Chomp

Posted on November 28, 2023 by Chris S.

One of the freebies from this year’s PLAAY Holiday Sale was the 1995-96 NHL Season for Hockey Blast.

I happily downloaded and opened it up on my PC and smiled when I saw the names on the San Jose Sharks squad from that year.

I then went to print it out and again felt happy to see the team roster.

And then I went to hockey-reference.com to review that season.

20-55-7 record. Dead last in the Pacific Division. Yikes.

I remember going to more than a few games that season, and the seasons before and after that.

I remember the faces but not the names of some of the regulars who sat around us.

I remember the loudest CLANG off the crossbar when Eric Lindros fired a shot on goal. Not sure if it was that season, but it was certainly during that time.

And that Sharks team was one of my favorite sports teams during that period as well.

With the new Hockey Blast Express I expect to roll some games from that season, maybe not a full season replay, and not just Sharks games.

The Flyers won their division that season, only to be knocked out of the playoffs by the eventual Eastern Conference Champs, the Florida Panthers.

If I play out a Flyers-Sharks Cup final, I’m afraid San Jose is gonna get swept by the Flyers.

But we’ll see.

Stay tuned!

1986: Lets Go Mets! Game 2

Posted on November 26, 2023 by Chris S.

Opening Day @ Veterans Stadium

Final from Veteran’s Stadium:

1986: Let’s Go Mets! Game 1

Posted on November 25, 2023 by Chris S.

Welcome to Opening Day 1986!

Final from Three Rivers Stadium:

Doc goes the distance to secure the Mets’ first win of the season.

And I just realized that I’ve started my first non-Giants full season replay since 1989, when I replayed the Mets 1988 season.

Also, for some reason, rolling a game in APBA seemed less strenuous than any baseball game that I’d been playing lately, namely Ball Park Baseball and Payoff Pitch Baseball.

Go figure.

Next: The Mets travel to Philadelphia for a weekend series against the Phillies.

Stay tuned!

APBA Dilemma

Posted on November 25, 2023 by Chris S.

In preparation of the arrival of the new APBA Baseball box, I began to put together the lineups for Opening Day 1986 for the Mets and the Giants.

I looked up the lineups for the Mets-Pirates season opener on April 8th, 1986, started to sort out the lineups, and found that the 1986 set does not have Steve Kemp carded for the Pirates.

Hmph. I hate when that happens, but there you go.

So I started looking at possible solutions.

Option 1: purchase the updated 1986 APBA Baseball Season set, where all players are carded.

Nope. Not interested in purchasing any new APBA Baseball sets.

Option 2: play the game with Payoff Pitch Baseball 1986, where Kemp *is* carded.

Possible/probable route I’ll take, as I was thinking of rolling home games using APBA and away games using Payoff Pitch.

Option 3: same as #2, but just sub players in when playing APBA.

More probable since I had to do that with some games/players in my Ball Park Baseball 1971 SF Giants replay.

Option 4: APBA only and sub players as needed.

Most probable if I only want to use one game system. Which I kinda do, at least with either or both the Mets or Giants.

For starters I think I’ll play with the APBA Baseball 1986 season, basic set, with advanced fielding rules.

I’d like to also score these games by hand, there’s a website called Digital Dugout that will print out a blank scoresheet with lineups for any ball game from 1906 to now, but BallStat makes it easier on my arthritis and stat keeping.

I’ll figure it out after the new box arrives.

Stay tuned!

Lacrosse Blast

Posted on November 23, 2023 by Chris S.

Seven years later, I’m finally going to dive into this game.

It’s mostly because I decided to pick up Lacrosse Blast Express and playmat from PLAAY Games’ holiday sale, along with the PDFs of a couple of seasons for the game.

Funny that I originally picked up Lacrosse Blast during their 2016 Holiday sale.

Stay tuned!

Seasons Assessment

Posted on November 23, 2023 by Chris S.

It appears that I have the following seasons for APBA Baseball:

1986 (from my brother, Robert)
2000 (50th anniversary set, fancy set and cards)
2002 (at the time I thought this was going to be the last hurrah for World Series appearances by the Giants)

I’m getting a new boxed basic APBA Baseball set this weekend. I have no plans to pick up any new teams.

I just wanted something simple as an alternative to Ball Park and Payoff Pitch Baseball, which is why I have no plans to get the Master Addition booklet.

For 1986, I plan to play both the Mets and Giants, maybe abbreviated seasons, using APBA for the road games and Payoff Pitch for the home games for both teams.

Not sure about 2000 and 2002, though I do plan to replay the 2000 Subway World Series at the very least.

From the scorecards I found Robert did play the 2002 World Series, with a different outcome.

There’s also a team envelope with the 1971 San Francisco Giants.

I think back then I was planning to play at the very least the 2000 season since that’s the boxed set that I have.