APBA
CONVENTION 2006
June 30 - July 2
Las Vegas, Nevada
The Place: The Palace Station Hotel and Casino
The Time: 7:00 PM, Friday, June 30th
They came from as far away as Ontario, Canada, and from as near as the streets of Las Vegas, Nevada. From a total of ten states and Canada they came…………for the Trophy!
The 2006 APBA Convention kicked off with APBA President Marc Rinaldi greeting the crowd of forty-plus die-hard APBA fans and their spouses. Marc then introduced his wife Sandi, who has rightly earned the official title of Tournament Secretary, and APBA staffers Skeet Carr and Veryl Lincoln after which he swung into an update of the company’s short and long-range plans. He also announced that plans for the 2007 Convention/Tournament were already in place for the Sheraton Inn in the Philadelphia suburb of Frazer, PA to be held the weekend of July 20th.
Following Marc’s question and answer session, Veryl took his turn with the microphone and reviewed the rules for the Baseball Tournament, scheduled to begin at 8:30 Saturday morning.
Then it was APBA Hall of Fame Induction time, and Veryl had the privilege of welcoming long-time APBA devotee and former APBA JOURNAL Editor/Publisher Eric Naftaly (Daly City, CA) into the fold. A brief picture-taking session ensued, then the room was turned over to the fans for practice games and APBA story-swapping………mostly APBA story-swapping, and the consensus is that most of them were true.
Armed with team rosters, Skeet and Veryl retreated to their room to complete the task of assigning teams to the various divisions, during which a problem arose………there were only thirty-five participants, one man short of allowing for six Divisions of six teams each.
That problem was solved Saturday morning when Val Stomi (Hawthorne, CA), who hadn’t planned to play in the tournament, volunteered to be the thirty-sixth man. Val only won three games using a borrowed 1974 Pirates, but he finished the weekend with the Tournament’s lone SAVE. (Thanks, again, Val)
So things (or if you prefer, the dice) got rolling at about 9:00 AM after Tournament Secretary Rinaldi had conducted the door-prize raffle.
The Tournament was set: Six Divisions with each Division winner and two second-place Wild Cards advancing to the Playoff Tournament. Each team would play ten division games following a Round Robin format. The Tourney was open to all teams from season card sets starting from 1909 to 2005, excluding the strike season of 1981 and 1994.
A bizarre situation arose in the Orioles Division. Two APBA Convention “firsts” occurred: a team failed to win a game (Jim Harris, Las Vegas), and the five other combatants…..Chuck Sturtevant (Martinez, CA), Vince Przewlocki (Anaheim, CA), Ed Vidaillet (San Pedro, CA), Paul Trinkle (Emmaus, PA) and Larry Bisson (Katy, TX)……all finished with 6 and 4 records!
Chuck and his 1937 Yankees were awarded the top spot by way of the second tie-breaker (most runs scored in the division).
Two other divisions also ended in ties with the brother tandem of Mark and Matt Boucher and their 2005 Giants besting Rick Harlin (Peoria, AZ) in head-to-head competition (the first tie-breaker) in the Mets Division, and Jack Chapman (Fair Oaks, CA) outscoring Greg Sovan (Windsor, Ontario) for the top spot in the Red Sox Division. Greg’s ’68 Tigers then fell to Rick’s ’54 Giants in a one-game playoff for the one Wild Card slot, the other spot already locked up by Art Carter (Plattsburgh, NY) in the Phillies Division.
The eight finalists all agreed to get the quarter finals out of the way Saturday evening……this was APBA Baseball, Las Vegas could wait! The survivors for Sunday’s semi-finals were Bob King (Fountain Hills, AZ), David Small (Camp Hill, PA), Jack Chapman and Rick Harlin.
It became an all-Philadelphia Championship as Bob’s 1977 Phillies defeated David’s 1930 Cardinals and the 1930 Athletics guided by Jack downed Rick’s ’54 Giants. The Trophy Round went four games with Bob’s Phillies capturing the top prize 3 games to 1.
Suddenly, it was all over. Another Convention/Tournament was in he record books and plans for 2007 were already being schemed by many of the attendees. We’ll see you in Frazer.
Results
of the Divisional play and the Championship Bracket
View
pictures from the 2006 APBA Convention & Tournament in Las Vegas, Nevada
