It was a long, happy weekend for the Illowa APBA League as we celebrated our 50th All-Star game. It was especially happy for the Country Boys.
It was a sentimental roster pick for the Country Gents’ division coach Don Smith. I know that because second baseman Michael Massey went to his high school (albeit a few decades later). It was a little sentimental for me too because Massey played baseball at the college I graduated and work at. I didn’t mind as another Thunderchicken had a chance to roll in the 50th Illowa APBA League.
Boy, did I ever! In the bottom of the 11th, Massey who had come in off the bench in the 9th inning, drove home Shohei Ohtani on a walk-off base hit to win the game. The Country Gents won the 2024 All-Star Game over the City Boys 5-4.
Don immediately broke into singing the Brother Rice fight song.
Kudos to Aaron Judge who homered in the bottom of the ninth to tie the game. All in all, this was one of the tightest games in our All-Star history. Massey wasn’t the only Thunderchicken who contributed. Manny Machado who came in early in the game, went 2 for 4 with a double and an rbi.
We kept busy
Our managers got plenty of regular season games in while we were together. No official reports in yet but Don’s Molly Putts Marauders and Marcus Bunch’s Colona Upperdeckers seemed to be cleaning up. As for my Thunderchickens, I am held my own after a rough summer. We are two games over .500 for the weekend with a six-game series left.
As I predicted last week, we had one of our longer league meetings in recent history. I will delve into that in a later article. Suffice to say we got through it with satisfactory results and no black eyes.
Here are some photos of the weekend and more at my “People Playing APBA” photo gallery.
Nice going, Coach!
