Opening Day!: Monday, April 7th, 1969

Scores!

CIN 14, LA 1 W-Maloney 1-0 L-Singer 0-1 HR-Bench(1) Maloney(1) Bench 6 rbi.

SF 3, ATL 0 W-Marichal 1-0 L-P.Niekro 0-1 Marichal 1-hitter.

Youngster Bench had his Wheaties!

Annnnnd, they're off! 21-year old backstop Johnny Bench cranked the season's first dinger in the ceremonial opener at Crosley Field. He added a triple and a single and drove in 6 as the Reds destroyed the visiting Dodgers. Bill Singer won the Sleepy Hollow Award for being the first hapless hurler to have his head handed to him. The Rhinelanders pounded out 17 hits and were altogether rude hosts to the Tinsel Town nine. Welcome back to my table top, Reds!

Flirty Juan

Juan Marichal of the Giants did some serious flirting on opening night, but with a possible no-hitter instead of a senorita. Bob Didier's two-out double in the bottom of the eighth spoiled his bid, and proved to be the Braves' only knock.

My new dice arrived all the way from England just in time for the start of the season, and my Opening Day coincides with actual Opening Day 2016. How cool is that? I am using the new boards, recommended by the APBA Blog, and I do like them so far. The annoying 9-strikeout against "A" pitchers is gone, among other small but agreeable changes. I'm not used to having to consult the boards very often, though! I also tweaked my own home-made Orsino Board. I made inside the park homers harder to get, and gave the better catchers more chance to cut down base stealers. I've always felt that catchers' defense got short shrift in APBA. 

I have dispensed with keeping some of the minor stats I kept last time, such as LOB, SH and SF. I have also made the decision to drop pitchers' appearances (though I'll still keep starts) and pitchers' walks and runs given up (as opposed to earned runs). I'll keep a running total of team runs allowed, though. Dropping these stats will make my score keeping much easier and I don't think I'll miss them at all. There's nothing worse than Bob Duliba or somebody pitching an inning and a third in a 10-2 loss and having to mess with his 3 walks, 7 runs given up and 329 boos from the crowd.

Bob "Ach" Duliba, bracing for another line drive.

I only have 25 men to a team, or so. "Or so" because I put everyone back to where they started the season, and will implement trades and so forth at the appointed hour. This gives some teams more, some teams less, to start. Anyway, I can see I will probably need to invent pitchers at some point, for some teams. We'll see. 

I hope you all enjoy the new season and will follow along with me!