Wowwee! This is exciting news to come from the APBA Convention in Lancaster. The Zack APBA Handbook is now online in pdf form!
Originally edited by Edwin Zack, I bought my first copy of the handbook at the first APBA convention I attended in the early 90s and still use it today (you can see how tattered it is at left). Outside of obviously not being being updated, it’s still relevant and very good read. Now it’s online.
Current editor John Cochrane noted last night in Lancaster: “We have gone the same route as Encyclopedia Britannica and other esteemed reference works,” referring to putting it online for all to see.
The Zack APBA Handbook website also incorporates a lot of work that new APBA Hall of Fame inductee Frank Welsh has done in archiving and documenting the changes in the baseball boards. I did an article on Welsh’s exhaustive work last year and remembering how detailed he was in his effort.
So if you’re an APBA baseball fan and you’re not familiar with the Zack Handbook or Frank Welsh’s work make a point to spend a couple hours reading through this. Is it necessary to play the game? No, but it sure makes it a lot more fun and helps us appreciate the the game we love.
Here is the link to the Zack APBA Handbook.
[edit: fixed egregious spelling error]
I seem to be unable to open the PDF for the link to the handbook and was wondering if this could be sent as either a word or excel document depending on how it was set up?
Hi Scott,
I found it easier to open when I right-clicked on the link and saved the pdf to my desktop (assuming Windows).
These inline pdf readers are kind of wonky sometimes. :)
Tom
Love this doc! Anyone know why I can’t see the cards in the upper right corner of the first page of each year? I can see all the text/info, just not the card image…