An action shot from last year’s IAL All-Star Game
Team Cards? Check.
Dice and shaker? Check.
New APBA booklet? Check.
I’m just about packed for the Illowa APBA League All-Star weekend. Yes, I packed a few clothes too. That part takes me about 10 minutes. It’s the important stuff I agonize over like which dice shakers I should bring (I’m opting for the official APBA dice cup I just got as well as the wooden one that my buddy Brando made for me).
While the All-Star Game is the big event for our weekend, we do make an effort to play 30 games each towards our regular season. At this point, the IAL is 96 games into the season. So you can see it gets to be a pretty packed weekend. Thankfully, Doug Schuyler, co-organizer of the upcoming Chicagoland APBA World Series Tournament, is coming by to help play some games as we’re currently down a manager (anyone in the Chicago area who’s interested in the position, let me know). Big thanks to Doug!
As for my Thunderchickens, things are looking up. We started pretty poorly. Even as of June, the team was in ninth place. Things picked up with a late series sweep in June and a win in July. Now we’re in seventh place. More importantly. we’re just two games back from a playoff spot. The bad news is that there are six teams ahead of us.
This WAS supposed to be our year but I had almost given up. Almost. We have a tough row to hoe but if we beat the right teams we have a chance.
As for the All-Star Game itself, our team is well-represented in this year’s Classic. We have two starters in the infield of the West aka “Country Gents”. So far, the acquisition of Jose Reyes is paying off as he was voted as the shortstop rep. He’s hitting .264 with 26 steals and 10 triples. He also has 43 rbis batting in the #1 or #2 spot all year.
Long time Thunderchicken thirdbaseman Ryan Zimmerman will be wearing the uniform of the Country Gents in 2013. Zimmerman is excited about his first All-Star Game start. He’s having a solid year hitting .278 with 16 homers and 50 rbis. “Can’t wait to send those City Boys home crying to their mammas”, said Zim.
IAL managers plan to get to Downers Grove sometime in the late afternoon on Friday. Good luck to both managers of the All-Star teams, John Brandeberry of the Country Gents and Todd Ventresca of the City Boys!
