The Unforgettable Replay
APBA's Original 1908 Season And Its Problems
The Unforgettable Replay
The 1908 season is a replayer’s dream.
It’s not just the close pennant races. It’s the wealth of cool stuff you can find to really get immersed.
Check out these original newspaper clippings for a few examples:
You can dive in deep and still never grow tired of it. The season really has a lot to offer.
It should be no surprise, then, that 1908 was one of the first past seasons that APBA offered.
APBA released the 1908 season back in 1979. It was only the 6th past season that APBA came out with.
It’s speculation on my part, I know, but I strongly suspect that J. Richard Seitz decided to come out with these past seasons in an attempt to ward off competition from Strat-O-Matic. We know that the Master Game was supposed to be the answer to the Advanced Game. We also know that the Master Game was anything but a resounding hit with APBA’s customers. To my knowledge, Strat had not yet started creating complete old seasons by that time — and I don’t believe that Strat has ever released a card and dice version of 1908. This was potentially a “blue ocean” for Seitz.
But there were problems. There always are, of course.
When you read the old APBA Journal 1908 season replays, you can’t help but notice that every single replay contains some sort of radical alteration of the original pitching grades — and sometimes also an alteration of the hitting cards themselves.
Take this from Don Zminda in September 1981, for example:
Zminda’s American League replay had so many offensive problems that he wound up giving all hitters an extra hit number.
The result?
Batting averages were still too low — and yet runs scored were too high.
Zminda started another replay, this time on the computer, with the 1908 National League in 1989 — but found that the balance was still off:
If you’re young like me and don’t remember those days, Zminda had to go through every single player card using the old Innovator program (this is before Wizard was a thing) to recard every player. And his results still had that wacky combination of a batting average that was too low and an ERA that was too high.
Arnie Ziels added in his advice for replaying the original 1908 APBA cards in the May 1983 APBA Journal:
Unfortunately, Arnie didn’t give us the league composite stats.
I was only able to locate 2 replays with the original, unaltered 1908 cards and ratings in the APBA Journal.
One was published in February 1990 by Mark Simmons. Mark didn’t give us league statistics, but the standings tell an interesting tale:
The White Sox underperformed greatly, finishing 23 1/2 games out of first place — and all of that despite the A&B grade given to Ed Walsh.
Back in January 1981, Jim Brennan repoted similar problems:
I understand a bit of deviation here and there — but this feels like a pattern.
What Gives?
The problem here is actually pretty obvious when you understand how APBA Baseball’s pitching system works.
Pitchers really don’t matter much in APBA. They can change some hits into outs — but only base hits. They impact play result numbers 8 and 9 — both of which are always singles — and in some cases can impact a 7 or a 10 (two additional single numbers). That’s it.
Sure, in the Master Game they can turn home runs into doubles — but those are still extra base hits.
I don’t know why J. Richard Seitz decided this was the best way to add a pitching system onto National Pastime. It seems counterintuitive to me. I know that Seitz wanted to avoid additional dice rolls and expense — but wouldn’t it have been easier to put half the dice rolls on the pitcher cards and create generic batting cards for pitchers?
Then again, when you consider that Seitz insisted on giving offensive linesmen full cards in his football game, you’ve got to admit that he was consistent, at least.
Anyway, the problem is that pitching will limit the number of base hits, but can do little to nothing about extra base hits. In extreme seasons — especially the original 1908 and the original OFAS (Original Franchise All Stars) sets — the sheer number of highly graded pitchers will smother base hits, causing huge problems in offensive totals.
Meanwhile, those pitchers are helpless to fight against power. And there’s not too much you can do about it.
Your best bet, if you absolutely must play with the original cards, is to at least regrade all the pitchers. Most old issues of The APBA Journal recommend using a batting average against approach. The CMBA pitching system comes up frequently — but, then again, editor Howard Ahlskog was an original member of the CMBA league, and just might have been a tad biased.
It’s still not going to be perfect, however. The fact that pitchers can do nothing about the long ball is a thorn in APBA’s side.
As much fun as the 1908 season is to research and read, the truth is that it tends to expose the weakness of game engines that try to recreate it.