Lonborg no-hitter highlighting Mel M.’s 1967 Master Game replay

Sometimes, a big event in your APBA replay is too good not to share with others.  Such is the case with Mel M. who writes to tell us about his 1967 Master Game baseball replay. 

Mel writes:

Hi Tom, 

I’m still plugging away with my 1967 MG replay.  I’ve played all the games thru June first.  The last game was a great one.  The Boston Red Sox tied the Minnesota Twins for first place on a Jim Lonborg no hitter.  I thought I might roll my 1st ever perfect game.  Lonborg was mowing the Twins down, not a single hit number thru six innings.  In the bottom of the sixth George Scott hit a solo home run for a 1-0 lead and Lonborg retired Tovar, Carew and Killebrew in the seventh.  In the bottom half Joe Foy tripled to center scoring Howard and Andrews for a 3-0 lead.  In the top of the 8th Tony Oliva led off with the 1st hit number for the twins a 35-9, but with 7 scoreless innings Lonborg advanced to a MG-20, so it was a fly out to CF Reggie Smith, 22 up 22 down. 

Next up was LF Rich Reese who drew a base on balls ending the perfect game bid.  Lonborg then struck out Versalles and Uhlaender to end the inning.  Russ Nixon led off the ninth with a dice roll of 61-38 and a roll of 11 for the bases empty rare play board result 3, a play for fielding one outfielder Carl Yastrzemski, a roll of 46 made it a fielding one play, flyout PO -LF.  Pinch hitter Sandy Valdespino grounded out second to first, one more to go, Cesar Tovar takes a called strike three!  No-hitter for Jim Lonborg.

I also had a player hit for the cycle for the first time, Vada Pinson of the Reds tripled in his last at bat against the Pirates at Forbes Field on May 26.  Then as I was playing the games for the AL, Tommie Agee of the White Sox hit for the cycle in the second game of a double header against the Angels, also on May 26th.  Agee was due up fourth in the 9th.  Don Buford walked with 2 out and I rolled a 55-9 for Agee, an infield single.

I’ve been playing APBA baseball since 1968,  and I’ve always enjoyed it.
66’s…Mel M.

 

Thanks for sharing, Mel!

Mel’s write-up raises an interesting question.  How do you fellow APBA replayers (and league members, for that matter) keep track of these rare stat categories like no-hitters and cycles in your stats?  We could probably throw in grand slams and defensive triple plays in to the mix, too.

I suppose if you’re really thorough, you could have a stat field for EVERY category but I doubt any of us do that.  At the same time, we don’t want to lose sight of those rare occurrences when they do happen over the course of a season because they are such a big event.

Thoughts or ideas?

Thomas Nelshoppen

I am an IT consultant by day and an APBA media mogul by night. My passions are baseball (specifically Illini baseball), photography and of course, APBA. I have been fortunate to be part of the basic game Illowa APBA League since 1980 as well as the BBW Boys of Summer APBA League since 2014. I am slogging through a 1966 NL replay and hope to finish before I die.

11 Comments:

  1. Once again this is why I play BBW–it records seasonal highlights based on the parameters that you set. I can, for example, see all the no hitters or all the players with 3+ homers in a game.

    • Indeed, that’s one area where BBW excels. Now that I’ve been recently re-introduced to Statmaster, I’ve been reminded of that.

      I do like using Excel for stats though. In the past, I would tabulate my stats player by player. That is, I would add up all the stats for each player for a particular series then I’d go on to the next player.

      Now, my spreadsheet allows me to input stats game by game. The spreadsheet is a bit more complicated to set up but once it is, there are a lot of advantages. Like you, Adam, I can spot a hitting streak at a glance or see the games when players had big performances.

      Another big advantage… there’s no losing track of where I am in the stat tracking process either. :)

  2. I do all of my stats in excel. I create a ‘log’ for special events. I put in long streaks of any kind and special single game events.

  3. Congratulations on the no hitter!

  4. Good work on the no hitter. I have been keeping the big events on a simple sheet of paper, and still have every box score of the no hitters, but now that my computer at home has been replaced I should add a spot for this as I have one for my post season history (so far only 1 completed).

    I am in the middle of my 1905 replay but want to get through May before I submit my report to date. I am considering doing it in an TV style broadcast just for fun.

    • Thanks Scott. I keep a separate schedule for each team that lists the final score, winning and losing pitchers, team record and highlights of the game.

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  7. What was Elston Howard doing on the Red Sox June 1?

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