Jim Fraasch sends an update on last weekend’s Neil Ess Memorial Twin Cities APBA Baseball Tournament-X but please check out all the updated details on his awesome site, Jim’s APBA Barn.
TCABT-X: October 6th, 2018
Tournament Participants: 30
TCABT-X Champion: Gary Borthwick, 1998 Yankees (this is Gary’s first TCABT Championship)
Runner-up: Dave Norlander, 1911 Athletics (Dave has now finished runner-up in each of our last 2 tournaments, previously with the 1938 Yankees)
After the usual introductions and announcements and group photo, we started rolling shortly before 9am. 5 divisions of 6 teams each. Each team would be playing 10 division games (2 vs each team in division).
There seems to be a lot of balance in this tourney. Of the 30 teams, 3 teams finished 7-3, 11 teams finished 6-4, 6 teams finished 5-5, 6 teams finished 4-6, 2 teams finished 3-7, 1 team finished 2-8 and 1 team finished 1-9. 20 of the 30 teams finished .500 or better.
Eric Berg, making his 4th TCABT event, and 1st since TCABT-V, dominated most of division play with his 1906 Cubs, going 7-3 and having a +32 run differential, good enough for the #1 seed in bracket play. In addition to Eric Berg, the 8 quarter-finalists include: #2 seed – 1998 Yankees – Gary Borthwick, #3 seed – 1977 Phillies – Ben Lofgren, #4 seed – 2000 Giants – Beau Lofgren, #5 seed – 1975 Reds – Phil Geraffo, #6 seed – 1911 Athletics – Dave Norlander, #7 seed – 1905 Giants – Kevin Cluff, and the #8 seed – 1931 Athletics – Leroy Arnoldi.
In our best-of-three, bracket-play round, 6 of the 7 series went 3 games. The only sweep coming in the semi-final round, with Gary’s 1998 Yankees sweeping Phil’s 1975 Reds, 2 games to none. In the other semi, Dave’s 1911 A’s defeated Eric’s 1906 Cubs, 2 games to 1.
The championship came down to Gary’s 1998 Yankees (#2 seed) vs Dave’s 1911 A’s (#6 seed). Gary’s Yankees won game 1, 5-2. Dave’s A’s evened the series at 1-1 with a 3-2 nail biter. Game 3, for all the marbles, came down to Gary’s Yankees trailing 3-2 in the bottom of the 8th. Homer Bush hits a 2-run PH homer to put the Yankees up, 4-3. Mariano Rivera kept Dave’s A’s from coming back in the 9th, as Gary Borthwick and his 1998 Yankees win the TCABT-X Championship! Congrats to Gary for his first TCABT Championship, and congrats to Dave for his runner-up performance, in back-to-back tournaments (he finished runner up last April in TCABT-IX, with the 1938 Yankees). I had the honor of losing to Gary’s 1998 Yankees in the first division series of the day. My 1935 Cubs took the 1998 Yankees to 13 innings in game 1 of 10, before losing. Gary’s Yankees would sweep my Cubs, in our 2 game series, and from that point on our 2 teams went on completely different trajectories.
In all, a TCABT record 170 games were rolled in TCABT-X, due to 6 of the 7 bracket series going the full 3 games.
One worthy note (of many) …. Ben Lofgren happened to be celebrating his birthday on tourney day. His 1977 Phillies clinched his division, with a walk-off grandslam by Mike Schmidt … Ben happened to be wearing a Phillies Schmidt jersey.
TCABT-XI will be held Saturday, April 6th, 2019. This is the same Saturday as the NCAA Final Four being held in Minneapolis.
At last weekend’s IAL All-Star get-together, I was asked by Dennis Jennings, So, what else is happening in the APBA world?”. Jim, I told everyone in earshot about your tourney which was happening at the same time. That you have pulled off ten tournaments is pretty impressive! Thanks for the update!
Congrats, Gary!
