Mom told me when I wanted APBA Baseball for Christmas 1970 that it was just a phase I was going through, and that I’d tire of it before long. Well Mom was right! After 42 years of playing APBA Baseball, more than 35 years in the Illowa APBA League,…
by Teddy Ballgame Chicago Champions outfielder Grady Sizemore had a turn back the clock kind of day in a recent game against the Three Rivers Gamblers. It was the last of five games played in Three Rivers Stadium, the lineup card featured Sizemore batting eighth for the visiting Champs. Up…
by Teddy Ballgame The Chicago Champions played games forty through sixty-three in Champaign. That left a six game SKYPE series against the Illowa APBA League reigning Champs, the Green Rock Bombers. With Papa Bunch’s work schedule and my funn schedule, our series was setup to play Friday June 29th. Of…
The Chicago Champions were pitted against the Kentucky Kernels in May. Chicago sleepwalked through the first three games, losing all three by a combined score of 14 to 3. After dropping the first two contests, the Champions decided to shake things up by playing their kids versus Hiroki Kuroda. Kuroda…
Alex Rodriguez ended last season sitting at 599. So it was only a matter of time for the slugger to belt number 600. That time came in the 7th inning of game #2, facing Rising Bamm Beanos rookie righthander Ivan Nova. It was a solo shot, which put the Chicago…
2012 IAL ROOKIE DRAFT REVIEW 1) TWIN CITY THUNDERCHICKENS: Jeremy Hellickson P: This young righthander throws four pitches for strikes. He is a pitcher, in every sense of the word. Posting numbers that resulted in a B-Z grade. His best pitch is his changeup. Still I am not a…
I’m writing this on APBA Day, 6/6/11, Happy APBA Day to you all! Three times a year the Illowa APBA League gets together, as a whole, twice in Naperville & once in Champaign. This is when the Chicago teams play the out of Chicago teams. I needed to get back…
Decided to fly to Pittsburgh to take on Todd Ventresca’s Gamblers. Because Todd couldn’t make it to Chicago for the IAL Playoff & Draft weekend in March, it seemed like the thing to do. On Friday after Todd picked me up from the airport & I checked into the motel,…
Champions IAL Playoffs & Draft Weekend Left Orlando on a big jet airliner at 8:00 AM, flying SWA to Midway, arrived at the Naperville Best Western after a couple of stops at 1:00 PM. Unpacked my APBA stuff & unwound, laid back & relaxed, and waited for my playoff foe…
IAL TRADES MOLLY PUTTS MARAUDERS send SS EVERTH CABRERA to the RISING BAMM BEANO’S in exchange for SS RAFAEL FURCAL. Don’t really like either player. Cabrera is younger and is likely to get older. While Furcal is older and might retire sooner. MARAUDERS 5, BAMM BEANO’S 5 – EVEN MOLLY…