


Instead, it permeated the cowhide, perfect for improving grip. And, crucially, this mud neither dribbled off nor sat heavy on the cover. Perfect conditions exist for only about a mile.) Blackburne realized that a single finger dipped in mud would yield enough to spread across an entire ball, removing all of the dreaded shine without discoloring the surface. (It’s a geological thing, Bintliff says: There’s a high clay content in the soil, an oddity for the area, plus brackish water from the tributary mixing with “cedar water” dropping from nearby trees. He rubbed a baseball with mud found near his childhood home in Palmyra, N.J.- special mud, smooth, almost creamy, gloppy without being especially gooey. In the 1930s, though, Philadelphia Athletics third base coach Lena Blackburne found the answer. Or, if it’s a group of young folks who look like they’ve only come out on the water for a good time: I take this mud, and I put it on my pot plants. Or: I’m helping the Port Authority, looking into pollution. I’ve been sent by the Environmental Protection Agency, and I’m surveying the soil. Bintliff sizes up the questioner, usually a boater or swimmer or fisherman, then picks from his collection. Someone will come along and ask what he’s doing. They work like this: Bintliff will be out on the banks of a tributary of the Delaware River, in his personal uniform of denim cutoffs and disintegrating sneakers, using a shovel to harvest buckets of mud. Jim Bintliff’s collection of lies is small and sharply curated, each one loose enough to be plausible and mundane enough to limit interest in verifying it. For more great storytelling and in-depth analysis, subscribe to the magazine-and get up to 94% off the cover price. Our quick start guide will have you swinging for the fences in no time! After you become familiar with the basic rules, it’s up to you to start incorporating APBA Baseball’s optional rules, which can give you all kinds of managing flexibility!ĪPBA Baseball add-ons include a Master Addition with more advanced gameplay, and full seasons of players in both leagues dating all the way back to 1901.This story appears in the July 29, 2019, issue of Sports Illustrated. Telling the batter when to hit away or sacrifice or calling for the hit and run playĪPBA Baseball is so easy to play that you’ll be rolling dice and playing within two minutes! No long, challenging instructions to read or learn.Choosing when to insert a pinch-hitter, pinch-runner or a late-inning defensive substitute.Deciding when to give your starter the “hook” and go to your bullpen.Picking your starting lineup and the batting order you want.Oh–did we mention that APBA Baseball is as realistic as pro ball, and is statistically accurate? We’ve even upgraded the result boards, so it’s even more accurate than ever before.ĪPBA Baseball gives you the same decisions to make that the real-life big league managers face every day, such as: Buy Now!ĪPBA Baseball comes with four 2021 teams: Dodgers, Atlanta, Houston and Boston.ĪPBA Baseball is a great game to enjoy some quick baseball fun or to learn America’s pastime’s unique strategy. Fun, quick, and easy to play, APBA Baseball puts you right in the middle of the action. For 66 years APBA has been the unchallenged KING of quality baseball entertainment products! Now with APBA Baseball you can get in on the excitement.
