A pickup series between the Rangers and Braves of 1982

My buddy Brando invited me over tonight to watch the Illinois-Arizona St football game.  While we watched it,  we thought we would play some APBA.  He told me to pick out some teams before I came over.

So I went to my office where I keep my cards.  I eeny-meeny-miny-moed a box of cards and from that box I literally reached in and chose the first two teams my hands touched.  Totally random choice.  What teams did I end up?   The Texas Rangers and Atlanta Braves from 1982.

The Braves had luminaries such as Phil “Knucksie” Niekro, Dale Murphy, Bob Horner, Claudell Washington plus more “stable” players like Glenn Hubbard, Bruce “Eggs” Benedict, and Rafael “Raffy” Ramirez.

For the Rangers, you had 3B defensive wiz Buddy Bell, Larry Parrish, another gloveman behind the plate in Jim “Sunny” Sundberg.  Charlie Hough and Jon Matlack anchored the staff.

Brando took the Rangers though I generously offered him the Braves.  I honestly thought Atlanta had the edge with Murphy’s and Horner’s power (1-5-5 and 1-1-6-6, respectively) plus a B in Niekro and two A*s in the pen (Bedrosian and Garber).  Brando declined, happy to take to AL team.  He must have known what he was doing.

We played a simple 2-2-1 best of five series with a three man pitching rotation.  We played the APBA basic baseball game right out of the box with no modifications.

The results

Game #1:  Phil Niekro and Charlie Hough both pitch three-hitters.  The only difference was a Billy Sample homerun.  Texas wins 1-0.  Does anyone else find it odd that both Niekro and Hough both had control?

Game #2:  The Rangers score five runs in the first inning off of Pascual Perez. Dave Hostetler keyed that inning with a two-run triple.  My Braves never recovered and the Ranger’s starter Dave Schmidt pitches a complete game to win 10-3.  Larry Parrish went 4-5 with a homerun and three rbis.  Two of the Braves’ runs came from a Dale Murphy homerun, all for naught.

Game #3  It’s do or die for the Braves in Game 3 and they pitch Rick Camp while the Rangers start Jon Matlack.  Down by two, the Braves score two unearned runs in the top of the seventh (dang it, Matlack still advances) to tie.  Alas, Larry Parrish dashes any hope of a game 4 for the Braves by hitting a three-run homerun in the bottom of the inning.  Texas goes on to win 6-3 behind Matlack’s CG.

Rangers sweep the Braves

We (the Braves) never saw Texas’ bullpen.  Brando had no need for them the way Atlanta was (not) hitting.  The Ranger pitching staff gave up a total of six runs in the three games.  For that matter, Texas never got to see Gene Garber, Atlanta’s closer.

On the other hand big offensive heroes for Texas were Billy Sample (6 for 12, 2B, 3B, HR, 3 runs) and Larry Parrish (7 for 11, 2 HR, 6 rbis).

The good news?  At least the Illini won.