The Grease Game

For those of you visiting this post because you happened to see the heading above, thinking this was an article about a charity softball game with teams managed by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, I apologize…this is definitely not that article. Instead, this is a story about a Statis Pro baseball game played nearly forty years ago, outside of the confines of my SP78 Replay season, between two teams managed by my brother and his friend, and played while they snacked on a decidedly non SP78-sanctioned snack item.

The date was July 8, 1981. My brother Scott was at our house on Palacio Place in Rancho Bernardo, California, hanging out with his friend Matt, while I was at a screening of Superman II at our local multiplex with my friend Brent. At some point during the evening, the two decided to play my Statis Pro Baseball board game, with Scott taking the reins of his favorite team, the Dodgers, against Matt and the hometown Padres.

First, take a look at the pair of Statis Pro player cards below, featuring two random players drawn from NL teams that were not involved in Scott and Matt’s game:

Now have a look at the player cards for second baseman Davey Lopes and relief pitcher Bobby Castillo, both from the Dodgers, who were managed by Scott that fateful day:

Trust me, those dark spots aren’t the result of headfirst slides. No, those are the remains left by greasy 14-year-old fingers, which had indulged in a now-forgotten brand of potato chips while playing the game: Lays, Bell, Granny Goose, Laura Scudder, Charles Chips…any one of them could be held responsible. After 30-plus years of oxidation, handling, and whatever other cardstock-darkening powers had taken their toll, the stains have since turned a sickly rust brown, a permanent reminder of the ill-fated exhibition contest that took place that summer evening so many years ago.

But what of the opposing team’s cards, managed and handled by Matt? Wouldn’t his hands have been greasy as well? A check of the Padres squad tells us a different story: there is noticeable staining, but it’s very light, and though I did find one tell-tale spot on Matt’s starting pitcher that day, Mickey Lolich, the cards were otherwise fine. Which then makes me wonder: was Matt wiping his hands each time before handling the cards, or was Scott just hogging all the chips?

In the end, did any good come out of this? Well, besides the fact the Padres topped the Dodgers by a slim 1-0 score, and Scott and Matt no doubt had a fun time playing the game, the event prompted me to initiate a new set of rules when it came to snacking during gameplay: only pretzels or Cheez-Its were allowed from that point on. Anything else, including Fritos, Cheetos, Corn Nuts, and Nacho Cheese Doritos, were now strictly forbidden.

I’m sure Matt, wherever he is, has long forgotten about the game, but what about Scott? He would partake in only 14 more official Replay games over the course of the next ten years (and one more co-managing stint in 2000), so perhaps his memories of the season aren’t as sharp as they used to be. Does he remember the game, and the havoc his grease-laden mitts wreaked? When I asked him about it over the phone recently, he told me he had no recollection of the game, or even the incident itself. Did the experience leave such an emotional scar that his mind had wiped it clean from memory? Or is he ashamed to admit the truth: that his unabated eighth-grade hunger defiled the bright-white home uniforms of the LA squad forever?

Either way, I’m happy to say the damage was only cosmetic, and the cards have remained as playable and functional as they ever were. Now, the Grease Game can be looked back upon fondly, as another memorable—and yes, important—side note to my SP78 Replay season. As for you Grease enthusiasts, who’ve stuck it out to the end, here’s a little something for you:

a

The SP78 Table of Mystery

So what the heck is going on here? Take a look at the photo below, taken in late December of 2016, and tell me why I played an SP78 game under these strange but necessary conditions:

Yes, I played the entire Padres-Mets match-up for August 15th with three of the four chairs pulled away from the table. But the question is, why? Did I leave the game for a bathroom break before the first pitch, only to find poltergeist activity had taken place while I was away? Did the table shrink during the first inning? Did three impolite friends I’d invited over to watch the game suddenly stand up and leave, without bothering to push in their chairs?

Before clicking on the ‘continue reading’ link, see if you can come up with a plausible (or perhaps even not-so-plausible) answer to this puzzler, then tell me in the comment section below what you’ve guessed.

Carbonic Spray: The Sad Case of Ken Holtzman

For pitcher Ken Holtzman, it’s a moment from his past he’s not likely to forget: standing in the Cubs’ bullpen between innings, staring up at the scoreboard looming high over the center field seats, and suddenly feeling a misty coolness settle softly on his face, neck, and arms. Above him, leaning over a railing surrounding the bleacher section, was a fan holding a large cup of soda, its bubbly carbonation splattering down onto Holtzman like a drizzly, sticky rain. And before he could do anything about it—before he knew it was even happening, actually—Holtzman had become permanently marked, like a man whose adult case of chicken pox had left his body riddled with scars.

And so it was with my pristine Statis Pro player card of Holtzman, who during an SP78 match-up that was played sometime in the early-1990s, had been situated a little too close to the rocks glass of cola I’d been drinking during the game, and whose white cardstock had thus become stained with dozens upon dozens of tiny caramel-colored pinprick dots. And like so many other player cards damaged during my season—from creases to rubber band marks to potato chip stains—his was now stricken with this unique blemish for the remainder of his career, a constant and ugly reminder that taking part in a baseball board game is not always as safe as it looks.

Since that fateful day, whenever I’d play a game and would have a glass of Pepsi or Coke Classic with me at the desk or table, I would always make sure to place it at a reasonably safe distance from the board and cards. Thankfully, after 2008, when I stopped drinking soda altogether, the game and its players were never again in danger of accidental carbonation damage. Of course, that’s of little consolation to our tainted friend Mr. Holtzman:

 

5,048 Days

Recently, while spending another evening working on June stats, I began to wonder which of my many game sites had been around the longest…the length of time from its first SP78 game to its last. My initial guess was AZ8, my apartment in Peoria, Arizona that saw a record-setting 218 games played over a 10-year period between 2003 and 2014. I decided to check on-line for an answer, and found a website that allowed me to punch in start and end dates to calculate a time frame in years, months, and days; after tabulating results for all 93 sites, I was surprised to find that AZ8 ranked only third, with a mere 3,739 days under its belt.

Though having hosted a grand total of just 24 games, my Mom’s former apartment in Mesa, Arizona, stood at #2, having served as an SP78 game-playing spot during my several short vacation trips there between 1991 and 2002, and having survived as an SP78 game location a mere six months longer than AZ8. What then was the longest-tenured site? Which building hosted 36 games over the course of an astounding 5,048 days—a distant three years longer than the other two front-running sites—and currently claims the #1 spot? Any guesses?

I’ll offer a few clues: the site was located in California, it was my temporary home for two months after I’d moved back to the area from another city, and was host to the longest 9-inning SP78 game ever played, which took just over two hours to complete. Here’s another hint: the photo below was taken during the final game ever played there, a 5-3 Dodgers win over the Braves:

Anyone figure it out without consulting the Game Sites page? The answer is ESC5, my friend Steve P’s townhome condo in Escondido, California, which served as a Statis Pro destination between June of 1988 and April of 2002, a whopping thirteen years, nine months, and twenty-seven days. The site was host to many memorable SP78 contests during that time, including a 17-inning affair between the Astros and Mets co-managed by Steve and my brother Scott, the infamous Sixto Lezcano Game, and the big 20th Anniversary Game, also co-managed by Steve and Scott.

And for the record, only three other sites have ever hosted games for more than a thousand days: my friend Julie’s RB11 condo (2,056), my ESC11 guesthouse studio (1,910), and the RB3 house where my friend Reid lived (1,514), the latter of which saw just two games hosted over a four-year span in the early-1980s.