The Twin Cities APBA Baseball Tournament keeps on rolling. The prolific tourney just concluded its 16th tournament last weekend and Marty Lee and came away the winner.
Jim Fraasch has the details below…
The early headline of TCABT-XVI was the appearance of the current official Minnesota Twins organist, Sue Nelson, (The past 22 seasons with the Twins. She had also played the organ at the Met Center for the North Stars, from 1981 until they left for Dallas in 1993). Dave Druk knew her previously from their time together with the St. Paul (Twin City) Vulcans semi-pro hockey team. Dave Druk was 100% responsible for making her appearance at our tournament possible. This would be the first time ever that a MLB team’s organist performed at a regional APBA Baseball tournament. She hinted that she would make future tournaments for us. Her stay lasted about 1.5 hours, when our tournament opened. After our opening announcements and group photo, she opened the proceedings with “Oh Canada” for our 2015 Blue Jays entrant, and then our National Anthem, followed by a rendition of “We’re Gonna Win Twins!”, which had to be the impetus for the 2019 Twins eventually winning our TCABT_XVI event. As the games began rolling, she would intermittently perform more ballpark organ music, as if we were at the ballpark. Her husband, Larry Nelson, was with her and he took a keen interest in the game of APBA Baseball, wanting to learn what it was all about.
We were slated for 24 teams, divided into 4 divisions of 6 teams each. We had one late drop, which caused one division to go down to 5 teams. The 6 team divisions each played a total of 10 division games. The 5 team division ended up with a “BYE”, and played an 8 game division schedule. The 4 division winners were: WHITEY FORD DIVISION – 2019 Twins (Marty Lee, 8-2, #1 seed), DWIGHT GOODEN DIVISION – 1930 Giants (Beau Lofgren, 6-2, #2 seed), BO JACKSON DIVISION – 1957 Braves (Craig Christian, 6-4, #4 seed) and HAL NEWHOUSER DIVISION – 2017 Indians (Gordon Rodell, 7-3, #3 seed). Earning the 4 wild cards were: #5 seed – 1927 Athletics (Jerry Jacobs, 5-3), #6 seed – 1948 Indians (Bruce Tyler, 6-4), #7 seed – 1905 Giants (Jeff Boeding, 6-4), and the #8 seed – 2004 Cardinals (Kevin Cluff, 5-5).
While Jeff’s 1905 Giants swept their 1930 namesake Giants (Beau), 2 games to none, the other 3 quarter-final series went the full 3 games. Marty and his 2019 Twins took 2 of 3 from Kevin and his 2004 Cardinals. Bruce and his 1948 Indians took 2 of 3 from Gordon and his 2017 Indians, while Craig and his 1957 Braves took 2 of 3 from Jerry and his 1927 A’s.
The semi-finals saw 2 sweeps: Marty’s 2019 Twins swept Jeff’s 1905 Giants and Craig’s 1957 Braves swept Bruce’s 1948 Indians.
The championship series came down to 2 finalists who had never won a TCABT championship, as did our previous TCABT tournament last April. Marty’s 2019 Twins needed 3 games to best Craig and his 1957 Braves, 2 games to 1. Each team traded 2-1 wins in the first 2 games. Game 3 was a decisive 6-1 victory for the 2019 Twins, capping the first ever TCABT championship for both Marty Lee and a Twins team from any year. Congratulations to Marty Lee and his 2019 Twins who went 14-4 on the day! Some stats provided by Marty include: a .206/.286/.441 BA/OBP/SLG line, which may not impress, however, the team did manage to hit 35 homers in 18 games. Another stat which tells all in the division play record of 8-2 for the 2019 Twins, is the pitching staff allowed only 25 runs in 10 games!
Thanks to our 23 participants, it was a well-played TCABT-XVI … Our next event, TCABT-XVII, will be held in Shakopee again, on Saturday, April 2nd, 2022.
Note, Jim will have a complete write-up posted on his blog site, Jim’s APBA Barn with photos and more over the next couple of weeks.
Congratulations to Marty! Nice work on another successful tourney, Jim! Thanks for the recap!
