Last month, our league had our yearly draft together in the Chicago area. As usual, we also played the first the 30 games of the season. At least we tried. Todd our manager from Pittsburgh just couldn’t make it to Illinois this year. “It’s too faarrr”, he said (I kid… I’m amazed at the effort Todd does put in to make the functions).
So he and I ended up playing by Skype. I’ve mentioned of playing APBA by Skype before. As I’ve said, if you couldn’t play in person, using Skype certainly beats playing by mail. Playing by mail lacks the human element and isn’t near as fun. Also as Todd said, it’s always frustrating when the other manager wins all his games and a little awkward when you win all yours.
And with Skype’s video capabilities, it adds a bit more fun than just playing over the phone. I’ve done that and it suffices in a pinch.
The hardest part with Todd and my series was trying to fit it in. We had to reschedule it twice. But last Tuesday night, we both sat down at our respective computers in our respective homes, him in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and me in Urbana, Illinois, and played APBA.
As you can from the screen cap, Todd’s so cheap he didn’t have a webcam (again, I kid). So all I saw the whole series was an icon that looked like a clothes hanger. But he was forced to look at my ugly mug. Skype fortunately does give you a window to give you an idea what you are broadcasting to the other caller.
The audio was clear and that was the important thing. We played a six game series and managed to chit chat about baseball and umpiring (Todd is an umpire in Division III).
Close to the end of our series, I noticed that Mike, our league commissioner, was on Skype. It wasn’t long before he started chatting with me using Skype’s internal instant messaging feature. Mike has long coveted Albert Pujols. With Albert’s slow start in the Majors, Mike thought he tried to pry him away from me with some EARLY trade talk.
Nice try Mike.
If you haven’t tried Skype and it sounds like something you might want to try, it is free. You can download it here. You and the other caller will both need to have it installed. A webcam is nice have for video calling but using audio is just fine. A headset with a mic is handy but if your webcam has a built-in mic like mine did, it’s not necessary.
Has anyone else used it (or other web conferencing tools) to play long distance APBA?
I’ve had great fun playing by chat. In an AIM chat room you can type
//roll
and get a dice roll like this:
szstein rolled 2 6-sided dice: 1 3
Lotta typing, though.
We play via a connection device. We have 19 managers and need a competent manager to take over a team during the All Star break. Team is currently in first place in it’s division. Members in TX,DE,WI,FL and PA. Play with the best.
Contact Kirt Bennett () if interested or check out the site (apbakading.com)