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J. Richard Seitz Memorial
(Excerpted
from article by Howard Ahlskog in the APBA Journal, October
1992)
 J.
Richard Seitz, founder of the APBA Game Company, was born on April
8, 1915 in Mountville, a small community a few miles west of Lancaster,
PA. His father, Howard, was an accountant and an avid baseball fan
who introduced his young son to the game by taking him to Philadelphia
to see Major League games…the first being a Yankee-Athletic game
in 1926.
It was through these experiences that the young Seitz began a life-long
love affair with baseball and its means of performance measurement ...
the statistics.
By the time Seitz reached high school in the early 1930s, this interest
was channeled into two areas. First, he wanted to be a professional
ballplayer and, second, he loved to play baseball simulation games.
While the former would never be developed due to insufficient athletic
skills, the latter would eventually become the center of his life.
In 1931, Seitz purchased National Pastime, a dice-activated baseball
simulation based on the 1930 season which featured individual player
cards with 36 numbers that determined the frequency of specific play
results found on playing boards. Although the basic concept of random
result generation with individualized batter cards and dice was not
new to baseball gaming, it was the first experience Seitz had with it.
Immediately he could see that expanding the play possibilities to 36
by using two different colored dice offered a vast improvement over
other baseball games he had played.
After the United States entered World War II, Seitz joined the U.S.
Army and took the baseball game with him. He formed a barracks league
with other GI's, using a set of home-made player cards based on the
1941 season that he had created and printed on a crude home printing
press. It was this experience that confirmed something important ...that
the baseball game's appeal stretched beyond the childhood years, that
adults also found it interesting and entertaining. It was, as the advertising
copy would say years later, "not mere child's play."
After the war, Seitz returned to Lancaster and over the next few
years had a number of jobs, but continued to tinker with the baseball
game. He expanded on the original product by adding fielding differentials
and devised a pitching system with assigned grades to individual
pitchers. There is also evidence to suggest that he developed other
charts at that time which were the basis for a "Master Version"
to capture additional aspects of baseball on boards.
He also began thinking about the commercial possibilities of the game.
Patent protections on the early game, now out of production for nearly
20 years, had long since run out, so there was nothing to prevent its
introduction as a new product. However, Seitz, conservative by nature
and lacking formal business training, was hesitant to make a major financial
commitment when there was a possibility he could lose a substantial
amount of money.
Fortunately for him and for the legion of future APBA fans, someone
entered his life at this time who would greatly influence the future
course of events. Dick developed a romantic interest in Jean Thompson,
often taking her on dates to Philadelphia baseball games. Jean, in turn
(and perhaps out of necessity), began to develop an interest in baseball.
Being a bit more daring than Dick, it was Jean who actively encouraged
her hesitant beau to market the game. In fact, as Seitz claimed late
in his life, it was mainly Jean who sparked the birth of the APBA Game
Company.
Seitz finally made the decision to market the game, sending his
game boards and 320 individual player cards (20 players for each
of the sixteen 1950 teams) to the printer in early 1951. The initial
investment for the games along with the advertising, fliers, and
postage costs, probably topped $500, a fairly large amount of money
in those days. So even though the game was priced at $10.00, expensive
for the times, there was little chance of producing a profit. In
fact, Dick's main concern was to sell enough to avoid taking a major
loss on printing costs. He then advertised the game in The Sporting
News and waited for a response. The APBA Game Company was in
business!
Orders started coming to the APBA Game Company, 118 E. James St.,
Lancaster, PA. To customers, this looked like an ordinary business
address but it was actually the home of Seitz' mother. After finishing
his day's work as a purchasing agent for Shirk's Motor Express,
Dick would drive to his mother's house, pick up the orders and take
them home for processing. Game company work was reserved for evenings
and weekends.
Sales for the first year exceeded expectations. In fact, the games sold
out and checks had to be returned for unfillable orders. This problem
would exist for a few years. Although more games were ordered the following
year, Seitz initially had no way of knowing how much repeat business
he would have. Nor could he determine how many card sets he should publish
each year for those who had initially purchased the game. He eventually
found an interesting solution. He established a file card for each customer
on which he recorded every one of the customer's orders. This not only
allowed him to determine the percentage of repeat customers and make
fairly accurate sales projections, but it also enabled him to personally
contact his customers each year and eliminate the need for a national
distribution system. In addition, that personal connection made fans
of the game feel that this was more of a family instead of a business
relationship. It played a role in creating the atmosphere for what was
to become the growth of an "APBA Cult."
Between 1951 and 1956, sales were so strong that Seitz was able
to make APBA his fulltime job. In '58, he introduced a football
game, followed in '62 by an APBA golf game. By the late '60s, APBA
games were being played by close to a million people and the company
began attracting national attention, including a front-page article
in the Wall Street Journal. The product line continued to
expand, and by the early '70s, the company had moved to a three-story
office complex. Although responsibility for the daily operations
were eventually handed over to Executive Vice President Fritz Light,
Seitz continued to be a major presence in the company, particularly
for long-time fans. When he passed away in 1992 at the age of 77,
one of these fans summed up the feelings of many APBA followers.
"…for many of us baseball fans in the 40-something age group, Dick
Seitz was a cultural icon," wrote Art Springsteen. "He was a guru,
the true prophet of baseball."
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