The brochure from the original World Series Baseball Game
Pastor Rich Zawadzki posted a an interesting thought on the APBA Baseball group on Facebook. In essence, it was a plea to the APBA Company to:
“… put out a World Series set (The teams that faced off in each World Series) from each decade (IE: 1960-1969). Other than the first set there will be 20 teams in each set, and APBA could sell it for $40 or $50.”
This post got a lot of attention with plenty of comments almost all favorable. I’m finding that while leagues and full season replays are still popular, there seems to be upward trend in shorter seasons as to how we play APBA. The fact is, whether because of our busy schedules and the sense of getting something accomplished, many APBA fans are moving towards a shorter season replay or a tournament method to satisfy their solo APBA fix. As Rich says, I just don’t play entire seasons, but love to play with the GTOP (Great Teams of the Past).”
APBA hasn’t produced a true World Series set since the 70s. I purchased the set along with my very first set as a kid. You can see a few photos of the brochure courtesy of fan John Williams here.
I’m curious if APBA Football fans (or even Soccer or Hockey fans) are feeling the same way. I’m guessing that since a 16 game season may not be as daunting as a 154 or 162-game schedule, the demand might be as dire. Yet, the concept of a “Super Bowl Set” does have appeal.
In the past few years, APBA has been trying out the concept of “pre-play” which involves selling current postseason teams of various sports so that we can simultaneously play with the actual professional postseason. I have heard some positive feedback from a few readers on this. What many are clamoring for, I think, are historical seasons which shouldn’t be too difficult for the APBA Company to assemble assuming they have already been printed at one point.
The interest is there. Methods of how APBA baseball is being played is somewhat trending towards a shorter series/tournament style of play. I’m wondering if APBA might look into this as a viable marketing strategy.
World Series sets seem to make a lot of sense both from the APBA players side (who has time to replay an entire season)and from a marketing point of view (it would beat buying 10 seasons to get the 20 pennant winners).
Perhaps your site could set up a polling site and see what readers have to say?
They recently released all of the pennant winners by decade on CD. I believe it was $10 a decade or all 11 for $60? I may have that wrong, but very nice addition to the computer side of the hobby. – Steve
I’d like to see them update and release a new Hall of Famers set. I think the last one was done back in the mid 1990’s. I would enjoy using it in a mini-tournament, or randomly selecting one player to add to a regular team in a tournament.