12
May

League Mods: Slow Runners Chart

I thought I’d do a series of articles which share a few modifications or tools that APBA leagues have been using. 

John Briggs brings us our first entry.  He’s a manager in the Roberto Clemente Memorial Baseball Association.  The RCMBA saw a need to adjust how the optional base coaching was done in the APBA Basic Game so they came up with their own system.  It’s called the “Slow Runners Card”. 

It’s obviously been popular in the RCMBA.  John says they’ve used it since 1977. 

 

SLOW RUNNERS CARD

  • APBA’s "Optional Base Coaching" (ie; "playing safe") will not be used no matter the situation or result.
  • The below chart will be used whenever the runner is slow and the hit & run board is not in use & play result is 7-11.
  • The slow runner will advance safely the following number of bases unless "SR" indicates otherwise.

PLAY RESULT IS: 7 8 9 10 11
1st 1 1 1 1*$ SR
2nd 2 1 1 1 SR
1st & 2nd (S at 2nd) 1* 1 1 1 SR
1st & 3rd (S at 1st) 1 1 1 SR SR
2nd & 3rd (S at 2nd) SR 1 1 1 SR
Bases full (S at 1st or 2nd) 1* 1 1 1*$ SR

"*" = with two outs 2 bases
"$" = and batter steals 2nd
"SR" = same as regular boards

 

My Take:

There’s no doubt the Optional Base Coaching put forth by the APBA basic boards needs a little refining.  Our league has struggled with this as well.  In concept, I do like the idea of “coaching” a runner.  However, I don’t particularly care for APBA’s “all or nothing” approach (i.e. all runners are coached or none). 

This chart has obviously served RCMBA well since they have used it for what, 30+ years now?  Would our league use it?  Probably not but only because we are going through a strictly boards phase now and aren’t too fond of making changes to it. 

Comments from anyone? 

thanks to John for sharing this!

Have a APBA modification you want to share?  Email me,

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11
November

Pitcher’s Hitting Card

If you are in a league that plays by NL-style rules, that is, you let the pitcher bat, do you have valverderestrictions or modifications that prevent the overuse of pitcher’s hitting supercards from batting? 

Our league uses the Pitcher’s Hitting Card.  I originally introduced the PHC sometime in the  early 1990′s during my fateful reign as President of the Illowa APBA League.  I don’t know who in the APBA community originally designed the card first but we modified it to our needs and adopted it. 

Our rules state that any pitcher who has less than 10 at-bats (NL or AL) must use the Pitchers Hitting Card. 

The idea here is to diminish the effect of those pitchers who in real life batted so infrequently but maybe got that lucky hit and as a result, got a fantastic hitting card from Lancaster. 

We keep the card pretty much the same year to year.  The only change we make is where the ’12′ is placed. 

It does take a little research before the season to determine which relievers are affected by the rule and which are not  Certainly not difficult… but it has to be done..

 

Pitcher’s Hitting Card

11-   7-1     31- 13-6     51- 39-6

12- 25-7     32- 26-6     52- 27-6

13- 13-6     33-   8-1     53- 21-6

14- 30-6     34- 31-6     54- 32-6

15-   9-2     35- 13-6     55-   9-2

16- 28-6     36- 33-6     56- 34-7

21- 30-6     41- 12-6     61- 24-6

22-   8-1     42- 13-6     62- 13-6

23- 29-6     43- 29-6     63- 32-6

24- 13-6     44-   8-1     64- 13-6

25- 36-2     45- 14-6     65- 35-7

26- 13-6     46- 13-6     66-   0-1

One last point… our league hasn’t been of one mind when it comes to using the Pitcher’s Hitting Card.  It seems we vote on this every annual league meeting.  Some like it because of reasons stated above.  Others just find it easier to play the cards.

Do any other leagues out there use a modification similar to the Pitcher’s Hitting Card? 

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30
October

NCAA Cards Available for College Baseball fans

I blogged about this a while back on The Baseball Zealot but it’s worth a mention here.  For those who are both APBA players and fans of college baseball (I fit both categories… Go Illini!!), you might be interested in Steve Guthrie’s NCAA Baseball Cards web site. 

Using Brian Davis’ Card Generator, Guthrie created sets for most of the Division I teams out there.  Using Excel, you can print them out. 

The sets available are for the year 2007. 

These are teams available:

Set 1: SEC, Atlantic 10, Wright State, Hawaii-Hilo

Set 2: ACC, Ohio Valley, Oral Roberts, Bethune-Cookman, Florida A and M, North Carolina A and T, Dallas Baptist, Prairie View A and M

Set 3: Big XII, Sun Belt, Mountain West

Set 4: PAC-10, Missouri Valley, Southern

Set 5: Big East, Ivy League, America East, Texas-Pan American

Set 6: Conference-USA, Colonial, West Coast

Set 7: Big West, WAC, Metro Atlantic, Army, Navy

Set 8: Big 10, Big South, Atlantic Sun

Set 9: Southland, Mid-American, Illinois-Chicago, Lafayette, North Dakota State, South Dakota State

Here is the entry point for Steve Guthrie’s NCAA Baseball Cards site

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13
October

Webcam APBA: Next best thing to FTF

I’ve written about this before on The Baseball Zealot but the idea of using video Skype is catching on in the Illowa APBA League.  At least among some of us. 

Don’t get me wrong.  The IAL prides itself for being a face-to-face league.  Considering we have managers that live hours apart (even one that lives three states away), we manage to play at least 90% of our games face-to-face thanks to some creative scheduling. 

But sometimes our hectic personal schedules just can’t accommodate travel for a nine game series.  In such cases, hooking up over a webcam via a service such as Skype is pretty close the next best thing to being face-to-face.  Thanks goes to Teddy Ballgame for suggesting the idea earlier this year when he couldn’t make our spring convention.  He asked if anyone had a webcam they just connect up with him that way to play his series. 

Well, I didn’t have a working webcam but I was game so I purchased one to see how well it would work.  It’s not the same as face-to-face but like I said, it’s the next best thing. 

It’s better than the alternatives:

  • playing by mail (ick)
  • playing by phone (been there)
  • having someone else play your series (no thanks)

That was back in May.  I had another chance to use video Skype to play a league series.  Last weekend, my Twin City Thunderchickens had to face the Green Rock Bombers managed by our league commissioner Mike B.  It was a nine game series we had to play for October.  Living four hours apart and no time in our schedule to travel to each other’s house to play, we elected to use Skype. 

Mike and I were able to get our games in over the weekend. We decided to break up our nine game series into two days, playing four on Saturday and five on Sunday.  Saturday, we did have some network issues and kicked us off twice off in a time span of 2 or 3 hours but getting re-connected was no problem.

 

mb

Our Fearless Leader

 

If you’re interested in doing anything like this, all that’s required is:

  • a high-speed Internet connection
  • a decent webcam you can buy or order from anywhere (I have the Logitech QuickCam for Notebooks and it works fine)
  • an account with Skype which is free

Yes, things have certainly changed from I started playing APBA…. mostly for the better.   I wouldn’t want to play ALL my league games this way.  I enjoy the comraderie of the get-togethers too much.  But this beats playing by mail by a long shot. 

PS we beat the Bombers 5 games to 4

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