Sunday, March 22, 2009

APBA / Steven Pappas


I still sometimes play APBA Baseball - a tabletop card game that accurately recreates the big-leagues. (Someday I hope to post about my visits to the APBA Game Company in Lancaster, if I can figure out a way to make the story interesting).

Although games like APBA and Strat-O-Matic may seem hopelessly old-fashioned in these days of Playstation and X-Box, I still find that video games have never quite captured the spirit of baseball much like APBA does.

In researching APBA on the web, I came across this site by the son of former major-league pitcher Milt Pappas (above) - Steven Pappas.

You see, some people like to play APBA to recreate entire seasons. Steven used it to recreate every season. (Well, every season from 1876 to 1989 at least - I guess he's getting on with his life until he picks up the slack on the remaining years).

Among the "alternate Pappas reality" highlights - his Dad's team beat the much-better Cardinals in 1968, Willie Mays hits 69 homeruns in 1962, and the Phillies won the World Series in 1976.