For those reading the title of this post, some would think that I didn't have a good time in Toledo. The truth is that I had an amazing time, in fact it may be one of the best times I ever had at any of these tournaments. I had my co-pilot in life Becky come down with me, while she also made friends with a couple of the other wives that made the trip down.
So everything was great!
The 'Bummed Out' part, was my 1951 Brooklyn Dodgers, 'The Bums', couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat. While I was at the tournament, I knew I rolled ice-cold, but until I was actually recording the statistics on my computer last night, I didn't realize how frigid my play actual was.
This is the same 1951 Brooklyn Dodgers that I took to this very same tournament 3 years ago. In that tournament, I had the best record in bracket play, winning the Jamie Farr Division with a 7-2 record, which at one point I had a personal best 6-game winning streak.
I lost the last game in bracket play, but didn't think much of it because I did the same at the Greater Michigan APBA Baseball Tournament II in 2016, before winning the entire thing with the 1993 Atlanta Braves. I entered as the #1 seed in the playoffs in Glass City APBA Baseball Tournament V, only for Michael Coon Sr's 1994 Cleveland Indians to send me packing, thanks to a huge inning by them in which Albert Belle, Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez hit back-to-back-to-back home runs off me.
As part of the Glass City Email thread, I was watching APBA tourney lovers draft their teams for this year's theme -- '2nd-place Teams Not to Win a World Series'. While watching the draft take place over the week or so, I couldn't believe no one drafted the 51' Dodgers, until one of the guys at the very end took them. That guy would eventually cancel out, and leave that team open again. Little did I know, that our plans for our trip to West Virginia would change dramatically (as mentioned in previous post 'The Ever-Changing Plan' ). Long story short, I asked the wife if she would like to go to the tournament, she said yes, and I messaged my friend Ron Emch that we were coming to the tourney. With that, I took Brooklyn, making it the first time I decided to play a team at a tournament for a 2nd time.
The two 51' Dodgers tournament performances couldn't be more different from one another. The first time around, Brooklyn was 7-3 (counting playoffs), while batting .296, slugged .508, while posting a staggering .889 OPS! My pitching wasn't so good (4.82 ERA), but rolling the way that I did for that tournament, I really didn't have to worry about my pitching... well, at least until I ran into Coon's 94' Indians. This tournament, I started out 1-1 just like I did 3 years ago, but then for 3 games, I could only manage to scrape 2 runs combined -- shut-out for two consecutive games in low-scoring affairs, 2-0 (to Boston) and 1-0 (10 Inning loss to Chris Smith's 1930 New York Giants). During the 2-0 loss to Norm Zavela's 2002 Boston Red Sox, Pedro Martinez allowed only 2 hits from Brooklyn hitters.
My 2022-version Brooklyn team was 1-4 through their first 5 games. Through their first 4 games, the team batted .161, while five hitters did the unimaginable...
- Duke Snider: 0-for-15
- Cal Abrams: 0-for-14
- Carl Furillo: 1-for-14
- Pee Wee Reese: 1-13
- Jackie Robinson: 2-for-16
During the tournament, I thought Carl Furillo was hitless through 5 games, it turned out he had a single during his 2nd at-bat in Game 1. He would wake up during the 6th game, and hit 2 triples against Dave Ross and his 1962 Los Angeles Dodgers, in which I mentioned Furillo's feat to a few guys at our table, and they laughed.
The first 2 games, my Dodgers hit 6 home runs, with Andy Pafko hit 3 HR, and Roy Campanella hit 2 homers. I thought even with a 1-1 start, I was starting off similar to the 2019 tourney. My Dodgers then, hit 17 HR, and collected 116 hits & 68 runs (11.6 hits, 6.8 runs per game). I had 9 hits in each of the first 2 games, everything up to that point was almost on par... but then came Michael Hernandez' dreaded 2021 Los Angeles Dodgers. Everyone in our division knew his team was the team to beat going into the tournament, so we knew it would be no picnic for any of us.
The 2021 Dodgers' lineup only had two hitters (Chris Taylor and Matt Beaty) with a OPS under .800, while there was only two hitters in the lineup that hit into 10-or-more double plays, in which those results were moderate at best -- Will Smith with 11 & Justin Turner with 12. They had an all-A three-man rotation all with Z's. Their bullpen is a beast, if they had the need to use it. So my goal was to at least split 1-1 in my series against my good buddy, Rob Spatz and his 2005 Cleveland Indians, and hope that I could sneak out a win against Hernandez. I would lose to those Dodgers by a very close score of 3-2, he was up early 3-0 through 5 innings, but I would scratch together 2 runs during the bottom of the 8th, and have a runner on with one out during the bottom of the 9th, only to come up short.
Like I mentioned earlier, my lineup went ice-cold, and where we left off, I was 1-4.
During the 5th game, I would get the bats going by beating up the 62' Dodgers, 13-2, and would go into the lunch break on some-sort-of-positive momentum.
My wife and I sat and had lunch with Darren Schulz and his son Aaren Schulz. I have known the Schulz clan since I believe, the first Greater Michigan APBA Baseball Tournament. Darren and his brother Ken, run the LBS Slippery Rock (Pittsburgh) APBA tournament in honor of their late mother. Both of the APBA Schulz brothers have had each of their sons at the tournaments, including their cousin Tucker as well. His brother Ken Schulz couldn't make it to the tournament due to his Pastor duties to his church, while Darren is a teacher. We talked over lunch about him being a teacher, and talked about the challenges of the new school dynamics of the pandemic-era. I just want to give a big shout-out to these brothers, who have very important jobs (teaching, church), that can be big influences on their communities, during these tough and troubling times.
My game against Schulz's 1922 St. Louis Browns was a back-and-forth affair. Hank Severeid's two-run double during the top of the 2nd inning gave Schulz a 2-1 lead. Brooklyn's Cal Abram's RBI double during the bottom of the 4th, tied the game at 2-2. Top of the 6th, the Browns' pitcher Elam Vangilder (batting 5th) smacked a go-ahead RBI double during the 6th.
For a pitcher, Vangilder could hit, or at least during 1922 he sure could. Vangilder batted .344 with 2 HR, 11 RBI, 32 hits & 10 doubles that season, while he hit 8 home runs over his entire career, hitting .243 during that span. Vangilder would go 3-for-3 while drawing a walk in this game, hitting 2 doubles, scoring twice with an RBI in tow.
Down 3-2, during the 7th with a runner on first for Brooklyn, my #9 hitter Billy Cox would hit a two-run homer to give us Dodgers a 4-3 lead. Funny thing about Cox, he hit 2 HR during my last tournament three years ago, so he has 3 HR during a 17-game stretch, which definitely outpaces his real-life 9 HR through 142 games. The Browns would bounce right back during the 8th on a solo homer by Jack Tobin and RBI double by Marty McManus. Brooklyn's Duke Snider smacked a solo home run during the bottom of the 8th to tie the game at 5-5.
The bottom of the 9th, Pee Wee Reese hits a lead-off single, his 3rd hit of the game. Jackie Robinson grounds out, moves the runner up to second. Schulz does the right thing and intentionally walks Roy Campanella, who has a beautiful, scary card -- so I don't blame him for not wanting anything to do with that. Gil Hodges flies to left with no runners advancing, for the 2nd out. So with the Browns only needing an out to get out of the inning and take a tied 5-5 game into extras, had to only get through Duke, but Duke had other things in mind, smacking an walk-off RBI single in front of an excited Ebbets Field crowd. Brooklyn wins 6-5, and has now improved to 3-4.
The last and final game came against David Dawn and his 1976 Oakland Athletics. I really like David, it was really fun to see him again, we met back at this same tournament three years ago. Dawn has a good nature about him, always smiling, and really loves his Athletics. We talked about my Out of the Park Baseball project in which I pretty much kicked Charlie Finley out of the Front Office of those old 70's Athletics and tried to continue their magic run coming off 1973. We also talked about the current Athletics and their old dump of a stadium, and how its a shame that Oakland just can't catch a break. That's a great thing about APBA is that we can go back to our great memories and replay them during their wonder years, instead of thinking about our down-and-out teams (his A's and my Tigers).
My Brooklyn lineup who showed signs of life during their last two games, were quiet during the first 8 innings. My 1-thru-5 hitters were hitless through their first 13 at-bats until Duke Snider's single during the 7th inning, while my only scoring chances were 2 two-out doubles that were left stranded both times during the 3rd and 5th innings.
Dawn's Oakland scored twice during the bottom of the 5th on a Phil Garner RBI double and Bill North sac fly. The game would remain 2-0 Oakland entering the 9th, and everything up to that point seemed to be in David's favor. Sure, just like me, he had only 3 hits through the first 8 innings, but I honestly thought I was down for the count.
During the game, Pastor Rich came over and gave David a wooden shaker with the Oakland Athletics logo on it. I believe Rich brought one of the early Philadelphia A's teams with him to the tournament. It was a touching moment, I thought it was really nice of him to do that, given how we all know how much David loves those A's. Come to find out later through the Email thread, that the wooden shaker is actually a shot glass made of wood, who knew they made such things? I thought it was a hand-crafted wooden shaker.
Top of the 9th, the visiting Brooklyn Dodgers lead off the inning with Jackie Robinson at the plate. Robinson draws a walk off Oakland starter Mike Torrez. Jackie reaches 2nd base on a wild pitch, but Campanella couldn't take advantage of the miscue and strikes out. Next up, is newly inducted MLB Hall of Famer Gil Hodges (He finally got in!) -- and he celebrates with a game-tying two-run homer.
We go to extras, we kept our starters Preacher Roe and Torrez in. With our team's bats awakening, we left bases loaded during the 11th, but we take advantage during the 12th. Billy Cox hit a one-out double, which was then followed by a two-run dinger by Pee Wee Reese. Jackie and Campy reach on singles, which was followed by Hodges striking out, for out number two. Duke Snider, who has really come alive during these last two games, hit a two-run triple. Snider collected 5 hits, 1 HR, 1 triple & 4 RBI during these last two games... better late than never, right?
During the bottom of the 12th, Oakland could only muster a single by Phil Garner, as Oakland went quietly into the night.
I evened my record at 4-4 with a +9 scoring differential at the end of the day, good enough to finish as high as 4th, possibly 5th in my bracket. I am happy with the turn around at the end, but I will bring a different team next time around. Never thought I would play a team twice in tournament play, got it out of my system, and hopefully I warm much warmer dice next time.
Our division really beat up one another, and it was Michael Hernandez's 2021 Los Angeles Dodgers as our division's only representative. My friend, Rob Spatz, I believe missed the last wild card spot by a single run, in which he lost to me by in Game 2... a victory for him there, would have put him in the playoffs.
My friend Ron Emch once again threw an amazing tournament, you can catch his highlights from his blog piece -- Ron, you really got a knack for that blogging thing, brother!
See you all next year, until then please stay safe, roll sixty-sixes and God bless!
Shawn
