On Friday morning, my long time friend Don Smith and his Molly Putts Marauders came by Friday to play a late season Illowa APBA League series. My family was staying at a cabin on a lake on my Mom’s farm near where Don lives so he drove over and we got the games in while the rest of my family went shopping.
First, a little back story on Don:
Aside from my older brother who introduced me to the game, Don Smith was the first person I met who played APBA. He was actually the IAL manager who was charged with the duty of vetting me when I came into the league in 1980. I was just a wee lad of 16. After a long phone call from Tedd Mallasch who lived in Chicago, a visit from Don was arranged. I remember Don rode his bike 30 miles out to my house. I was impressed that a “grownup” wanted to play APBA with me. We went up to my attic bedroom and played some 1930 baseball then a more current season. I must have passed since they let me in.
Don is hard core about his sports and serious about having a good time. Ask him anything about pretty much any sport (except soccer) within his lifetime and he’ll know it. He’s a huge Angels fan as anyone who attended the Chicagoland Tournament would know. While other participants were choosing great teams like the 1930 A’s and the like, Don picked the 1961 Angels expansion team. Pick a team you’ll love and you will at least have fun, right?
Well on Friday, Don and I got our nine game series started around 9am and from the get-go it was one of the strangest series I’ve played in a while. Game One was a wild 17 inning match making for a very messy score sheet. In the first nine innings, the lead changed nine times. Once we got into extras though, no one scored for six innings. It was Molly Putts’ Pablo Sandoval who hit a three run shot in the 17th that made the difference. Molly Putts won the first game 14-11.
As I said, we’re near the end of the season and our league has pretty strict limits on player usage. Extra inning games are not our best friend. As it turned out, our series had four extra inning games eating away at our at-bats and innings. Not only that, there were six one-run games, including a 12-11 nail-biter in Game 7.
My Twin City Thunderchickens ended up winning six of the nine games. The series ended as ominous as it started with Molly Putts beating up on Matt Harrison and winning 15-0. In between, we just managed to score just enough runs to win. Funny thing is, Don’s Molly Putts Marauders hit the crap out of ball. In the nine game series, he hit an incredible 24 homeruns. Buster Posey alone hit seven dingers. Fortunately for us, a lot of them were solo homers. Don brought his famous duck call but as he explained, he doesn’t use it in one-on-one series. Good thing. He would have attracted a lot of ducks from the nearby lake.
Albert Pujols picked up the pace for my Thunderchickens. He went 17 for 39 with 9 rbis.
The 6-3 win was fun but probably not enough to erase the difference of the earlier 3-6 loss to the Green Rock Bombers and the 2-7 loss to the Moline Upperdeckers. It would take a miracle and a 9-0 win in our last series to get a playoff berth.
Thanks for coming out, Don! As always, a great time!
