The Illowa APBA League’s All-Star Game is one of the two most intensely fun events of our league. Along with the annual rookie draft, it’s a time when we are all gathered together focusing on one event. This year’s game definitely provided a lot of excitement.
Last weekend, nine managers gathered in at the lake house near Cambridge, Illinois for our annual All-Star Game. It was the City Boys (generally speaking, the managers from the Chicago area) against the Country Gents.
Starting All-Stars were voted on by managers in the month before. Pitchers and bench players were chosen by the official division All-Star manager.
Game recap
Thanks to a Salvador Perez homer, the Country Gents were off to a 2-1 through seven innings. In the top of the 8th, Juan Soto turned the tide with a two-run homer giving the City Boys a 3-2 lead. Trea Turner followed that up in the bottom half of the inning driving in Ronald Acuna with a base hit.
Going into the ninth, it was a 3-3 tie game.
Country Gents’ Josh Hader reliever Josh Hader powered through the City Boys’ lineup pitching a scoreless frame.
Chad Green didn’t have so much luck. The City Boys reliever gave up consecutive singles to Manny Machado and Bryce Harper followed by a walk to Ozzie Albies. With no outs and bases loaded, Freddie Freeman was up to the plate.
Now, there’s a little backstory here. Don Smith has made a trade for next year involving Freeman to a team which happens to be in the City Boys division. At this point, Don said, “Now we’ll see where Freddie’s loyalties lie”.
He still works for Don, apparently. Don rolled a 55-8 which was good enough for a sacrifice fly and a win for the Country Gents!
Here is the box score of the game:
Country Gents 4
City Boys 3
Congrats to Don and manager Dan Bunch!
Playing our 2022 season
The Illowa APBA League played plenty of regular season games during the weekend. It makes sense since we were all congregated in one spot for two days. Going into the weekend, the IAL was at about the 96 game point of the season. We played 30 games over Friday and Saturday.
We also conducted our annual league meeting. See how excited everyone is in this photo?
There were several proposals brought up and more than a few passed. Very rare for our league which usually votes down changes. I may bring discuss our changes in a future article.
Here are some photos which are now found in the “People Playing APBA” photo gallery.
As always, the All-Star weekend was a great time with some really great guys!
