APBA's 4 Big Innovations
How Seitz turned National Pastime into APBA
APBA’s 4 Big Innovations
There’s no question that J. Richard Seitz used National Pastime as the template for APBA.
This isn’t just a question of “influence.” The truth is that the Fielding 3 column on the original 1951 APBA boards are almost an exact match for the National Pastime boards.
In fact, when it comes to base hits, even the wording is the same. Check this out from the Bases Empty boards:
However, it would also be incorrect to accuse Seitz of simply stealing another man’s game.
Now, I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say that Seitz claimed that APBA was his original idea from the beginning.
And you’re right. I’ve got a copy of an old APBA Frequently Asked Questions document from the 1970s that talks about this issue. It includes an ominous warning against anybody daring to try to make their own version of the game, insinuating that APBA baseball was protected by a patent.
It was a bluff. Seitz had no patent, and he knew it. He also likely knew that Clifford Van Beek held the patent to his system — a patent that had expired long before the 1970s.
Seitz made a number of changes to National Pastime for the 1951 APBA boards. Some of them were pretty miniscule: for example, PRN 26 with a runner on first base changed from a ground out, short to first, into a forceout at second base, second to short.
Sometimes Seitz made a few changes to stop players from running around the bases so much. Roll a 4 with a runner on third, for example, and you’ll notice that the batter gets thrown out at third base trying to stretch his double into a triple. That doesn’t happen in National Pastime. Similarly, a 10 with runners on first and second turned into play result 9: everybody went up only one base after an infield hit, instead of getting an extra base like they did in National Pastime.
Stuff like that, of course, is small potatoes. I could write a long list of those small changes, but I don’t think it would do any of us any good. Lists like that are a pain to research, and then we look at them, realize that it probably didn’t make much of a difference anyway, and forget the whole conversation.
So let’s look at the big stuff that Seitz changed.
There were four major innovations that Seitz brought to the old National Pastime formula. All four changes made a huge difference in how the game was played — and yet none of them caused the game to play any slower than National Pastime.
I tried it for myself. I recently played a complete 1930 World Series with National Pastime. The time of each game ranged from around 12 minutes to a little over 20. I then played a complete 1950 World Series using the original APBA boards and single column cards. The time of each game also ranged from around 14 minutes to about 24 or so.
Seitz knew that the National Pastime formula worked because it was simple and fast. And that’s why he came up with these four major innovations:
Playing The Infield In
If you only look at the boards and never play the game, you’ll never realize that National Pastime is missing the ability to play the infield in.
When you play it, though, it will drive you nuts.
Let’s say you’re playing National Pastime, and the team at bat has the bases loaded with nobody out. The batter rolls PRN 28.
Here’s what happens:
That’s it. You’ve got no other choice. Your shortstop throws to first base 10 times out of 10, and the run always scores.
In APBA, you had the choice to bring the infield in:
The rule was simple. The defensive manager had to announce if the infield was in or deep before rolling the dice.
And it made a difference:
This added an element of fun and strategy to the game. There was strategy because you had to decide if you wanted to take the risk of bringing the infield in. Sometimes it would pay off. Roll a 26, for example, and you can prevent the run from scoring:
And it was fun, of course, because what otherwise could have been an out turned into disaster for the defense.
Notice, by the way, that this required no additional rerolls. The game still proceeded smoothly.
The Fielding System
APBA players who are curious about the original 1950 season would be appalled if they knew how simple the fielding system was.
You had the familiar division between fielding one, two, and three that has been a staple of APBA baseball ever since.
However, there was only a team fielding rating. While individual ratings did exist, the “optional advanced” individual fielding system wasn’t a thing yet. “Infield fielding” also wasn’t part of the game. Those two innovations didn’t show up until the 1956 boards.
Seitz’ defensive system, by the way, was ingenious, and he doesn’t get enough credit for it. Different players had a different impact on the overall team fielding rating, depending on how important they were to the defense overall.
In fact, you can see the range of possible individual fielding grades in the old days if you look at one of the early “optional fielding rating” charts. This comes from the 1958-59 boards (version 9):
Shortstops ranged from a 5 to a 10. Second basemen, the second most important fielder, ranged from a 4 to a 9. Then came third basemen, from a 2 to a 6, followed by first basemen (not listed here) at 2 to 5, outfielders at 1 to 3, and pitchers at 1 to 2. Catchers ranged from 5 to 9 as well.
Your maximum fielding total would be 45 under this system, though I don’t think any of the 1950 teams come up with fielding that good. And it’s clear that the system provided a built-in incentive to use good fielding infielders up the middle and behind the plate, just like in real life.
Incidentally, this is how the original fielding description read:
Notice, of course, that the fielding system does not add any rerolls to the game. You set up the defense, figure out which one of the three columns to use, and roll away to your heart’s content. It’s a simple and effective system that gets the job done — and adds nothing to the total time it takes to play a game.
Pitching
I could probably write a series of articles about APBA’s pitching system.
This system was probably Seitz’ greatest accomplishment. It’s not because the system is perfect. Rather, it’s because the system works so smoothly.
In the original version of APBA, pitchers receive one of four grades: A, B, C, or D. These grades sometimes enable them to stop batters from hitting singles, depending on the base runner state.
This is how the original playing boards described the pitching system:
And that’s it. There was no grade advancement or grade demotion system. A B pitcher was forever a B pitcher under this system, even if he gave up 100 runs in an inning.
Now, the critics of APBA are correct. This isn’t really a system that pits hitters against pitchers. There’s no real interaction between players in APBA. It’s more an index system, and it only comes into play if you roll the right number.
But the nice thing about this system is that it adds nothing to the time it takes to play the game. If you land on PRN 7, 8, 9, 10, or 11, depending on the on base situation, the pitcher might influence the outcome.
The combination of the pitching system and the fielding system allowed Seitz to have some say in the number of baserunners pitchers gave up. This allowed for a little bit of fine tuning of ERA, which is likely the metric Seitz was aiming at.
Others have rightly pointed out that the pitching system is much better at recreating a pitcher’s batted against average than ERA (or wins or whatever). But, of course, nobody kept track of batted against average in 1951.
The cool part about this system is that it’s a fairly simple apparatus to add to the immersive experience — and it cost the player absolutely nothing in playing time.
Sacrifice Booklet
Finally, Seitz had the sacrifice booklet.
Originally, this extra book only included sacrifice bunts. It wasn’t until 1952 that APBA added on the hit and run option, which wound up opening the floodgates to playing “APBA ball.”
The fun part about the sacrifice booklet is that you really took a chance. Sure, you could bunt a guy over, but you might wind up giving up a potential extra base hit for your trouble:
Now, there are a few odd aspects of the sacrifice booklet. For instance, check out the original result for PRN 9 with a runner on third base:
I had this happen when I bunted with a pitcher during my 1950 World Series replay. I’m not sure that the pitcher stole any bases in real life, but he sure did for me in APBA.
Years later, Seitz toned that one down a bit:
There are all sorts of neat little changes like this that we could spend all day talking about. But the point here, though, is that the original sacrifice booklet added almost no additional playing time. You simply got the book out, rolled the dice, and found the result. There was maybe a few seconds of additional time needed to get the booklet out.
In the end, the reason why APBA became so successful in the 1950s and 1960s is because the game played so smoothly. Despite its numerous improvements on the National Pastime engine, the average game still could be played in under 20 minutes. In fact, to this day the average APBA basic game almost certainly takes an experienced player less than 20 minutes to hammer out.
The simplicity and speed of the game was its selling point from the start.
Good article. Just wanted to mention that maximum fielding in APBA -- then as now -- is 50 points, not 45: 9 in the outfield, 2 for the pitcher, 9 for the catcher, and 5-9-10-6 on the infield. (I'm guessing you left out first base.) One change between 1951 and the time that advanced fielding system came in: 1b-1, 2b-4,3b-2 and ss-5 ratings were added for players who had never played the position, and the 1951 paragraph about default ratings was changed accordingly. (On very rare occasions, players were actually carded with a 3B-2 or SS-5 rating, leading to questions as to whether they were typos.)
What I don't like about the fielding system is that the C, 1B and P are completely ignored. They have no fielding outcomes for themselves. If Greg Maddux has a 2, so what? The boards will say "E-1" regardless...You could give Johnny Bench a '5' or a '9' and it won't matter if the team stays in Fielding 2 as a result. His rating means nothing more than contributing to the Team Total. Same with Keith Hernandez. Give him a 2 if you want, the 5 he may deserve means nothing if it keeps the team in Fielding 2 or Fielding 1 or whatever the editor is trying to get the Team into (Fielding 1, 2 or 3). And I surmise that that's what they do, start with the Team first, grade the individual OF, 3B, SS and 2B then adjust the 1B, C and P's ratings as you would to get the team into F1, 2 or 3.