Any time I can brighten up your day, Keith, it's worth the time and effort.
Re: APBA, was a huge solo player of APBA Master Game with extended player card sets, which unlike the regular sets came in perforated sheets and had to be manually separated. My favorite day of year was not Opening Day, it was the day the new season card set arrived. Those exquisite team jackets, the red and black cards, checking out each player card for ratings and any unusual or special result numbers. Looking at base stealers with 10's or 11's, at hitters with 7's on 15. 24's and 25's for guys who would kill you with double plays, and the subtelties of the extra 00 column. I would have loved to see an Edgar Martinez card with extra 7's, 00 column, 14's all over the place for walks. And the pitcher grades, which were sometimes surprising, other times disappointing. I would make up my own schedules and play as many games as I could, using ordinary ruled paper for team and individual player record-keeping. My math skills were honed by calculating as often as I could in my head, but when I couldn't keeping a blank sheet for manually writing out long divisions to calculate batting average and ERA. You got to where you knew all the results for a given number of hits in up to 12 at bats. To this day those numbers are still in my brain. 1 for 11 is .091. I always aspired to do a complete season, but rarely got past a complete MLB 40-games-per-team schedule, playing out each game by myself and managing both teams as fairly as I could. Once I got to 60 games.
In the early 2000's I discovered Diamond Mind Baseball for PC, and suddenly the ability to play out an entire season-long schedule for all teams by myself was possible because the software kept all the records. I still play it regularly. It used to take me 3 years to complete a full schedule for the 20-team MLB of the mid-60's, but now it takes about 4 years. I played out 1965 starting in 2010 and finishing in 2013. I started 1966 in the spring of 2013 and I'm in early September, expecting to finish early next year, including a World Series. I simply love reliving the baseball of my youth, managing all the same players accurately modeled. The DMB engine is remarkable, and the colorful text play by play wonderful. No frills, you aren't distracted by a bunch of bells and whistles, you just enjoy each game as you manage and play it out. The computer manager is fine as an opponent.
Whoops, I've gone on and on, haven't I?
SI Football was great, I used to play it with my long ago deceased brother who was one year younger than me. Electric Football was a strange combination of fantastic and frustrating at the same time. But it was all fun.
Speaking of horseracing, in my young married days my wife and I bought an Intellivision for Christmas, I believe it would have been 1982 or 3. One of the absolute best cartridge games for that platform was horse racing, We had a ball with friends over, each selecting their own horse and then letting them compete on the track.
Boyhood in America was far different then than it is now. I kinda feel sorry for kids growing up these days. They have more stuff than we ever did, but we had experiences they can never know. They have instant access to anything in the world via their phones and computers, but we had adventures and recreations that were all our own.