How confident am I in the new baseball booklet that APBA just put out this year? So much so that I gave away the old booklet I have.
Don’t worry, it’s not going too far and it’s hopefully going to a good cause. I have a good friend in town who is a big baseball fan. He has a thing for baseball history and also enjoys the more cerebral aspects of the game. I’ve always had him pegged for a tabletop sports type if he had the time.
So he and I lunch the other day and I and I gave him the booklet along with some dice. I included the four teams that came with the new boards. That should be enough to get him started. I told him I had plenty of other seasons he could borrow if past years were more to his taste.
My old booklet had seen a lot of action but it is still in pretty good shape. More importantly, the result numbers are all the same as the new booklet so should we ever get together and play, there won’t be any compatibility issues.
One thing about the game APBA Baseball… it’s not hard to learn. Set the lineups, roll the dice and look up the result in the booklet. There are a few modifiers most notably pitching grades and fielding ratings. The advanced rules such as baserunning and individualized fielding are just one extra step.
The biggest hurdle with APBA Baseball is memorizing the bulk of the oft rolled results on the boards as well as getting a feel for what a card will do. That just comes with time and learning the patterns that APBA uses.
As for the new APBA Baseball game booklet, I still obviously like it. It’s survived one Illowa APBA League weekend and I’ve been using it for my 1966 replay. I don’t see myself going back.
Hitting the Homestretch
Speaking of IAL weekends, we’re having a mini-APBA get together tomorrow. Father-son duo Mike and Mark Bunch are coming down from the Quad City area and taking on both John Brandeberry and I in two nine-game series each. With 36 games left in the season, this will knock out half of the remaining games.
At 64-62, I need to hold on the fourth place spot to get to the playoffs. The bad news is that Mark Bunch’s Moline Upperdeckers are a tough team, tied for first with a 78-48 record. The good news is that my Twin City Thunderchickens are uncharacteristically well rested at this point of the season. Aside from Jose Reyes having to rest two games, we are set to go. Even Jonathon Papelbon has plenty of innings for the rest of the year.
