Chalk up another one for my buddy, Chuck. He pointed me to a 1966 Baseball Digest article about Koufax and Marichal I might be interested in because of my replay.
But that not the coolest part.
Turns out that the Baseball Digests are all online for our perusal. So for any of you who are doing past replays of baseball seasons and want to get a flavor for that particular season, this is a great way.
Here is the link to the Baseball Digest archive via Google Books.
I’ve had a lot of people ask about this so I finally looked into it. By popular demand, here is Steve Guthrie’s new web site where he has links to his NCAA Baseball cards made for APBA.
Steve made NCAA card sets for the years 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2010. He goes into a little detail about the set and the state of his NCAA cards here in a post at the Table Top Sports forum on Delphi.
I’m showing my Illinois bias by including U of I third baseman Brandon Hohl as an example at left.
Go Illini!
I’ve been pleased to correspond lately with Robert S who just got back into APBA. He’s a reporter from the Denver area and is enjoying playing the basic game with his 8-year old daughter (seems to me there are two trends lately, more NEW APBA players and more YOUNG players of APBA. I’m happy to see both).
Robert did ask about one thing. He asked if there was a pitchers’ fatigue rating in the basic game. When informed that there wasn’t, he asked if there was any fan modifications out there he could implement.
I seem to remember hearing of one for the basic game but a quick search didn’t find anything. Do any of you have some ideas for modifying pitchers’ grades for fatigue? Let us know by posting in the comments section.
Also, a quick apology for the missing Monster Card Monday. I was sick all day yesterday and didn’t have one lined up. I figured the world wouldn’t end if I missed one and surely, it didn’t.
On Between the Lines forum, Steve Radtke has uploaded an Excel spreadsheet populated with info gleaned from the BTL chat the other night. Fielding ratings, pitchers’ grades and some hitting numbers of a few notables. It’s attached to this forum post.
There are a few of you out there who don’t play the Master Game or Computer version of APBA Baseball and might not be familiar with the number system of pitching grades.
Here is the breakdown:
| MG Grade | Basic Grade |
| 1-4 | D |
| 5-9 | C |
| 10-14 | B |
| 15-19 | A |
| 20-24 | A&C |
| 25-30 | A&B |
I hope that helps. APBA adjusted it slightly around ten years ago lowering the grade requirement by one point.
There are multiple discussions going on at the Between the Lines forum right now surrounding the disk release. If you haven’t stopped in yet, check it out and you’ll find some lively conversation.
John Briggs of the Roberto Clemente Memorial Baseball Association writes:
I’ve been doing the pitcher splits for innings as starter & reliever for many many years.
I used to do it for the APBA Journal for their last ten years or so and I still do it for our league (RCMBA) and several others who contact me annually.
This is this years version for 2011 MLB season.
It’s in an Excel format with two tabs… one by team and the other by player.
Check out John’s spreadsheet here.
For those of us, who wish to be as accurate as possible in replays, this will come in handy.
Looking at the spreadsheet, I notice that John has highlighted in red all the non-pitchers who have taken their turn on the mound in 2011. To me, that’s interesting. Is it me or has that phenomenon increased in recent years? Since John has been doing this for a while, perhaps he can tell us.
thanks John!
I got an email from Richard with a question:
I am interested in selling my APBA baseball 1975 complete set with xb’s , lineup sheet and master game symbols in the original team envelopes.Can you give me any info on doing this?
I’d have to say of all the questions I get from APBA players over email, ones like these are the most popular. Either someone wants to sell a card set or is looking to buy a used set.
Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as putting an ad in the local paper or even online sites like Craigslist. APBA games are such a niche product that you need to go to where other fans are.
Here was my answer to Richard:
You pretty much have two choices. The first is putting it up for sale on Ebay. You’ll certainly hit a large audience. If you’re familiar with doing that, you might have good luck.
The other is posting an ad on the APBA Between the Lines forum. There is a Classifieds section there and you might find a taker. If you haven’t been to the forum, it’s free and only requires you to register. Here is the address.
hope that helps!
I will add this. I’ve bought a fair number of sets off Ebay in the past and haven’t had a problem. That said, you will probably find a “friendlier” audience on Between the Lines (then again, your mileage may vary).
Do others have a source where they buy/sell used APBA products?
PS now that I’ve given Richard a free ad, I’d be happy to put anyone who is interested in his 1975 set in touch with him!
Over at the Illowa APBA League’s web site, I uploaded an Excel spreadsheet which can be used to keep team’s stats throughout a season.
I debated whether there would be interest in it over here at the APBA Blog. Walt Taylor however, thinks it will be very useful for his team at OAPBA. So I’ll link to it in case anyone else is interested in a useful way to keep stats for a league team or a replay.
Some info about the spreadsheet
First, I claim no credit for creating this. It’s a collaborative effort. A lot of the work goes John Brandeberry, a manager in the IAL. The master sheet was created by our commish, Mike Bunch.
I’ve used various forms of this spreadsheet to keep stats for my Twin City Thunderchickens for some five or six years, now. This is the latest iteration. I love it. It is both efficient and customizable. It has a worksheet for each player and pitcher. On each player worksheet, stats are entered game-by-game. Updated season totals are reflected on the master sheet.
For those leagues who impose limits on games, at-bats and innings for players, this spreadsheet has an added feature which is quite handy. On the master sheet (labeled TEAM NAME), there is a place to put real life stats of your players. Then for the rest of the season, your “limits left” (including players’ AB/G and IP/G) will be automatically updated for you. As Walt notes, this would be handy for replays too.
I’ve entered in a few games of stats for a couple players and a pitchers so you get a feel how the whole thing works.
No doubt, you might want to make changes to it. The spreadsheet it certainly customizable for your league’s (or replay’s) stat categories.
You can download the Excel spreadsheet from the IAL website.
I hope some of you find this useful.
Recently, I got into an email discussion with Brian C of the Bridesburg Boys and Girls Baseball Baseball League about replays and such. The topic of canonical standards for replays came up. What is considered a REAL replay?
My answer simply was that any replay that the player does that fulfills their particular ideals and standards is fine given time restraints and access to data. As with many things with APBA, it is what you make it. The main thing is that you have fun with it.
Now, I can hear some of you replay and simulation purists groaning out there. “But it’s not a real replay unless you use the full roster”. “And what about actual pitching rotations?”
Stop it. Plenty of fun can be had replaying a season while not paying strict attention to these details.
That said, it is true APBA fans do get a sense of “realism” when they pull this data up and use it when they replay a baseball season. The issue is obtaining information such as schedules, stats, game logs especially when it comes to past seasons. I’m hoping to part with some of the information and research web sites out there that might come in handy when doing a replay. Some of you will be all too familiar with these sites and may have your own favorites (please share!).
But let’s get the ball rolling.
There’s no doubt in my mind that the best baseball stat site out there is Baseball Reference. I use it on a daily basis. For those doing replays, it has multiple uses. For seasons going back to the beginning of baseball, you can look up stats for every player cross-referenced by team. Also useful for replayers are box scores which you can look up (I believe this goes back to the 1920s).
B-R also has postseason and All-Star stats and box scores for those looking for that kind of data.
Retrosheet is another site worth looking at. This organization has a very worthy cause (if you’re a baseball history nut). If you see a baseball web site with loads of historical data, there’s a good chance they are getting their data from Retrosheet. Like Baseball Reference, you can browse historical box scores not to mention lots of other very interesting data (totally off topic but they list every time a batter has batted out of turn… fascinating!)
Most importantly, Retrosheet allows you to download data files including schedules (yay!), game logs and “Play-by-play” files.
Note: as I understand it, the schedules that Retrosheet has are the original planned schedules. Baseball Reference can give you the game log (the actual games played). Here is an example from the 1999 Cubs.
For those who want all the baseball stats so they can sort or filter them, Sean Lahman at baseball1.com has a free download of a data file which “includes individual and team stats for Major League Baseball seasons from 1871-2010”. He also has a good writeup on the History of MLB Schedules.
For those who are into the advanced baseball statistics, check out Fangraphs. In addition to current day MLB, they have access to stats going back to the 19th century.
For modern day baseball (the last few years), the more mainstream sites do a pretty good job (though quite honestly, Baseball Reference is still my first stop since I like their interface so much).
MLB.com has really responded to the needs of fantasy baseball (and APBA baseball fans) and souped up their stats area in the last 5-6 years. They now have a sortable player stats section which also goes back a few years.
ESPN’s baseball stats area is there but I honestly don’t use it much. It goes back at least 10 years.
I still have a soft spot for USA Today’s baseball stats section for current baseball stats. The reason?? Okay, it’s not fancy and it doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles but it’s one of the few places you can go where you can get a listing of one league’s stats (every player) on one page. No clicking back and forth. The same goes for the listing of box scores for the day (if you expand them).
I’d love to hear if there are others I’ve missed. I’m sure there are plenty. If you do a season replay, what resources (online or otherwise) do you use??
The disk is out!
I don’t have it in my hands but I’ve waded through most of posts on APBA- Between The Lines. If you don’t have the disk yet and have that certain need to know, there are plenty of people who could tell you numbers and ratings.
If you do have the disk and haven’t yet extracted the card data from it, rush on over to the Makojo.com website and download the the utility needed to read the cards from the disk.
The forum is mostly full of requests for card data but there are certain trends of thought throughout the postings:
- like the actual 2010 MLB season, pitching is strong and hitting is weaker
- NL MVP Joey Votto (1,1,6,6,10,10,8,8,8,9,9 and 5 14s) was robbed. Just read the thread Votto…are u kidding me!! and you’ll see what I mean. As they say in the original post, Pujols (1,1,6,6,10,10,8,8,8,9,9 and 4 14s) didn’t fare so well either.
- Jeter was given a gift with his SS-9. APBA perhaps could not be faulted as he won the Gold Glove
Anyway, this is the particular thread to go to with most of the card info for the time being.
66’s
TBZ
For those college baseball fans like me, there’s good news. Steve Guthrie has come out with the 2010 NCAA Baseball card sets! These cards are based on the Brian Davis Card Generator.
You can download your favorite team or up to 150 teams from Steve’s website.
Thanks to Chuck for passing on the info and PS Steve… Willie deserves a OF-3
