1993 NLCS Replay & 'What If' 93' World Series

So this December, I have decided to take it easy, take in the holidays, and just do random quick fun APBA projects to play. I was kicking around the idea of playing the 1982 World Series ('The Suds Series' - Battle of the beer towns).

Then the morning after Thanksgiving, in the early hours of Friday, I was sitting back with a snack and watching the MLB Network. I fell upon the final minutes of 'Eight Men Out', followed by the Johnny Bench story, Tony Gwynn story & the 1990's Atlanta Braves story. I figured God must have been telling me to take it easy, I knew he knew that I was watching the MLB Network in those wee hours since he put Tony Gwynn (my favorite player) and the 1990's Braves, as back-to-back shows...

He was like "Take it easy man, you've been doing a lot the last few months."

The last few months will be detailed more in this upcoming post on "Thankful for my APBA family", but to put it shortly, my wife had bronchitis in early August, which x-rays revealed a small, mysterious growth in her right lung. Since then, she has had the operation to remove the tumor, which it, along with one of her 17 lymph nodes removed, turned out to be cancerous. The surgeon and oncologist both agree that she is now 100% cancer-free, which of course was excellent news!

Things are getting back to normal somewhat with her recovering from the operation (she is really sore right now), with her hoping to be back by January 2nd to work. With all the runs to the hospital (she was in there for 10 days), the housework, errands & working full-time -- God, wants me now to just relax. He also knows that I want to get into my more-involved projects, but he believes that shorter, fun projects like series replays and what if series may be what's in store for December.

So I listened...

Influenced by the Braves special on television, I decided to replay the 1993 National League Championship Series and do a "What If" World Series between the 1993 Toronto Blue Jays and 1993 Atlanta Braves. So it will be a chance for the Braves to get twice the redemption, getting revenge on the Phillies for being a roadblock to the 1993 Fall Classic, while the Braves can get revenge on the Blue Jays for the 1992 World Series.

In real life, the 1993 NLCS was decided by 1 run in three of the six games, while the Phillies would win 2 of those games in extras, both in the 10th inning, and both by the score of 4-3. The Atlanta Braves had a 2-1 series lead, with John Smoltz prepared to pitch Game 4 in Atlanta, with another game in Atlanta to follow. I remember as a fan of those Braves, thinking Atlanta should have this one with Smoltzie on the mound, but it was never mean't to be.

The replay will be played with the Basic APBA Baseball boards, along with the APBA Baseball Error Card and Unusual Play Card (from the APBA Journal). Along with actual lineups and game starters, and home locations.

Big Cat, Tiny Cat

We are in month #2 of the 2019 UAL (Ultimate APBA League) Season, and my Traverse City Fighting Tigers played worst than they did in October. The Fighting Tigers went 9-21 for the month of October, while they just went 4-11 at home for me in November. We also got the results back from their road series against the North Georgia Bravos, in which they went 1-4... So of all the reported games, Traverse City is 14-36 (.280), while on pace for 45 wins.

We knew it would be bad, we feel we can play better than the .280 clip. We play with games limits for position players, so I am getting the rest time in early in the season, so the lineups should be doing better as the season goes on.

So I knew going into the season that I was going to take my lumps. We lost two B starters from last season, who have no-cards for this season (due to injury) in Jimmy Nelson & Taijuan Walker. We had a couple starters also downgraded a grade from last season, while the bullpen went from plenty of B's & A's to all D's and a couple C's. Plus my two team captains in Jose Altuve and Buster Posey missed a good handful of games due to 2018 MLB season injuries as well.

So knowing all that, I didn't expect to have my dice go ice-cold for my favorite hitter in the game in Jose 'Gigante' Altuve. I knew he didn't have a great 1st series playing the Ohio Cougars, players slump from time to time, but I didn't expect things to get worse.

After batting .133 against Ohio, Altuve batted only .109 with a .333 OPS against the Massillon Big Cats. To make matters worse, Massillon's catcher Austin Romine out-played him, not only that series, but Romine's series totals dwarfed Altuve's offensive home numbers for the month of November.

Romine accomplished more in 5 games than Altuve did in 15 games, here are the numbers...

• Romine: 10-for-19 (.526), HR, 7 RBI (.571 OBP / 1.414 OPS) - Romine had a game that he went 5-for-5, all singles with 3 RBI.

• Altuve: 8-for-52 (.154), 0 HR & 6 RBI - Altuve recorded 4 of those 6 RBI, his last 2 games of the month, while collecting 4 hits that series. His best OPS output was .611 against N.G.

The troubling thing is, Altuve didn't do absolutely great in his 1st month of home games with me as well, I believe he batted .273 for me, with a .767 OPS. 

Last season, Altuve batted .423 for me at home, with a .476 OBP & 1.083 OPS. He led the league in batting (.352), hits (221), runs (221) & stolen bases (48), while posting a .946 OPS.

We all know through APBA Season Replays, League Play, APBA Tournaments, or in real life, how little players like Austin Romine can come up big, while big players such as Jose Altuve can come up short...

That's one of the beauties of baseball.

2020 Preseason (OOTP 20)

• The Yankees acquired SP-Robbie Erlin and minor league CF-Jawuan Harris from the Padres in exchange for top prospect CF-Estevan Florial and minor league 2B-Kyle Gray.

• Red Sox signed RP-Alex Colome to a 1-year deal worth $2.6 million.

• The Tigers sign SS-Jose Iglesias to a 6-year deal worth $42.6 million ($7,100,000 per year).

• The Twins reacquired SP-Lance Lynn from the Rangers in exchange for IF-Ehire Adrianza and prospect RHP-Brusdar Graterol.

• The Reds signed 2B-Brian Dozier to a 3-year deal worth $31.4 million.

• Cole Hamels signed a 3-year deal with the Angels for $8,333,333 per season.

• Long-time Yankee Brett Gardner signs with the Giants for $25.4 million over 2 years.

• Phillies pay hefty on a one-year rental in 3B-David Freese for $17.4 million.

• As predicted, Brian McCann retired with the Atlanta Braves.

• The Blue Jays signed 1B/3B-Matt Carpenter to a 4-year deal worth $41.2 million.

• Milwaukee resigned 3B-Mike Moustakas in a 6-year deal worth $102.4 million ($17.1 million per year).

• Craig Kimbrel wants to get the Athletics over the playoff hump, signing a 2-year deal worth $8.08 million.

• Edwin Encarnacion will be perching the parrot in Boston at $36.9 million over 3 years.

• The Rays traded SP-Ryan Yarbrough to the Mariners in exchange for C-Tom Murphy, who is coming off a career year in which he hit 18 home runs. Not a bad deal for Tampa considering they plan on plugging both Jose De Leon and Brent Honeywell (who are both healthy) in this upcoming 2020 MLB season... making it one of the youngest dynamic rotations with Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell & headed by veteran Charlie Morton.

• The Twins traded OF-Max Kepler to the Angels in exchange for 2B-David Fletcher and 19 year-old minor league RHP Jack Kochanowicz. 

• Angels signed 3B-Todd Frazier to a 2-year deal worth $17.4 million.

• Tigers claimed P-Albert Abreu from the Yankees, named #54 top prospect in baseball.

• Baltimore Orioles mourned the passing of owner Peter Angelos.

• The Milwaukee Brewers came out with new logos and new uniforms for upcoming 2020 MLB Season. 

Hall of Fame News

• Derek Jeter (93.4% / 1st year) and Curt Schilling (81.6% / 8th year) will be the newest members of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. 

• The most shocking news may be Larry Walker being dropped from the ballot (10th year), while coming so close at 65.6% of the ballots. Barry Bonds (71.3%) and Roger Clemens (68.4%) are sniffing the Hall from the outside (both at 8 years).

Top Prospects

• Houston's SP-Forrest Whitley tops the list, while Chicago's Andrew Vaughn (#2 overall) was tops among hitters.

Things to come... We'll switch gears soon, we'll be talking about Hall of Fame stuff, the great APBA community, the Houston Astros' legacy & how bad are those Traverse City Fighting Tigers?!?!

2019 Winter Meetings (OOTP 20)

The alternate reality off-season of 2019 in my Out of the Park Baseball 20 continues, let's take a look at more signings and trades involving Major League Baseball.

• The Braves sign 31 year-old catcher Yasmani Grandal to a lengthy 6-year deal deal worth $130,800,000. Grandal is coming off career highs in HR (27) & RBI (77).

• The Cubs make a move in the right direction involving their starting pitching by signing Hyun-Jin Ryu to a 4-year deal worth $112 million ($28 mill per year). 

• The Mariners acquire RP-Kirby Yates from the Padres in exchange for prospects CF-Jarred Kelenic, 1B-Evan White & minor league LF-Keegan McGovern.

• J.D. Martinez who opted out of his contract with Boston, settles on the Yankees for 4 years & $68,000,000. Martinez in real life, shocked everyone by not opting out of Boston as expected.

• The Cardinals made a huge splash by signing 3B-Josh Donaldson to a 5-year deal worth $103 million.

• SP-Dallas Keuchel signed a 4-year deal with the Rockies for $35.6 million.

• The Yankees who did not offer arbitration to SS-Didi Gregorius, signed him to a new deal worth $17.7 million over 3 years.

• The Angels take a huge gamble on Madison Bumgarner, considering his recent injuries in recent years, signing him to a 7-year deal worth $104.3 million ($14.9 million per year).

• The Giants acquired SP-Trevor Bauer from the Reds, in exchange for top prospect OF-Heliot Ramos. The Reds also acquired prospect OF-Kyle Lewis and minor league RP-Freddy Villarreal from Seattle, in exchange for SP-Alex Wood.

• Boston inks SP-Michael Pineda to 2-year worth $23.8 million.

• The Angels reacquired SP-Garrett Richards from the Padres for two minor leaguers.

• The Red Sox acquire 1B Jose A. Martinez from the Cardinals in exchange for RP-Marcus Walden.

• The Red Sox also paid out a pricey one-year rental on Howie Kendrick ($15.4 million).

• Catcher Robinson Chirinos returns to the Rangers on a 3-year deal worth $33.9 million.

• The Rays acquired OF-Starling Marte from the Pirates in exchange for top prospect SP-Shane Baz and minor league 2B-Ford Proctor.

• The Pirates acquired C/3B-Victor Caratini from the Cubs in exchange for RP-Keone Kela and LHP-Blake Weiman.

• The Yankees acquired RP-Matt Andriese from the Diamondbacks in exchange for OF-Cameron Maybin.

A-P-B-A or APP-Bah?

I recently posted a meme that I created, using the trending 'Woman Yelling at the Cat' meme, and it of course created plenty of buzz on the APBA Facebook Group. Generating just under 175 likes & 75+ comments at the time of this post, I decided to also break down through the comments, the percentage of what is pronounced more.

Not surprisingly, the majority pronounce it APP-Bah, 68% of the time. I was thinking from the get-go that it had to be at least 2-1 in favor of APP-Bah, and to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if it's closer to 75% if we were to do an overall poll from the 3,000+ members of the APBA Facebook Group.

Even the Wikipedia page for APBA Baseball, mentions the fact that it is pronounced "APP-Bah"...

I was also surprised to find out from one of my good APBA friends, Rob Spatz, who was from the Chicago area, that most of the Chicago APBA crowd, actually pronounces it A-P-B-A, or at least the Chicagoans that he knows.

So with that news, I joked that it is official then, Michigan has to be the capital of APP-Bah Baseball... Just kidding. I do know many in the Michigan thumb that have played, and my dad was part of a 20+ member league, and knew of a couple of the guys from his same school area that had leagues of their own. I know that it was definitely one of the grass roots states that got the company rolling at least in the 1950's that is.

I believe the company sold primarily to the Midwest market, it's pretty obvious when APBA Hall of Famer Dominick Provisiero does his APBA Roll-Call on the site, that an overwhelming amount of us from the Midwest plays the game. Michigan & Illinois leading the charge, and then Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana & Minnesota fall into place. The Midwest has also dominated the sites for the most APBA tournaments being hosted...

• Greater Michigan APBA Baseball Tournament (Jackson, MI)
• Chicagoland APBA Baseball Tournament (Chicago, IL)
• Twin Cities APBA Baseball Tournament (Minnesota)
• Glass City APBA Baseball Tournament (Toledo/Maumee, OH)
• Wisconsin APBA Baseball Tournament (Milwaukee area, WI)
• Praireland APBA Baseball Tournament (Urbana, IL)
• Furniture City APBA Baceball Tournament (Grand Rapids, MI)
• Bath City APBA Baseball Tournament (Mt.Clemons, MI)
• Indy 500 APBA Baseball Tournament (Evansville, IN)

Other APBA hot spots include Pennsylvania (of course, being APBA's birthplace in Lancaster), plus Florida, California, New York... and Virginia. The rest of the country combined prove to be in the minority, with APBA fans sprinkled around outside of the APBA hot zone.

Recently, another APBA friend Shawn Kaufman and I were speaking of local markets that we have actually purchased the game. He mentioned Kay-Bee, I mentioned Toys R' Us (both companies went bankrupt & no longer exist). My brother Chris bought the 1995 Playoff / All-Star APBA Baseball Set off the shelves at the Traverse City Toys R' Us, while I saw that same set & maybe a current season set at a Wal-Mart in Augusta, GA while being stationed down there back in 1997.

The company now resides in Alpharetta, Georgia, the same state the National APBA Convention takes place.