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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 Dickinson and Ron Brammer — otherwise known as Mad Dog and Oregon Ron. The annual MDOR event traces its lineage back to the Lyman Bostock tournament that ran from the 1970s to circa 2000. Watch action from the 2018 MDOR tournament: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBvZeICbRFI6Og66l4DNmppvsTTHtOYJ- Mike Kane talks SOM Football with Darin Hayes Pigskin Dispatch: https://pigskindispatch.com/home/Football-Fun-Facts/Football-Hobbies-and-Games/Strat-o-matic-Football YouTube version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccf18yu0v4U

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 version: https://youtu.be/dK3sQbjf1Fo

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 the reasons behind his choice of dice. The 2022 NFL season for On the Turf Football is available for preorder now: https://www.49sportsgames.com/products/49-on-the-turf-football-standard-game

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 (vgcusa.org). The seed of the idea for Lords of Baseball came to Max’s father after a trip to the World Boardgaming Championships; inspired by the Cold War game Twilight Struggle, Bob Jamelli began sketching out ideas for LoB. Now, after 50 revisions, nearly 90 iterations of the rule book and more than 1,500 playthroughs, LoB is ready to hit the market. Offering a complete picture of baseball team ownership, from stocking talent to winning games — even building a stadium — Lords of Baseball is a Euro-style take on the game of pro baseball. Jamelli recalls how he came to know key collaborator Jeff Horger, who took on the role of streamlining LoB’s mechanics, vowing to “tear (the game) apart and build it back up.” Max also discusses his take on tabletop football games Legends of Football, Pizza Box football and 1st and Goal from his perspective as a coach. In the last part of the interview, Max discusses the mission and methods of the VGCUSA, how he came to be involved, and how the organization fosters social and emotional learning for students in more than 800 schools in the U.S., Canada, Brazil and Europe. Helping kids socially through gaming is “the best thing I’ll ever do in education,” he says. Lords of Baseball is still available by Kickstarter late pledge at the time of posting this video; L4 Studios will be selling the game at conventions — and a retail option is likely. How to play Lords of Baseball: 01:56 Seed of the idea from the WBC: 19:50 Mechanics used in Lords of Baseball: 32:05 Playing SOM and Baseball Stars on Nintendo with his dad: 45:40 Coaching football and playing football games (Legends of Football, Pizza Box): 46:37 Sports on the field vs. on tabletop: 52:38 Funding Lords of Baseball and potential expansions: 56:50 Future of board games and accessibility to audiences: 1:02:35 Video Game Clubs of America and its mission: 1:09:22 Joining VGCUSA and creating a school game club: 1:13:54 Lords of Baseball on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lordsofbaseball/lords-of-baseball?amp;mc_cid=5cccc19d8c&mc_eid=73f5a6be1a Max’s BoardGameGeek profile: https://boardgamegeek.com/user/sigtaulefty Video Game Clubs of America: https://www.vgcusa.org/ Max’s review of Legends of Football: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/369071/old-time-football-meets-fantasy-football VIDEO VERSION: https://youtu.be/2D0Cb-9Mn8E

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 (Published Feb. 12, 2023) #superbowl #superbowl57 #chiefs #eagles #mahomes #jalenhurts #apbafootball #apbagames #apbafootballclub #apbafootballhandbook

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: https://www.lulu.com/shop/mwn-publications/sports-sim-magazine-issue-11/paperback/product-ppre5n.html?q=sports+sim+magazine&page=1&pageSize=4 VIDEO VERSION: https://youtu.be/_6FdhXO-aOk

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 APBA Journal for many years, co-created the Suncoast Football League in Tampa in 1979 and served as the Tampa Bay Bucs' official statistician for most of the 1980s. Ray's APBA Football matchup system is a milestone for more fully utilizing all the player cards. Langhans began playing APBA in 1957 and among his myriad achievements played in the baseball and football tournaments at the first-ever APBA convention in Philadelphia in 1973. His Game of the Day thread on the Delphi forum Between the Lines is still going strong after he kicked it off on Aug. 23, 2000. (Roy's GOTD thread: https://forums.delphiforums.com/apbabtl/messages/?msg=3870.1) Sce was a key part of APBA"s coach's program, in which APBA ambassadors spread the word about APBA games to potential players. VIDEO VERSION: https://youtu.be/iO4QZEels3o

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, using Second Season. He shares a few thoughts regarding league play, tabletop coaching and more. National Card Football League site: https://jzajack.wixsite.com/ncfl VIDEO VERSION: https://youtu.be/RxFXzr3oOuk

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 careers: two regular-season games won by the Dolphins (a 30-26 shootout in 1985 and a 31-21 MIami win in 1998) and one postseason blowout, a 38-3 drubbing of the Dolphins by the Broncos en route to their Super Bowl 33 victory. Denver and Miami met in the 1999 regular season, but of course Elway retired upon winning his second ring. Had the ’83 draft played out as envisioned here, Marino would have traveled to Baltimore with the Black and Gold for a Nov. 13 contest won by the Steelers, 24-13. The 1980s weren’t entirely terrible for either the Steelers or Colts franchises — there were some playoff appearances amid the more dismal campaigns. In 1983, the Steelers finished 10-6 before bowing in the playoffs, while the Colts struggled at 7-9. MIami finished 12-4, Denver at 9-7 — and both were dispatched in the playoffs by the Seahawks. WIth Marino earning a four-point card in APBA Football’s original 1983 season set vs. only a two for Elway, there’s not much hope of the Colts far exceeding their ’83 record — especially with Elway’s 47.5% completion rate. That said, Elway did show a sign of the magic to come when he threw three fourth-quarter TDs in Week 15 against the Colts in Denver to lift the Broncos from a 19-0 deficit to a 21-19 win (in fact, the Colts and Broncos met in Baltimore in Week 2 as well, with Denver winning 17-10). It would be far more interesting to put Elway 1986 or 1987 with the Colts — although even then Elway’s completion rate stayed in the mid-50s; he didn’t crack 60% completions until his 1993 season. Speaking of the Broncos and Dolphins, they’ve only met 20 times in their history, with Miami leading the series 12-7-1; there’s another great what-if best-of-three series: • 1983 season, when both made the playoffs and could have faced each other. • 1984 season, when Denver lost to Pittsburgh in a bid to face Miami in the AFC Championship • 1997 season, when both made the playoffs Along the lines of this project, check out the 1984 NBA what-if by Rod's Tabletop Hoops ( @redfanrod ) The 1984 Blazers took Jordan, the Bulls took Barkley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejNiE7yvBhc REDZONE/HIGHLIGHTS 11:3422:0532:1437:5554:181:02:451:17:151:30:10 Denver-Miami head-to-head history: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/game_query.cgi?tm1=den&tm2=mia&yr=all First Elway-Marino meeting, 1985: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/198509290den.htm Second Elway-Marino meeting, 1998: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/199812210mia.htm Third Elway-Marino meeting, 1999: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/199901090den.htm 1983 Steelers at Colts: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/198311130clt.htm 1983 standings: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/1983/ “The day the Royals drafted Elway and Marino”: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2017/jun/13/john-elway-dan-marino-1979-mlb-draft-kansas-city-royals “John Elway, Bob Irsay and the Colts fleeing of Baltimore”: https://fansided.com/2021/07/23/john-elway-1983-nfl-draft-baltimore-colts/ “How the legendary 1983 QB draft class changed the NFL forever”: https://www.si.com/nfl/2023/04/26/1880-nfl-draft-john-elway-dan-marino-jim-kelly-historic-class “What if John Elway played for the Colts?”: https://www.yardbarker.com/nfl/articles/what_if_john_elway_played_for_the_colts/s1_11773_18227675 VIDEO VERSION: https://youtu.be/qmRSCZGbXoc

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 tournament tied to spring training in Florida. When that proved a bit costly, he turned to another passion of his — and the APBA baseball cruise was born. The four-day cruise will feature a one-day tournament. The theme is any third place team between 1980 and 1999, and competitors can choose one player who played on the team 20 years prior (for instance, the 1995 White Sox can include a player from the 1975 team). Team selection will likely begin just before Labor Day, and Fumai will pick last. Veterans and rookies are welcome, and single attendees are eligible to be paired with others to share a room and keep their costs down. The itinerary starts in Fort Lauderdale; Key West is the destination on Day 2, and Day 3 will feature the competition from roughly 8 a.m. to 4 or 5 p.m. On Day 4, cruisers will spend time in Nassau, Bahamas, before heading home. veterans and newbies welcome — and Frank can supply a team for anyone who needs one. Costs are all inclusive; there is no separate fee to play in the tournament. And there are plenty of things for nonplaying family and friends to do on competition day. The chosen ship is the Celebrity Silhouette :https://www.celebritycruises.com/cruise-ships/celebrity-silhouette For more information and to reserve your spot, call cruise coordinator Aidy Alonzo at 954-377-6424. Deposits are refundable if your travel plans change. VIDEO VERSION: https://youtu.be/UooZdyxoJ_E

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. Adkins shares insights into everything from home-brewed rules to how to keep a league running, as well as the custom roll-up mats they had created to expand on the basic SOM game board. The 2023 CincyCon tourmament fielded 10 teams: 1983 WAS 1984 SF 1984 MIA 1985 CHI 1998 DEN 2004 NE 2004 IND 2010 PIT 2019 BAL 2020 KC In a wild 20-19 finish, the 2004 Patriots snuck past the 1985 Bears. Meredith limits participating teams to those from 1983 to the present to aid in recruiting efforts. APBA Baseball and APBA Football figured into his early gaming career, when he saw a testimonial for the baseball game from a wargaming source. 10:08: The Lyman Bostock tournament. GMVFL page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1003156216549923 CincyCon announcement and rules on SOM's website: https://www.strat-o-matic.com/announcements/som-football-and-baseball-tournaments-cincycon/ Reach Meredith by email at [email protected]. Strat-O-Matic football leagues listed on SOM registry: https://bit.ly/41vEBlP VIDEO VERSION: https://youtu.be/CTmZ2K3dH0E

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