APBA

APBA (pronounced "APP-bah") is a game company founded in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It was created in 1951 by trucking firm purchaser J. Richard Seitz (1915-1992). The acronym stands for "American Professional Baseball Association", the name of a board game league Seitz devised in 1931 with eight high school classmates. After World War II, he formed APBA Game Co., working out of his living room. In 2011, after 60 years in Pennsylvania, the company headquarters was moved to Alpharetta, Georgia.

The company's first offering was a baseball simulation table game using cards to represent each major league player, boards to represent different on-base scenarios (e.g. "Bases Empty", "Runners on First and Third," "Bases Loaded"), and dice to generate random numbers. Seitz's mail-order product derived from the game National Pastime, invented and patented by Clifford Van Beek in 1925, a game that Seitz played in his youth. The game can be played against another person or solitaire. Devoted fans keep track of the results and assess how players' performances compare to their real-life statistics.

The game company later produced football, golf, basketball, hockey, bowling, boxing, soccer, and saddle racing games modeled after the baseball game (cards, boards and dice).

Later, computer adaptations of some of these games were produced.

APBA enthusiasts have included Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush; presidential son-in-law David Eisenhower; New York mayor Ed Koch; actor Jeff Daniels; ballplayers Bump Wills and Jim Sundberg; sports agent and Detroit Pistons vice chairman Arn Tellem; and journalist and memoirist Franz Lidz.

...
Wikipedia