APBA Football Club Podcast Network

Breakaway Football is one of the more unique entrants into the world of #tabletopfootball games: stats-based yet card-driven, data-rich yet colorful and accessible.  Not only that, but this game thusfar is based on replicating the key attributes of some of the most iconic teams in history, from 1958 to the present – hence, beginning with normalizing stats across eras. Given alternate names and log...

APBA Hall of Famer Joe "MakoJo" Sweeney (Class of 2005) is one of the earliest inductees into the gameco's tight-knit club of honorees His editors, viewers and utilities for #APBABaseball and #APBAFootball are legend. Joe finished 4-6 in our 10-game Ed Zack Memorial tournament on April 6-7, 2024, at the  @baseballhall  . We conducted this interview right at the entrance to the exhibi...

Sports Info Solutions is one of the foremost players in the game of big data and how it informs not only the game on the field of play but on the tabletop. Mark Simon, content lead for SIS, is a former newspaperman, ESPN staffer and one-time Strat-O-Matic player who run the SIS baseball podcast. Mark shares with us some of the intricate workings of acquiring big-league sports data and the critical...

Dan Prizzon and Alan Lipman are bringing back an #APBABaseball tournament to Toronto, where more than 30 years ago a tournament supported heavily by radio legend Bob McCown. Set for May 11, the tournament will be held in one of the community rooms at Alan's condo in the city center. Rules and other particulars remain TBD, so sign up to their event page on Facebook and stay tuned! 1st Annual To...

Mike VanDerGoore is the successor to the founders of one of the longest-running #tabletopfootball tournaments: The MDOR Strat-O-Matic Football league based in Bloomington, Illinois. Mike shares the MDOR's founding, history, methods and future. Renowned SOM Footballer Mike Kane has dutifully kept the tournament's records for 25 years. MDOR is named for late tournament founders/directors Ron...

A gaming conversation with Paul Schulzetenberg, creator of the New Mexico gaming event MananaCon as well a comparison of 50 American football games on  @boardgamegeek  . Read Paul's Top 50 football game list: https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/203491/gridiron-your-table-comparison-50-american-footbal Learn about Paul's MananaCon event in New Mexico: https://www.mananacon.com/ YouTube versi...

Grant Fines, creator of 49 Sports Games, traces his game design history back to creating playing cards for Gayle Sayers and Franco Harris. Now, he offers a handful of thoughtfully designed stats-based games including his On the Turf and Quick Decks football — the former a play-by-play game that takes about an hour per game. Grant discusses his game design philosophy and methodology — right down to...

Lords of Baseball, a Euro-style game of baseball franchise ownership and management, took father-and-son team Bob and Max Jamelli 12 years to refine and fund via Kickstarter. Max, a high school teacher and former football coach, walks us through the development of LoB, his thoughts on the future of gaming, and his work as national director of tabletop gaming for the Video Game Clubs of America (vg...

How will the 2022 APBA Football set be carded? Listen in as three APBA Hall of Famers and one master modifier weigh in with more than 150 years of APBA Football experience in this first-ever APBA Football Super Bowl Pregame show. The road to Super Bowl 57 featured many fine performances — how will they be rendered in APBA Football's next season set? VIDEO VERSION: https://youtu.be/JbVbVtQcRLQ...

The finale of the 1976 Bucs' season. Original-issue APBA Football cards, 10-year project — fantastic results! Key stats from our 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers replay (original cards copyright 1977): 54:24 Thank you to S.T. Patrick and Jen Henson for the opportunity to include a summary of the Bicentennial Bucs' saga in Issue No. 11 (February 2023) of Sports Sim Magazine, available at this link...

Catching up with APBA Hall of Famers Ray Dunlap (Class of 2016), Roy Langhans (2001) and Jim Sce (2008) between the fast-paced competition at the first-ever tabletop sports gaming tournament at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Ray gives an update on his 2022 Yankees and Aaron Judge, Roy on his 1905 Giants and Christy Mathewson. Dunlap began playing APBA in 1964, wrote for the AP...

Imagine my surprise learning that Sean Culnan — who ran the demos of Plaay's Second Season on Friday, July 28, at Plaay Dot Con 23 in Denver — is also a third-year coach in the National Card Football League. The NCFL dates back to 1981 in Ohio and has been using APBA Football since then. Sean made the NCFL Super Bowl last year and has also completed two full-season replays, 1980 and 1984, usin...

At long last: The long-awaited, much-anticipated quarterback Clash of 1983 — as it should have happened. One of the all-time “what if” projects featuring John Elway staying with the Baltimore Colts (and perhaps the Colts staying in Baltimore) and facing fellow first-round selection Dan Marino at the helm of a Steelers offense in flux. Amazingly, Elway and Marino only met three times in their caree...

Native New Yorker turned South Floridian Frank Fumai is turning his retirement passion of attending as many APBA tournaments as possible into a new outlet: APBA At Sea, one of the newest regional APBA Baseball tournaments. Fumai, a veteran of APBA tournaments from Chicagoland to Chattanooga and Las Vegas (he's also planning to attend the Kansas City event), initially sought to create a tournam...

On the occasion of the seventh Strat-O-Matic football tournament held at CincyCon this year, we talked with tournament director Meredith Adkins about the competition rules, as well how he runs his face-to-face league, the GMVFL. He also discusses two other SOM football tournaments: the Bushwhacker tournament in May and the MDOR in September; both have been running for more than 20 years, he noted....

Some important things to know about the tabletop football game APBA Football — for newcomers and returnees alike. 00:39 No. 1 01:39 No. 2 04:11 No. 3 05:49 No. 4 07:42 No. 5 09:17 No. 6 APBA Football Stadium Shop: https://apba.stores.yahoo.net/apbafootball.html VIDEO VERSION: https://youtu.be/JcMp4nU3J8E

In a survey of 440 folks not keen on board games, Nick Bentley found seven recurring themes, which he posted in a string of Tweets on May 4. Mr. Bentley is the president of Underdog Games Studio (  @underdoggames5039  ). Those themes won’t surprise us aficionados of tabletop sports games and simulations. All credit for my learning of this survey goes to U.K. board game design expert Chris Backe, f...

Game designer Mark Bates (Infinite Pi Games) discusses how he transformed the game World Cup! from creator Shaun Derrick’s original version into an all-card version. World Cup! lets users run an “association” of four teams by playing various soccer actions from a deck that lets managers attack, score and defend. Play the entire World Cup in two to three hours. Watch the World Cup! playthrough vide...

From June 2 to 6, 1980, #Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw appeared on Ralph Emery's country music radio show. I found the five LP collection of all five shows several years back and have since collected many other five-record sets of Emery's show from that era. Bradshaw being my No. 1 all-time sports hero, this is one of my most prized possessions. Terry appeared primarily to promote hi...

It has been 10 years since regional APBA tournaments began to appear nationwide. I started talking about creating a tournament at the  @ProFootballHOF  in summer 2012–and we are posted to hold our second there this August (26th-27th) during induction month and the NFL 2023 preseason. Here, I talk about a few things to address when starting your own tabletop sports gaming event, from venue selectio...

Commercial designer John Sparti began building custom dice rolling stadiums as an offshoot of his work designing labels for products like Turtle Wax and Simoniz. Since building his first stadium, a replica of Fenway, he has created 265 stadiums for eager gamers (as of June 4, 2023, the date this interview originally posted). John credits his wife for suggesting he sell his creations on eBay. and h...

Chuck Foreman. Carl Eller, Stu Voigt. These and many other legendary Minnesota Vikings have been connecting with fans through social media thanks to Ben Theis, founder of  @SkolMarketing  and Minnesota Sports Legends. Stemming from a work encounter with Foreman, Theis hit upon the idea of working with iconic athletes of his beloved Minnesota Vikings, as well as other state sports legends, to bring...

In 1983, at age 24, Richard Sarkisian decided to replay the history of baseball with a few friends. Almost 40 years later, his PANJ Table Baseball League has replayed every MLB season from 1903 to 2002. And on Sept. 9, he and his 22-team league will meet in King Of Prussia not only to conduct their draft for the next season project but to replay the concluding season's World Series. Not only d...

Spent the weekend of July 28-30 Rocky Mountain way at Plaay Dot Con 23. First time, unforgettable time — and definitely not the last time. A few thoughts about the great folks and moments from my day--and-a-half there. Guitar in intro is my #Gibson #J200. Check out further recaps from Tabletop SportsCast and Plaay's blog: 10 headlines from Plaay Dot Con 23: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/s...

Edwin Zack is revered in the APBA community for his exhaustive APBA Baseball handbook. After a five-year illness, Zack passed on Aug. 8, 2023. His longtime friend Dan Armstrong notified his closest friends in the APBA community, and the news — and tributes and remembrances — spread quickly.  I interviewed Ed Zack and his collaborator Dan Armstrong in 2012 — the 20th anniversary of the first editio...