The Name APBA
Where it comes from and how to say it
The Name APBA
Even after years of participation in the industry, there is still some confusion over the name APBA.
The first question most people have is how in the world APBA should be pronounced.
Most people unfamiliar with the game and its culture call it by its letters: “A.P.B.A.”
However, if you know your APBA lore (or if you were actively buying these games in the 1970s), you’ll remember this from the old APBA advertisements:
That’s right. The name should be pronounced “app-bah.”
I’m not sure exactly when J. Richard Seitz came up with this idea, or why. I do know, however, that knowing something as simple as how the name of the company should be pronounced has turned into a sort of cultural line dividing the “true fans” from those whose knowledge of the game is only casual.
Now comes the second question: where does the name come from?
For decades, Seitz insisted that APBA didn’t stand for anything. It was just a name that he happened to use.
There was a sort of mythos about the company, something that Seitz purposely designed. Many people don’t realize this, but Seitz was actually quite active in local politics in the 1940s, not long after his exit from the Army. During the final years of the war, Seitz was secretary to Lancaster Mayor Dale Cary, and shows up in a ton of newspaper articles, such as this one:
Naturally, there are questions about why Seitz, who seems to have been in good health, exited the Army early, as well as how in the world he got a job like this. I actually don’t know the answers, though the rumors I’ve heard indicate that something fishy was going on.
Anyway, Seitz had a pretty good idea of how people thought, and was always conscious of public opinion and his reputation. This helps explain some of the interesting approaches to public relations he took as the head of APBA. Many people say that he was quite approachable and easy to get along with in person, but always aloof and somewhat condescending in print.
It turns out that APBA did stand for something. In fact, it was the name of the original National Pastime league that Seitz and his friends formed in 1930.
Scott Lehotsky reported all of this back in The APBA Journal in January 1997:
It’s not clear to me why Seitz kept the air of mystery and secrecy around the origin of the name APBA. However, we now know where it originally came from.
EDIT: Rather than modifying my original post, I did want to add in that there were a few articles here and there that specified the origins of APBA. Most notable is probably this line from the first page of 40 Years Of APBA:
It’s likely that Seitz was more interested in preserving the game they were playing (National Pastime) than the name APBA itself. However, there are indications in other sources that Seitz did want some air of mystery arou
i gathered that one reason, as time went on, that he didn't want to explain the name was because he started producing football games as well as baseball (and, of course, other sports as well, eventually) and "baseball" was in the APBA name. I got the impression back when I published the Journal that the further away from Lancaster that people were, the more likely they were to pronounce it Ay-Pee-Bee-Ay. But I think a whole lot more people pronounce it APP-buh than APP-bah.