Annual Spring weekend: IAL rollin’ along

Don Smith may have rolled out of last place this past weekend

Despite torrential rainstorms and a fender bender in the driveway (I won’t say who), the Illowa APBA League had a fun and successful get together in Champaign, Illinois this past weekend. 

Here are some photos…

Thanks to John “Brando” Brandeberry (right, playing Keith Smith) for hosting the event at his house.

When Chuck Lucas from Chicago and Don Smith from Davenport, Iowa get together, there’s always something to talk about.  Occasionally, they may even agree about something.

This is me.  Thanks to Brando for taking this.  I think he realizes that the cameraman doesn’t get in a lot of photos so he takes the effort to grab my camera and shoot a few action shots of me rolling dem bones. 

Once he clicked the shutter, I started to roll well so being the superstitious one, I told him to keep taking photos till the dice went cold. 

What’s this?  A Strato game at an APBA convention???

Chuck Lucas showing Yogi some love while playing commish Mike Bunch. 

Playing APBA is hard work!

More photos of last weekend here.

As for me, my Thunderchickens started out poorly with a 1-5 series against Keith Smith’s Kentucky Kernels.  It was a frustrating series as we had the lead in all six games.  It wasn’t until Stephen Strasburg took matters into his own hands and hit a grand slam in Game 6 and we won. 

We eventually started to pull ourselves back out of our slump splitting with the Chicago Highlanders and the Northside Hitmen.  We really hit against the Chicago Whales and pulled out a 4-2 series win.  The pitching held up too with three shutouts against the Whales.  That included a Jeremy Hellickson no-hitter that was broken up in the ninth inning. 

We’ll have one more series left against Pittsburgh-based Three Rivers Gamblers but I’m not holding our breath.  The Gamblers are pretty tough. 

Thanks again to Brando for hosting the event!