The Chicagoland APBA World Series Tournament is two weeks away! Thanks to the hard work of organizers Doug Schuyler and Jim Saska, the list of attendees is growing and the bounty of prizes is becoming more lucrative. Doug told me today that as of today, 20 people have committed to…
This was the game in 2004 that the Northside Hitmen’s Barry Bonds hit his 600th homer in the Illowa APBA League. This was pretty much at the pinnacle of Chuck Lucas’ Hitmen dynasty. With players like Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Roberto Alomar, and Carlos Delgado, the opponents’ were shaking…
Tim McCarver provides color commentary in one dimension while at the same time he goes 2 for 4 with a triple and double in another. Pretty meta. Last night, I visited my friend, John “Brando” Brandeberry to play some APBA while we watched the World Series. We played enough of…
I’ll admit the first thing I noticed when I saw this 1965 Gary Kolb card is that he was just “down the road a ways” from where I grew up. Rock Falls’ high school was in the same conference as my high school. Not only that, Kolb was a fellow…
Pick any Ted Williams card. It’s bound to be good, right? This one from 1955 comes from reader Steve Ryan who just got his. Steve and I shared a few emails about Williams and his love/hate relationship with the media. Steve reminded me of the oft-told story of the Boston…
Mike Bunch and John Brandeberry square off in IAL action When Mike and Mark Bunch came in to town to play some Illowa APBA League games, I had big plans. In the two 9-game series, I intended to build on our 20-10 weekend we had last month and make our…
The 2013 APBA Baseball Carded list is here! You can download the pdf version from the APBA website. Between the Lines forum moderator Kevin Cluff has posted an Excel version on the forum as well (thanks, Kevin!) It’s a big day for APBA baseball players in general. Everyone wants to…
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…
I ran across this nifty graphic that I made previous to the Illowa APBA League All Star Game in 2004. Some noteworthy points: Alfonso Soriano is playing second base. Albert Pujols is playing in left field. Jason Varitek is the starting catcher for our division. Looking at his stats, I…
The latest APBA Newsletter was just released. Some good information and some pretty upbeat stuff to be quite honest. Here are some highlights from the newsletter: Baseball “APBA now offers all of the 20th and 21st century major league baseball seasons. The 1902 season is now available as either a…