USA Today.  They interview a couple members of the Washington APBA Baseball League.

 

…But they’re not at the ballpark. For that matter, they’re not watching on TV, either. It’s 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning and they are huddled around McDonald’s tiny kitchen table in College Park, Md., focused on dice, charts and "players" depicted on tiny white cards with red numbers.

"Another strikeout. Are you kidding me?" McDonald exclaims as he hurls a yellow dice shaker across the room, causing it to slam into a wall 15 feet away and land behind his refrigerator. He turns to Haller, who is surprisingly nonchalant, and tells him, "I swear, I am going to call the cops and have them tow your car away."

 

haha, stuff like that used to happen in our league, too.  Seriously, it’s a pretty decent article even hitting on the rivalry/respect between the two games.  They were even able to get a hold of Marc Rinaldi for a quote.

thanks to Chuck for passing this on. 

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2
June

IAL Champaign Weekend a Rolling Success

morneau-04The Illowa APBA League had last year’s playoffs & World Series, along with the rookie draft, and opening of the new season (30 games per team) in Naperville Illinois in March.  Then most teams played an in area series (9 games) in April.  This past weekend was the league’s May Champaign Illinois get together where another 30 games would be played versus out of area teams.

I manage the Chicago Champions, have since the league’s 2nd season way back in 1976, but truth be told I’m still kind of figuring out the “new” APBA game.  As a league, we also decided to eliminate the use of the “unusual play” & error cards to randomize funny numbers & error numbers.

The Champions came into the weekend one game over .500 at 20-19.  Although I had an objective of resting some of my regulars who missed time during the regular season, like Carlos Lee, Ryan Doumit, JRoll, ARod, B.J. Upton, & Felipe Lopez, winning was the ultimate goal, winning AND having fun.  The constants for the Champions for the weekend would be Justin Morneau batting in the 3rd hole behind Grady Sizemore, a five man rotation of Tim Lincecum, Mark Buehrle, Matt Cain, Greg Maddux, & Josh Beckett, and a lights out bullpen headed by closer Joey Devine, with Cory Wade, Papa Grande, Matt Capps, & Sergio Romo setting him up.  Not to mention long reliever Brett Myers.  We feature a rule in the IAL, which allows for D pitcher’s limits to be doubled, D starters can relieve, but D relievers cannot start.

We arrived at 7:00 PM Friday night and left 10:00 AM Sunday, in between, it was a successful weekend.  After 24 games played against the out of area foes our record was four games over .500, with six games to be played against the toughest out of area team, the Molly Putts Marauders.  MP went into a slump at the right time and we were fortunate enough to win five of six, upping our overall record to 9 games over .500.

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