APBAcon76

This was the third and final of the great APBA conferences of the seventies. The first (1973) and third (1976) took place in Philadelphia and the middle one (1975) took place in NYC. Each was attended by an amazing 400 enthusiasts. I truly believe 400 would be an undercount in all three instances. The 1976 conference featured a display of National Pastime cards; the game which APBA “inventor” Dick Seitz played as a child with Sil’s dad (and Tom Doran’s pop) that provided a lot of concepts that later showed up in APBA. The National Pastime inventor – Clifford Van Beek – had actually attended the ’75 APBAcon and Mr. Seitz spent most of his time at that conference avoiding him. Seeing the National Pastime cards was a great eye opener; even discussing them prior to this was akin to blasphemy. Nowadays it is no longer a big issue as both Seitz and Van Beek (I would think) have gone to their rewards.

A personal highlight of the ’76 conference was my capturing the football championship or the World APBA Football Championship as I portray it. In truth, it was an ad hoc affair hastily put together at the conference. There were less than 16 entrants at the most. I believe I needed to win three (maybe four but I doubt it) games. I had to borrow a team in order to play. I also needed to find time to play in between sundry golden beverages. That proved to be the most difficult part of the tournament. I chose the 1967 version of the Green Bay Packers as my squad. Turned out, this was Lombardi’s final Packer championship team and they were showing extreme signs of age – Hornug & Taylor were gone and Bart Starr threw twice as many ints as TDs. The key to the team was the fortuitous appearance on the Packer bench of one Travis “The Road Runner” Williams whose season average of 5.4 yards per carry (albeit on only 35 carries) was decent enough but who also happened to have the greatest season of any kickoff returner other than Devon Hester in the history of the NFL. Further, this was back when the returns and rushes from scrimmage were contained in the same column of an APBA cards hence Williams already glossy average was embellished with a 22% TD possibility and a 41.1 yard per return average. In other words, he had a monster card.

Well, I won my preliminary games and found myself in the final against I believe the organizer of the tourney. Myself, Phil, Timmy Lutter and Skeet Carr (in my memory even Skeet might have been a little tipsy). If my recollection is correct we dined at a Steak & Brew Pub where ones salad, meat, potatoes and not insignificantly beer were all you can eat for $9.99. Needless to say we – particularly me, Phil and Tim – were all more prime(d) than our steaks by kickoff. When the game began I was too drunk to call a defense so I assigned that to Tim Lutter future coach of the Peoria Hornets of the LAFL (Skeet’s APBA football league). It wasn’t long before a couple of Travis Williams runs had put the Pack up when the opponent complained about playing two guys instead of one. A valid thought but such protest was greeted with increased drunkenness and mayhem from my sideline. Relieved of the headset and fueled by the still being devoured Knickerbockers Tim went from sideline to the grandstand to lead the bellicose, loud and raucous cheering with obnoxious “Beep Beeps” every time the Roadrunner touched the ball. On fourth downs the cheers became even louder since – no matter the distance to the 1st down marker I drunkenly refused to punt. By the time the game mercifully ended I was well in front and we were all in need of more beers; my opponent was in need of one too although he apparently did not realize it as he disappeared into the night and obscurity while we disappeared into a chorus of “Beep Beeps” and “Refuse to Punts!”