The American Professional Football League, formally known as the American Postal Football League, was founded in 1974 by Bob Moore of Loveland, Colorado. In those days, the APFL was centered around the APBA Board Football Game. That was a game utilizing two dice (a large red one and a smaller white one), game boards depicting various field positions with multiple offensive vs. defensive platoons, a board that covered penalties, interceptions, fumble returns and kick and punt returns. The dice were numbered one through six and the red one was read first. Thus, if both dice came up as "1", it was read as "11". If the red dice came up as "2" and the white dice came up as "5", it was read as "25". Each NFL player received a card and that card contained die results from 11 through 66 with each assigned a number from 1 through 36. The play results for these numbers were read from the applicable boards based upon field position. The games could be played solitaire but the fun in the game was playing against a live opponent across the table from you. Live games could take anywhere from two to four hours to play. Back in the 1980's, the center of the APFL Universe was Tenafly, NJ. Back then, Stu McCorkindale, Mike Kane and TK Kane took turns being Commissioner. The annual rookie and free agent drafts were held at the Kane's household and during the season, their basement became a hotbed for FTF APFL league games. The APFL continued using the APBA Board Game until the computer invaded our lives and APBA developed a DOS computer version of its game. The APFL began to migrate towards the computer version, first allowing members to play either format. Moving to the PC caused the FTF board games to fade from use although the PC did make stat keeping easier. Then after the league moved to incorporate the computer version as its officially sanctioned platform, the APBA Game Company began to have financial difficulties. Eventually, the APFL leadership reviewed the Action PC Football Game and found it to be a faithfully produced football replay game from a forward thinking, stable company. Nowadays, the Action PC Game has brought back the excitement and camaraderie that was prevalent in the board game through its use of playing "live" via the Internet. One can only surmise what will happen in say, ten years from now. Will we play via video conferencing? Only time will tell.
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