I just received the nicest present in the mail today. My dear friend, Dave Urban, sent me a duplicate copy of one of the greatest high school football teams that he ever carded the Bishop Gorman Gaels. I can’t tell you how impressed I am with the workmanship that went into this team set. I’m a big fan of customized envelopes and Dave’s has a nice clean look and is informative. Once I removed the cards from the envelope, I was greeted with a team card identifying the starters on offense and defense. Let me tell you these cards are all APBA from the rounded corners to listing player’s height, weight and year in school and the artwork on the back of each card. My favorite part is how Dave inserted the offensive skill player’s statistics in a different color just above the player’s name. This is extremely informative and I wish the game company did the same thing.

Let’s review Tate Martell’s quarterback card. This kid put up some crazy numbers and his card reflects it. I’ve never seen such power numbers on a card before (1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, and 9). I literally laughed out loud when I saw that interception number at play result 46. That is traditionally were Mark Zarb places his interception numbers. Some of you know this story but I will share it anyway. Two years ago, I was replaying the 1969 AFL/NFL season and I was playing the playoff game between the Oakland Raiders and my beloved New York Jets. The Jets were trailing late in the game but Broadway Joe was marching the Jets down the field for the go-ahead score but a redzone interception ended all that. Of course, it was that @$#%%$ dice roll 46. I was literally sick and threw the dice across the room. Seven hours later, I was transported out of the house on a gurney at 2:00 A.M. for a fast ride to the Emergency room. Now the doctors diagnosed me with congested heart failure but they don’t know @#$%, it was that dice roll 46 that did me in!

I don’t have a bucket list, but if I did, it would be to replay the 1984 USFL season using a Dave Urban carded set. Dave, once again, thank you for this team set and you are an APBA Football legend!!!