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.