One of baseball's legendary board games now features a new player: George W. Bush, current U.S. president and onetime freshman pitcher at Yale.

APBA International Inc., maker of the APBA stats and strategy games since 1951, has created a special edition of the APBA MLB 2000 Baseball game exclusively for America's 43rd president.

President Bush, an avid APBA player throughout his childhood, was presented with the game and a special 3-foot-by-2-foot mounted blowup of his own player card - a gift from first cousin and APBA enthusiast Hap Ellis.

A few weeks before Bush's inauguration, Ellis contacted APBA's offices with the idea for a special George W. Bush APBA card. The idea was to present the card to the president during and inauguration roast, reminding Bush of the days when neighborhood friends played a simple game.

"Nobody in the world loved playing APBA more than George W. Bush," said Ellis, who currently lives in Boston. "George and his brothers, and I and my brothers played APBA endlessly as kids."

Hap's brother, Joe Ellis, is the Denver Broncos vice president of business operations and a former NFL executive. George W. Bush, of course, was a minority owner of the Texas Rangers before becoming Texas governor, and his brother, Jeb, is governor of Florida.

Perhaps the most unique feature of the special commemorative APBA game, aside from a special box with an engraved plaque, is the George W. Bush APBA player card included in the set.

The card, derived from his stint as a freshman pitcher at Yale, lists the president as a Grade-D relief pitcher. APBA enthusiasts instantly will recognize that a Grade-D card does not exactly mark the president as an effective fireman. Bush can thank the Ellis brothers for that distinction, obviously a good-humored joke among close-knit families.

"His father thought it was just hilarious," Ellis said of former President George Bush. "We bumped into the brothers at one of the inauguration cocktail parties, and they also thought it was hilarious. It was a huge hit. Hopefully, there's a whole new generation of APBA players from the Bush siblings and our kids. It's great to be reintroduced to the game again. That game made a difference in all the lives of the Bush and Ellis kids."

Company officials learned decades ago that the Bush family played their game. Back in the early '70s, APBA received a Christmas card from the Bushes.

With his election, George W. Bush currently ranks as APBA's most famous player. However, the game has had an impact on scores of celebrities and luminaries including Joe Torre, Curt Schilling, David Eisenhower, Ed Koch, Peter Gammons, and Harmon Killebrew.