Last Saturday, 32 APBA fans gathered at the Comfort Inn-O’Hare in the Chicago area for the Fall 2016 Chicagoland APBA Tournament. Billed as a “sub-.500” tourney, all teams entered had a losing record in real life.
Out of those 32 participants and eight finalists, it was Vince Bianco and his 1964 Los Angeles Dodgers who came out the victors. Vince defeated Todd Daniels and his 2000 Houston Astros in the one-game final championship game. Sandy Koufax was the winning pitcher in the final game.
Defending champ Bob Eller did the honors by passing on the trophy to Vince.
Here is how the playoffs went down…
The mid-tourney All-Star game went to the Divisions 1-4 aka the “Left Side”. Todd Daniels’ Richard Hidalgo broke it open with a bases loaded 6 triple. My contribution, Ron Santo added a two-run homer on a 66-1 in the second inning. The Left Side won in a tight battle 6-4.
Here’s Clark Eichman rolling during the classic.
Other great storylines of the tourney:
Wilbur Wood pitched a no-hitter for Chet Wazio’s 1971 Chicago White Sox. The perfect game was broken up late in the game by an error but Wood did not give up a walk or a hit.
Eric Berg dominated Division #1 by going 9-0 against the three other teams with his 1964 Minnesota Twins. He had the highest run differential of any team in the tourney with good pitching, no fielding and LOTS of power.
But in game 1 of the playoffs, Todd Daniels was forced to use Jose Lima (a DZ)) against Eric’s powerful Twins. Lima proceeded to shutout the Twinkies 9-0. Wow.
Kurt Bergland and his 1979 Cubs (above) had quite a crowd watching him in the playoffs. Down 2-0 against Mike Hill’s 1991 Reds in the 9th, he scored three runs to advance to the semi-finals. Then facing off against Todd Daniels’ 2000 Astros, they were down 8-1. Kurt’s Cubs made it into a very interesting game and Todd had to really battle to win 13-10 to advance to final.
Bradd Romant couldn’t make it to the tournament due to a sliced finger (hope you’re ok, Bradd!). Well who would take over? Pastor Rich’s son was up to job. That’s him taking on Ken Schulz above. He has to be the youngest manager in Chicagoland history. Sorry Bradd, you’ve been replaced!
I’m sure I’m missing other great moments from Saturday. In all, it was a great day and we have one man to thank for that. Rob Spatz has worked tirelessly to make this a great event and I think he succeeded beyond our expectations. Thank you, Rob (and thanks to your wife, too!).
Congratulations again, Vince! See you all next time!
I really like the sub-500 concept of this tournament and hope that it will become the norm. Congratulations to the ’64 Dodgers!
Hi William,
It definitely was a popular theme this time around. We got to see some teams we normally don’t see often.
Interestingly, I faced a team that I had played myself in a past tourney, the 87 Cubs. It was hard to root against them :)
Tom