A Guilty Pleasure For Eno & Daniels: Tabletop Sports Games

When I interviewed actor Jeff Daniels for the November issue of MCS Magazine, I asked him to tell our readers something about him that nobody knows.

His answer caused my jaw to drop.

Seems Daniels, like I am, is a closet sports board game enthusiast. His game of choice, he told me, is APBA baseball. That's the game with the player cards and the two different colored six-sided dice that are read "APBA style": 11 thru 66.


Daniels: A fellow sports board gamer


"I played a sixteen team league, thirty games per team," Daniels told me.

Some quick math will tell you that's 240 games. How long did it take to complete?

"Oh, most of the 1980's," he said.

So there you have it. Jeff Daniels and I shared something, and it was the least expected thing I could imagine.

But unlike Daniels, I play ALL the major sports, on my tabletop. APBA, Strat-o-Matic, Statis-Pro, plus countless others. Daniels asked me if I play video games, too.

"NO," I answered emphatically.

"It's about the dice, isn't it?," he said, "and the cards."

Indeed.

I've never been much for the loud, frenetic video game. It has always been, like Daniels said, "about the dice and the cards."

I'm bad at starting seasons and replays and never finishing them. Downstairs in the basement are at least a dozen boxes of various sports games, with attempts to replay seasons and playoffs and my own little tournaments, all started and all in varying degrees of completion.

In May, I was at a local hobby shop and discovered, to my glee, an unopened version of Dynasty League Baseball, which just happens to be the best baseball tabletop game on the planet. It would have cost close to sixty dollars had I purchased it online. As it was, the shop, perhaps not knowing what it had, was selling the game (2003 season) for $25. I couldn't buy it fast enough. Maybe someday I'll get the nerve up to replay the 2003 Tigers, to see how close to 119 losses I can get. Currently, I'm replaying the 2003 Red Sox, and we're 18-16 thus far.

I'm still rolling 'dem bones, usually late at night, when the wife and kid are in bed. You can keep your video controller. Like Jeff Daniels says, "It's all about the dice and the cards."

With Tabletop Baseball, It's Never The Offseason

Some of you may know that I'm a tabletop sports game player. You can have your fancy-shmancy X Boxes, Game Cubes, and PS IIs. I'll take cards and dice, thank you very much, to simulate my pro and college sports.

It might be cold outside, and nowhere near baseball season, but that doesn't stop the tabletop player from enjoying nostalgic baseball action.

I got the hankering late last week to break out my APBA baseball game. I only have one season -- 1974 -- and even though I had replayed the World Series a couple years ago (Dodgers swept the A's, even though the A's won in five games in real life), it dawned on me that I had skipped the LCS in each league.

So guess who's rolling the bones to pit the A's against the Baltimore Orioles?

Thanks to retrosheet.org, I'm able to use the same starting pitchers and exact batting lineups that were actually used in these games.


APBA baseball cards


The A's won Game 1 in a pitcher's duel that they broke open late. Catfish Hunter and Mike Cuellar battled for six scoreless innings before Baltimore's Boog Powell clubbed a solo HR in the top of the 7th. Then the A's, who'd been leaving runners on base all game long, finally strung together some hits and hung a four-spot on the O's in the bottom of the inning. The crucial point of the game was in the 8th, when Hunter got into some trouble: bases loaded with one out. But he coaxed Paul Blair to hit into an inning-ending double play. A's win, 4-1.

In Game 2, the pitchers again were the story: Ken Holtzman for Oakland, and Dave McNally for Baltimore. The A's used an error by O's left fielder Don Baylor to score the go-ahead run in the fourth inning. Holtzman was brilliant, and thanks to a scoreless ninth by Rollie Fingers, the A's won, 2-1.

So the A's lead the best-of-five series, 2-0, with Game 3 in Baltimore -- which I'll probably play tonight.

After the ALCS, I'll get rolling -- no pun intended -- on the NLCS, pitting Pittsburgh and Los Angeles.

I'll only replay the World Series again if one of the two teams is different.

I have too many tabletop games, in all sports, for one person to own, to be honest with you. Baseball games account for seven of these (APBA, Strat-o-Matic, Pursue the Pennant, Dynasty League, Statis-Pro, Replay, Clubhouse). I know -- I'm sick.

They all offer some great features, but I think Dynasty League probably tops them all in terms of realism and encapsulating EVERYTHING that can happen in a real MLB game.

I got a kick out of my interview with actor Jeff Daniels last year, when he revealed to me that he's a closet APBA player. He told me that, to this day, his wife cringes at the sound of dice rolling.

So it may be the onset of winter outside, but it's a brisk afternoon in October for me in Baltimore tonight!

As The Mercury Rises, So Does My Penchant For Board Baseball

I know baseball season is growing near, because I'm getting the tabletop board game itch again.

As some of you might know, I am a tabletop sports junkie. No video games here. Uh-uh. Gotta be the dice and the cards. APBA, Strat-o-Matic, Dynasty League, Replay. I have them all, and more. While interviewing Jeff Daniels last fall, I found out the actor and I shared the same passion. I'm sure there are other closet game players out there. If you're one, or think you might be a candidate, check out www.tabletop-sports.com.

Anyhow, I'm starting to break out the games now that the weather is getting warmer. My hockey and basketball games are about to take a backseat. Last night I played the second game of my latest project: replaying the 1961 Chicago Cubs season (well, half of it anyway) courtesy Strat-o-Matic. The Cubbies went 64-90 that season. For some reason I get fascinated with replaying bad teams. And, after last night's wild 9-7 loss to the Milwaukee Braves (Hank Aaron homered), my North Siders are 0-2.


No electricity required.

I also have the 2003 Red Sox on hold. I'm replaying their ENTIRE season with Dynasty League (the best baseball game out there), and left off with their schedule in early May. I'll pick them up on May 8th -- so I can replay the rest of that season "real time", thru October. So far the Red Sox are 18-16.

It doesn't stop there. I have the 1974 Twins on hold in APBA, along with a miniature, 36-game 1959 American League season with SOM. I'm sick, I tell you.

But there's just nothing like "rolling them bones" when you're a 43-year-old who wouldn't know a GameCube from a flash cube.

Tonight I'll give my Cubbies their third crack at Aaron's Braves. I smell an 0-3 start. These are the Cubbies, after all -- and a BAD Cubbies team, to boot.

By the way, those early-1960s Cubs teams tried a miserable experiment called the "College of Coaches." Instead of one manager, the higher-ups thought it would be swell if nine -- nine -- different men tried their hand at it, rotating throughout the year. When they weren't serving as manager, they simply became another coach. The results were predictably disastrous.

So add me to the 1961 faculty.

Opening Day In Detroit Something Special

Observations of another Opening Day in Detroit...

Walking to the ballpark yesterday after entertaining guests at the Motor City Sports (MCS) Magazine tailgate party, I asked my boss -- publisher Muneesh Jain -- if he had ever been to Opening Day in Detroit. He said no -- but that he'd been to OD in other cities.

"Well then," I said, "I guess that means that you've never truly been to Opening Day."

It's true. There's something magical in the air when it's OD in Detroit, and when Mother Nature smiles upon the city as she did Monday afternoon -- with mostly sunny skies and temps in the upper 50's to low 60's -- it's even more so.

The pregame crowds were jovial and well-behaved, and it struck me that this is still one helluva baseball town. Tigers jerseys and attire were everywhere -- even on those bodies that don't look particularly good in double-knits, but what the heck?

At the MCS party, we enjoyed hot dogs, submarine sandwiches, Swedish meatballs, and the beverage of your choice -- thanks to the good folks at Anheuser-Busch. There was soda pop for the youngens, too. Plenty of magazines were available for free, and it was good to mingle with readers and advertisers.

On the field before the game, I saw actor Jeff Daniels, who was almost unrecognizable in his full, bushy beard. I spoke to him briefly about being the subject in an upcoming MCS Interview, and he was quite receptive, so stay tuned on that.

The drawback, though, to watching the game in the press box is the disconnect from the atmosphere in the crowd. It's a sort of antiseptic way to watch baseball, but that's where we were stationed, so there you have it. Of course, we get free hot dogs and pop so I can't complain too much.

I had predicted a Tigers win and an ejection of White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen right here in this very space yesterday, and when Guillen came onto the field in the fourth inning to argue Dmitri Young being safe on his steal of third base, I made sure the folks around me knew of my fearless forecast.

"Unbelievable! A guy who actually makes predictions of ejections," George Eichorn, the Executive Director of the Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association, said. But I was disappointed when Ozzie argued so mildly.

The other thing that struck me was how many folks hung around the ballpark after the game. Nobody was in a hurry to get to their cars and go home. It was a quickie game -- 2:14 -- so maybe that was a factor. But the streets were alive, and you couldn't tell from the happy looks on people's faces that the Tigers had lost. Of course, I wonder how many of them even knew that fact. Perhaps imbibing trumped watching the game's outcome.

Chicago 5, Detroit 3. Oh well -- there's always Wednesday.