The First Mail League

Tracking the history of mail leagues through The APBA Journal

The First Mail League

I’ll be honest. I’m not certain that this is actually the first mail league. But it’s certainly one of the first, and it’s the oldest one that I have clear documentation for.

Mail leagues are a quaint and mostly obsolete variant of baseball simulation. Mail leagues tended to serve as an alternative to the full season replay — one designed for people who did not have playing partners in their immediate area. The idea is that each participant would control a team, would have the ability to act as a general manager and as a field manager, and would communicate with the league commissioner and other owners through the mail.

You do see these types of leagues these days, though the advent of the internet simplifies communication greatly. The days of waiting for instructions to come from some random person on the other side of the country are long gone. For the most part, so are the days of looking suspiciously at the manager of a lousy team with an impossibly good home record — though, sadly, that type of cheating still does exist in the world of draft leagues.

The big question, though, is where the mail leagues first started. And, as I alluded to above, the answer is simply that we don’t quite know. We do know, though, when and why they became popular.

Though nobody realized it at the time, the third issue of The APBA Journal and final issue for 1967 wound up being of historical significance. This is because of a major article on the old North-East APBA League (NEL) — an article that took up almost half the 6 page issue.

From The APBA Journal, December 1967 page 1

This was truly an international league in scope. There was really no well established baseball tabletop scene in those early days — in fact, most imitators of the NEL relied on The APBA Journal to find willing members. And, as we’ll see, the rules of the league had a lot to do with its success.

From The APBA Journal, December 1967, pages 1 and 2

This should seem familiar to anybody who has had the pleasure of dealing with mail leagues.

When my father managed in the long defunct Big Red APBA League in the early 1990s, he had to fill out a special instruction list for away games. This included starting lineups against left handed and right handed pitchers, instructions on platooning (i.e. for catchers), starting pitcher rotations, and instructions on relief pitcher usage.

Most leagues attempted to enforce the rules surrounding home team managers using visiting team rosters accurately. Of course, some rules were impossible to enforce — such as rules against rerolling the dice when things didn’t turn out the way you wanted.

From The APBA Journal, December 1967, page 2

For those of you not familiar with APBA, I should note that the “dot” referred to here is actually an asterisk. APBA uses these asterisks to denote pitchers who appeared chiefly in relief, and occasionally issues split pitching grades: one for starting and one for relieving.

The rest chart here is pretty ambitious — though it’s also clearly a product of its times. I don’t think there are any starting pitchers today who could start on 2 days rest after throwing 6 innings.

From The APBA Journal, December 1967, pages 2 and 3

It’s interesting that there was kind of a carve out for players forced to play at positions not listed on his card. While there was a punishment attached, it was still possible to use a player that way if needs be. I’m not sure that most modern draft leagues would use such a draconian rule.

Also — the “number to the left” rule refers to players listed as starters on APBA’s roster sheet. To give you an idea, here’s what the 1965 Detroit Tigers looked like on the original APBA roster sheet:

The idea here is to not allow you to start someone like Ray Oyler at shorstop every single game. Of course, I’m not sure why you’d want his .186 bat in your lineup — but there were absolutely some odd players with monster cards in those days.

The rule regarding protesting was also a key, and probably helped with the longevity of the NEL. Mail leagues have always been famous for cheating: creating a fair mechanism to resolve disputes is absolutely vital.

From The APBA Journal, December 1967 page 3

The financial system here is interesting. It’s nothing compared to the precision you get with OOTP, of course, and there doesn’t seem to have been any rule against hoarding money in anticipation of a major rookie (i.e. Reggie Jackson). Still, this is quite ambitious for 1967.

From The APBA Journal, December 1967 page 3

Woody Studenmund is the other famous name here. He’s one of the stalwarts from the early days of APBA, is a member of the APBA Hall of Fame, and apparently helped APBA reply to mail in the 1960s:

While this article technically wasn’t drafted by Studenmund, I’m convinced that his involvement with it was pretty deep.

Actually, if you look at the list of then-active members of the NEL, you’ll notice a few other names familiar to the APBA community:

From The APBA Journal, December 1967 page 4

The legacy of the old NEL rules lives on through the vast array of draft leagues and other community projects that continue to exist. Its influence stretches into the world of fantasy baseball and beyond. And this is where it all started.