by Craig Small
I just finished up my All-Time Greats Golf Tournament and I’ve decided to play a little baseball. I thought I’d replay the 2011 Boston Red Sox season as I can no longer stand to watch the 2012 Red Sox pack it in with a month left to go. What was I thinking?
I’ve played the first two games of the 2011 season, the Texas Rangers the opponent. In the opener Beckett gave me 7 strong innings and left with the lead. Bard came out of the bullpen and promptly gave up the tying run in the 8th. It stayed all knotted up till the 11th when Kinsler took Aceves deep with a walk-off homer. In game two I got 7 good innings from Lester and a solid 8th from Bard. Papelbon took the hill in the 9th with a 1-run lead. After striking out Cruz he walked Napoli and David Murphy followed with a walk-off 2-run home run. Two games, two walk-offs.
Should be a fun season.
Incidentally, I’m using the iScore app on my iPad to keep score and compile stats. It works great. I’d highly recommend it to anyone looking for a better way to keep score. The game scorecards are incredibly detailed and the app automatically compiles all the season stats for you. It’s completely customizable and you can (for a small fee) download the current season’s MLB rosters. Since most rosters don’t change very much from year to year it’s easy to make whatever changes you need to make so the roster matches the current APBA season cards. Unfortunately, iScore doesn’t currently offer past season rosters. The 2012 rosters are available now for 9.99 (half price) and I’ll be all set when the APBA 2012 cards are released.
I’m fairly new to this blog and this topic may have already come up but if it hasn’t I highly recommend another iPad app called Topps Pennant. It’s an incredible app that has boxscores and play by play replays of every MLB game played since 1952! It’s an incredible source of information and lineups from the last 60 years of MLB.
I’ll be back soon with a recap of the golf tournament as well as my thoughts on the game itself. Depending on when this is posted, I hope you enjoy your holiday or enjoyed your holiday.
I’m a huge fan of using iScore – I am using it for my 1984 AL replay and importing the stats into a database to allow me to show the results on my web site. I’ve also used it at various tourneys, although for reasons still not 100% clear to me, I was not allowed to use it this year at the APBA tourney.
Strange that you weren’t allowed to use iScore. I can’t imagine why that would be. I love it. It completely eliminates the need for the game board and markers. Essentially all you need when using iScore are the player cards and dice. Glad to hear you’re enjoying it.
The organizers wanted everyone to use the cramped “official” score sheets. Really, I thought all we should have to turn in was a 3×5 card with the result and signatures by both managers, but not my tourney. With everyone scoring their own way, there wasn’t much uniform on those sheets (and they were so cramped I had trouble scoring by hand).
APBA Baseball is still fairly new to me. I spent my teenage years playing Statis-Pro Baseball and I’d probably still be playing it if someone was still manufacturing the cards. I miss the pitcher/batter interaction of Statis-Pro but I’m starting to get a feel for how APBA brings the pitcher into the game. I know I could download pdfs for Statis-Pro but I’m not really interested in doing that. I’ve been playing APBA Baseball for about a year so must of you blog readers are light-years ahead of me. I looked at the scoresheet that came with game and frankly, didn’t get it. I much prefer tradional scoresheets (which iScore mimics). What I really love about iScore is how it compiles stats automatically. There’s a guy out there who created a Statis-Pro computer game that I’ve been loooking at. I’m thinking of giving that a shot as well. He has up to date season “cards” for the game and what I like about the game is that it’s basically the board game on your computer screen. You have to flip the cards manually and that sort of thing. Oh, well. I’m rambling now!
Craig