Clearwater update 2020

[zambonir]

Yup. That's both a political question and a federal vs. state power question.

[Les229]

I realize that and I'm not a lawyer. It's just to do it piecemeal, I think prolongs the life of the pandemic. Anyway, Clearwater is getting even more national attention by CNN. It's interesting to me in that the traffic over to the beach has much slowed the last few days, but the beaches are still crowded and the foot traffic on the sidewalks is very heavy. They must be staying in the hotels.

[Les229]

Today there appeared on Facebook an ad for the Strat-O-Matic baseball game. I would venture that nearly all of us played that game, or the APBA game at one time, or another. I was wondering which one you guys liked best? Why? Does anyone still play them?

[zambonir]

You don't really read or post elsewhere on the board huh Les? They are doing a simulated season, we've posted boxscores and articles elsewhere. (The "Play Ball" thread). It is largely computerized now.

I played as a kid and my team was the Harvey's Wallbanger's Brewers, I stuck to real baseball for the Phillies.

[LoneStarPhan]

I saw the APBA game ads in the Sporting News back in the fifties and was intrigued by the ad. The game (as I recall) was not cheap so my friend's dad took a couple of us down to Lancaster to the James Street address listed for the APBA game. It was a residential duplex with a nice double front porch. No one answers the door, but someone came out of the other duplex and told us that the house was no longer occupied but the game business owner had moved to Millersville and gave us his name and phone number (Dick Seitz). So we did end up going to Millersville and buying items out of his garage. They later had a store there and now I think they are somewhere in Florida. I think the first season of APBA baseball we had was based on 1956 or 1957 season records. It was before they went to the double column with 0 on some cards for a second roll to determine the result. We did a league for several years until late into high school. We also had the football seasons based on 1958 and 1959. Actually, those cards and game are in my garage today. (I guess I am somewhat of a pack rat). I remember getting the stats for the season from the Sporting News and then planning for our draft when the new set of cards came out. I always valued walks and OBP even back in the 1950s. We only had a limited number of players so we filled our teams and only used those players in our league. It was fun but of course nothing like the fantasy baseball leagues that came into widespread existence in later decades.

[Les229]

Which game did you play? I still play the season against the computer.

[Les229]

Like you, I drove to Lancaster, but before they sold the business to Georgia. Off and on, I have played the game over the years. I usually pick a poor team and try to build it into a contender. One of the things I find APBA does well is give me a general idea of the different skills o the players.

[zambonir]

I had the old strat-o-matic cards. I haven't checked out the modern version, just the simulation of this year.

[gmwannabe]

LSP...ah the memories! The field of play, the white cards with the results, the yellow shakers and the red and white dice. i had some friends that had the football game and was over at their house one time and watched them play. i was hooked. i bought the football game in '69 and then in the spring i bought the baseball game. a few years later the Basket ball game. in college, we used to drive to the house you mentioned to get the new baseball cards so we could play. in fact i just threw out the baseball game 2 years ago (pack rat also). great memories.
gm

[Ring_the_Bell]

I started APBA in 82. I still get the paper cards every year. I have most sets from 1915 on. I prefer the dice to the computer version thought I sometimes use a random number generator to keep my wife sane.

[bkeich]

I played hundreds of hours of APBA, Baseball, Football and evening basketball as a pre-teen nerd. Great game, I wish I could Talk my nephew into it, but he doesn’t care about sports, just Minecraft.

It is amazing how much math you learned with these games.

[Les229]

Oh, It's all computerized now. I was just wondering which is the most popular now.

[Les229]

They tried to play it over the internet, but last I heard, the players were cheating.

[Les229]

I used the football game in the early 70's as an after hours entertainment with some camp counselors at a summer camp that I was director of. I was just wondering how popular they are now and if the company that bought them out has kept up the quality of the stats.

[Les229]

When I was playing the APBA board game, there was no computerized random numbers. It drove my parents nuts. Tell me, why did you prefer Strat-O-Matic to APBA?

[Ring_the_Bell]

I never played Strat-O-Matic only APBA. I still get the card sets. You used to be able to get paper random number sheets from the company. I usually use dice though the random number generator comes in handy sometimes.

[Les229]

You know that with the computerized game, you can play against the computer and it uses no dice.

[Ring_the_Bell]

I do, and I have the computer game also. I just prefer the cards and dice.

[Les229]

To each his own. I played APBA for a long time and then I stopped for several years and I have picked it up the past 2 years.

[Les229]

WEDNESDAY, July 15, 2020

BASEBALL!! Finally get to see some Phillies action. Yesterday about 5:00 pm I checked to see what the Phillies streaming schedule was going to start. To my surprise, they were going to telecast an intra-squad game at 6:00 pm. I dusted off my trusty laptop and set it up in the living room, next to my recliner, prepared dinner and waited for the game to start. To me, the cruelest thing about the pandemic stay at home was the cancelling of the baseball games. Social distancing is not a big problem for me. I have practiced it all the time, for many years with a lot of people, but losing the ball games compounded the problem.

The thing that struck me right away was that the Phillies announcers were not taking the broadcast seriously. They spent so much of the time horsing around among themselves and what the coaches did at home while shut in, that they really didn’t seem to have enough time to talk about the game, or the players. I don’t know what kind of shape Eflin is in, but I do know that Larry Anderson got a new motor bike. Fortunately, I have seen quite a few major league intra-squad games and the players were familiar to me. I dug out the spring training roster from my Phillies folder and was good to go.

One thing needs to be clear about intra-squad games, is that no rules are hard and fast. The pitchers are on a pitch count and outs don’t really matter. An inning can stop anywhere. At the same time, a pitcher may pitch out of the stretch with no runners on because the coach wants to see his form. Zack Wheeler started and consistently needed to go 4, or 5 outs into the inning to get his pitches in. He was very efficient and looked good. I should put a disclaimer in here. The pitchers are far ahead of the hitters at this point. Velasquez was the other starter and he looked like Cy Young and we all know that’s not true. The hitters are going to need some more sessions of live batting practice.

The fielding looked ready to go. I think the Phils helped themselves a good bit by picking up sure handed veteran fielders like Gregorius, Torreyes, Harrison, and Walker. If Kingery can field second base as well has he has been billed, with Realmuto behind the plate, it ought to be a fairly tight infield. Segura looks better suited for 3rd base than shortstop. His lack of range will not hurt him as much there. I think a guy to watch is Josh Harrison. He had a very bad year last year and was actually cut from the Tigers of all teams. If he can regain his form, he is a gold glove caliber second baseman. He is certainly worth a shot.

I do believe that the starting lineup and the bench are good enough to win, but the season will be determined on the pitching mound. They still don’t have a closer they can depend on and most of the guys they are counting on out there have let them down in the past. Currently, they have a two man rotation that they can count on. Eflin, Pivetta, Velasquez, and Suarez are all big question marks. Nola and Wheeler and pray for rain. It’s really disappointing that the front office hasn’t come up with a few more options. They also need a backup catcher.

The MLB schedule says they are going to televise this evenings intra-squad game at 6:00 pm.