2
August

Release date announced for APBA Baseball 5.75

The APBA Company has announced the tentative release date of APBA Baseball 5.75:

The release version of APBA Baseball for Windows 5.75 is now being reviewed. Assuming no issues, the CD will be sent to a commercial duplicator to prepare the CDs on Monday, August 6. It will take six to seven business days to produce the first production run, and we anticipate starting to ship the CDs on or about Wednesday, August 15.

I placed my pre-order a week or two ago.  I’m looking forward to trying it out. 

***

In other news, Geoff Giordano is continues to add more videos he took while attending the APBA National Convention in Lancaster to his APBA Football Club Facebook page. 

His latest include chats with Skeet Carr and Veryl Lincoln as well as 2010 Tournament champion Ron Seamans.  You can find all of Geoff’s videos at this direct link. 

Nice job, Geoff!  It’s great to have these moments preserved.

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23
July

Steve Skoff and the 1912 Giants ride to victory at ‘12 Convention tourney

Congrats to Steve Skoff who won this year’s APBA Convention tournament with the help of the 1912 New York Giants!  The APBA Football Club has the coverage and photos on their Facebook page.  The photo of all the former tournament winners on hand is one for the annals!

Also, thanks to Geoff for the great coverage this past weekend.  I encourage everyone who hasn’t already to check out his write-ups, photos, and videos.

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20
July

Cluff, Welsh, and Blair honored at 2012 APBA Convention

Festivities are underway in Lancaster, PA for the 2012 APBA Convention.  Word has it from organizer Francis Rose (via Geoff Giordano) that there are about 70 attendees and a healthy number of first time attendees.

Tonight’s activities included announcing this year’s APBA Hall of Fame inductees.  Congrats to Kevin Cluff (who The APBA Blog interviewed a couple weeks ago), Frank Welsh, and Bill Blair (who I just found out is from nearby Dekalb, IL) who are the HOF newest members!  Geoff was there with the camera and got some photos of the event.  You can check them out here at his Twitter page here and here.

By the way, Geoff is tagging his twitter posts from the convention with the hashtag #apbacon12 so you can find all his convention related tweets here. You can also find more great coverage by Geoff at Facebook’s APBA Football Club page.

Thanks for the great coverage, Geoff!  Those of us who couldn’t make it really appreciate it.

Have fun everyone and good luck in the tournament!

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19
July

2012 APBA Convention almost here

The APBA Convention is this weekend.  I want to wish all Convention attendees safe travels, a good time and good luck for those participating in the tournament.  Sadly, I won’t be there.  Work, family and finances conspired to keep me from attending.

I will be thinking of you all this weekend and look forward to reading updates and seeing photos.  Geoff Giordano of Facebook’s APBA Football Club is already in Lancaster and promises to keep us updated via his page as well as his Twitter account.

I also corresponded with Brian Cavanaugh of the Bridesburg APBA League who is going as well.  Brian tells me he’s taking the 1917 Chicago White Sox along for the tournament (what, no love for your Phillies, Brian?)

Good luck, play fair and reach out and meet someone you don’t already know.  That’s the beauty of these kind of conventions.

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15
July

APBA National Convention: A look ten years back

I’m in the middle of migrating my APBA-related photos to my SmugMug photo gallery and ran across these photos from the 2002 National APBA Convention.

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Ten years ago, I went to a national APBA Convention in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  It was 2002 and that was when young Brian Wells, at age nine, won the convention tournament using the 2000 Arizona Diamondbacks.  Perhaps that gave us old guys some hope for the younger generation.  Indeed, there was hope for Brian.  He came back six years later in 2008 to win the tournament again.

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That year, I remember having the privilege of meeting Veryl Lincoln, Skeet Carr and Marc Rinaldi (above L to R) .  All very nice guys.  I know I’ve probably told this story before but this was during the time when the APBA Company was toying with the APBA Baseball board game engine before they released the new 66 boards and Skeet was getting feedback from people.  He asked me, “What would you think if APBA made a “1” a double instead of a homerun on the hit-and-run?”.  I remember not liking the idea at the time (baseball people are ALWAYS against change).

However, he asked my opinion and I appreciated that.  When it happened, it wasn’t a surprise to any of us.   And in retrospect, the hit-and-run boards are a real improvement.  Not just the change on the 1 but the automatic stolen base with the 11 on a result 13 was changed and that was an improvement.

But I digress.

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As for my success in the 2002 tournament, there wasn’t much.  I had the 1965 Braves and Eric Naftaly took care of me pretty well with Willie McCovey’s ‘59 Giants.  There was no one I would rather lose to than Eric though.  He was a gracious winner.

You can see more photos from the 2002 APBA convention here.  Many thanks to my buddy Brando who made that trip with me.  During the the road trip, we attended three minor league baseball games (Indianapolis Indians, Harrisburg Senators and Reading Phillies) plus a Pirates-Reds game at PNC Park (great stadium!) in Pittsburgh.  That was a journey I’ll never forget.

I also attended a convention years earlier with my friend Don Smith.  That was the year APBA finagled a scout from the New York Mets to come speak at the event.  I really couldn’t tell you what year it was.  I do remember staying in college dorm rooms.  I wish I had brought my camera then so I  would have photos to show you.  Another reason:  Don and I saw some things while playing late night APBA on the Amtrak on the way back that were quite interesting (Immodest young women are not a current trend and let’s leave it at that, eh Don?).

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13
May

Pre-convention news including Nationals game

At the Between the Lines forum, Francis Rose has some news regarding a pre-convention get together:

The convention opens Friday evening, July 20, in Lancaster.  Information at www.ConventionForAPBAFans.com.

I am hosting a Pre-Convention Warmup at Nationals Park in Washington, DC on Thursday, July 19th vs. the Mets.  First pitch is 12:35 – plenty of time to see the whole game and beat DC rush-hour traffic to head up to Lancaster.

I am offering tickets to the game for $10 to registered convention attendees.  If you’re not going to the convention, you’re still welcome to join us at the game for $15.  All of our tickets will be together.  I haven’t purchased the tickets yet, but face price will be at least $15, probably more.

You can mail payment to
Francis Rose
Convention for APBA Fans
9001 Edgewood Drive
Gaithersburg, MD  20877
or you can e-mail me at francisrose2 AT gmail dot com for electronic options.

Thanks
Francis

Sounds like a great deal!

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21
April

2012 APBA Convention registration fee goes up on May 1: Sign up now!

I just want to give people heads up that if you want to get the discounted registration fee for the 2012 APBA convention, April 30 is the deadline.  Starting May 1st, the fee goes from $75 to $85.  According to the convention website cancellation can be made up to June 20th without penalty. 

You can get info on registration and more (don’t ask me, I won’t know) from the convention website. 

Oh and for those in my league who say they haven’t heard about a convention this year…  Don’t you read my blog? :)

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3
April

Rules posted for the 2012 Convention Tournament

Francis Rose announced that the rules for the 2012 Convention Tournament have now been posted.  You can see them at the Convention website. 

Nothing too dramatically different.  First of all, you’re not limited as far as team selection:

“Any STOCK team from a complete season card set issued by APBA from the 1901 season through and including the 2011 season will be eligible, be they original issues or re-issues. However, ALL team rosters will be limited to 20 players.”

Only the Great Teams of the Past will not be eligible. 

As far as actual playing rules, everything looks pretty standard if my memory serves.  3-man rotation, Long and short relievers, and the DH will be used.  There will be a usage limit of three times for the hit and run per nine inning game.  Also, a shaker or tower must be used for all dice rolls.  No hand rolling, guys!  Things do get a little Bud Selig-esque at one point. 

All games will be limited to ten (10) innings. Games tied at the end of the regulation 10 innings will be resolved in the following manner: The roll for the “11th inning” lead-off batter will be made with the result being, at the minimum, a double. That is, the batter could hit a triple or a homerun, but any other result puts him on second base regardless of what result was rolled. ALL SUBSEQUENT BATTERS WILL BE FACING A GRADE C PITCHER WITH NO STRIKEOUT OR WALK LETTERS AND A FIELDING RATING OF ONE (1). Once the Visiting Team has completed its turn at bat, the Home Team will follow the same procedure.. The process will be repeated until the tie is broken.

I kid. I kid. I understand the reason for it.  Got to keep everything on schedule.

Thanks to Francis Rose and all the other convention organizers for their hard work on this!!

What team do you all plan on managing?  I’d love to hear a roll call.

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17
February

Organizer Nick Braccia talks to us about the upcoming 2012 APBA Convention

I connected up with Nick Braccia who is one of the organizers of this year’s APBA Convention scheduled for July 20-22, 2012.  He graciously answered a few questions about the event.

The APBA Blog:  How did the idea for the 2012 convention come about? What APBA fans are the driving forces behind it?

Nick Braccia:  It was a group of APBA buddies decided to run a convention this summer. The Game Co. was not going to run one. John Herson really didn’t want and when we approached him, he said “go right ahead”. We have his full support.

The group of people running this start with Francis Rose. He has run two conventions in the past, so he was an obvious choice to be the front man. The rest  of the group  consists of myself, Michael Davidson (Pengy), Dom Provisiero, Randy Eagan, Roy Langhans, Jim Sce and John Kalous.

 

TAB:  I see that there will be a tournament as usual. Will it follow the normal structure and rules as it has in past years or will you shake things up a bit?  Will there be any other fun events planned?

NB:  We are going to make some changes in the tournament, but we have not finalized anything yet.

The Game Co will not represented at the Convention. That’s why there will be no  Q&A on Friday night about the Game Co. There will be no bashing of the Game Co either.

 

TAB:  I know it’s early but what has the response been so far from APBA fans?

NB:  There are over 20 people registered already. We are hoping for 85-100.

 

TAB:  Is there anything we as APBA fans can do to help make this a successful and fun convention?

NB:  In order for the Convention to be successful, we need folks to attend. It is always a great time. Meeting the people who post on BTL and the other APBA sites is always great.

 

TAB:  Finally, if anyone has any questions, who can they contact?

NB:  Any questions they can contact me or visit the website. 

Nick Braccia enjoys playing solo and has a large collection of APBA and Skeetersoft sets. He was a Police Officer in Stamford, CT for 37 1/2 years. 

Thanks to Nick for taking time to answer some questions and for helping organize this year’s convention!

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12
February

Check out APBAGames’ YouTube channel!

 

Facebook’s APBA Football’s  Geoffrey Giordano alerted me to a great YouTube channel that has videos from the 2011 APBA Convention.  The channel is put up by user APBAgames and at this writing has six videos from the Lancaster get-together. 

Here’s a good example showing pretty much everyone who was there:

 

Great stuff! 

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