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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