Activision, I believe, released a whole slew of sports simulations for the Apple a long time ago. If memory serves me correctly, there were baseball, basketball, football and hockey.
FOOTBALL
Well, the official name was GFL Championship Football. Unlike the other games, this only let you play one match at a time. Overall, football was pretty lame. I got killed the first game by the Angels, and the next game I trailed 28-0 before winding up losing only 31-10. Having mangled the Angels the next game, I moved up in the world a bit.

The game's fatal flaw was probably that it was too easy to figure when the opponent would run or pass or defend the run or pass. With each designed play, you had to move the joystick one direction until you heard a certain amount of beeps, then another direction. Receivers who messed up would ruin the play, and although running backs could make it up, they'd get tackled sooner--you couldn't do anything on defense, and kicking extra points or field goals required an annoying amount of timing. It was hard to avoid tacklers or know where they were--part of the disadvantages of the running back or receiver not being able to see the whole field. It was also surreal to see a football drop from the sky and (if you ran the route wrong) drop to the side. Never mind that you'd often appear to get tackled at the goal line, but it turned out to be the 9-yard line. The tackling and whistle noises got old quick, but fortunately there was a toggle. By the end of this game's playing time, I would just play for four minutes and let the game clock run down. The interface held minor interest. To be honest, there was a better game called Hi-Res football with a bunch of moving X's and O's, which I found fun even if it played the Notre Dame fight song too much. I suspect the big pull of this game was being able to play whoever on earth you wanted to.

West, East, South, and North, in descending order of difficulty:
WEST
TEAMS QB RB DL RC DL LB DB CH
MULES 3 2 2 2 3 3 3 3
MINERS 3 3 2 3 2 2 2 3
GOATS 2 3 3 2 2 2 3 2
BANDITS 1 3 2 2 3 2 3 3
RANGERS 3 2 2 3 2 1 1 2
SEAGULLS 2 2 2 2 2 1 3 3
GERANIMOS 2 1 1 2 3 1 3 2
EAST
TEAMS QB RB DL RC DL LB DB CH
MIDGETS 3 3 2 2 3 3 2 2
ROCKETS 3 3 2 2 3 2 2 2
INDIANS 2 2 3 2 2 2 2 3
BLUES 2 3 2 2 2 3 2 2
WELDERS 1 2 2 3 2 2 2 3
CONDORS 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1
MUSTANGS 1 2 2 1 1 2 1 1
SOUTH
TEAMS QB RB DL RC DL LB DB CH
GRIZZLYS 2 3 3 2 3 3 2 2
MINUTEMEN 2 2 2 2 2 3 2 2
TIGERS 3 2 2 3 2 1 2 2
COUGARS 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
HACKERS 1 2 2 2 2 2 3 2
NORSEMEN 2 1 1 2 2 2 1 1
BUFFALOES 1 2 2 1 2 2 1 1
NORTH
TEAMS QB RB DL RC DL LB DB CH
WHALES 3 2 3 3 2 2 2 3
COWPOKES 2 3 2 2 2 2 2 3
PIRATES 2 3 2 2 2 1 1 2
REDBIRDS 2 2 2 2 1 2 2 1
HAWKS 1 2 2 1 2 2 1 2
GOPHERS 2 2 2 1 2 1 1 1
ANGELS 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 1
Cool names, you'll agree. If you look at the WNBA and the new soccer leagues, these guys put the smack-down on 'em.

BASKETBALL
Take a look at those names!
MAGIC LYNDONJERRY ORR
ELGIN CUTTERJOHN MADLAND
LARRY BERGKAREEM UGRIN
WALT BARNETTJULIUS KEITH
OSCAR DUNBARWILT DULMAGE
Generally, they took a famous player's first name and matched them up with the nearest last name of someone who helped write this game. ("Larry Berg")

As for the teams, they were something else, too. They are listed in reverse order that you played them, strongest to weakest. North is weakest, West strongest. I remember I never could beat the Sharks.
North COUGARS WILDCATS UNICORNS SHARKS GENERALS
South DAZZLES HAMMERS KERNALS STEAMERS MASTERS
East CONDORS MYSTICS MARVELS HAWKS WIZARDS
West STARS DRAGONS COSMICS WAVES LAZERS
Your opponents also had some random names.
MICHAEL LEVY NORM COLEMAN RED LEHRBERG JAMES ZUZELO
BOB BEAUMONT GUY JANNETTY JOE DESIMONE AC FISCHBACH
What was really cool about basketball, though, was that you got a sort of box score at the end. It was better on the IIgs, with quarter-by-quarter totals and individual statistic, but here's the result from a lesser system(Commodore emulator, actually:)

If you want details, here they are:
KRUNCHOS 14 12 12 17-55 on 44 SHOTS
COUGARS 19 10 8 10-47 on 52 SHOTS
Blocked shots you got back weren't counted as blocked, and I really believe stealing a pass and not a ball counted as a rebound in some cases. Still, the attempt at a box score was cool. On the early levels, you could bludgeon them to death even if your guy did pass when you wanted him to shoot, resulting in an opposing steal, err, rebound.
HOCKEY
I've never been a big hockey fan, but this game almost did it for me single-handedly. Why, you could track up to the PAST TEN SEASONS for ALL TWENTY TEAMS!!!! In addition, you could play seasons of 4, 7 or 11 games. Four meant you only played in your division. Seven matched you up with one team from each of another division. Eleven was a bit long.
Edmonton ChicagoHartford N.Y.
L.A. St. Louis Boston N.J.
Winnipeg Minnesota Quebec Philly
Calgary Detroit Montreal Pitt
VancouverToronto Buffalo Wash
Ah yes. The Hartford Whalers, my old favorite team. I haven't followed hockey since they became Carolina. This was written back when there were twenty-one teams, and the game decided to lump the Rangers and Islanders together as "N.Y." This might've hurt sales in the Big Apple, but it gave a good balance to the game. Nevertheless each team had 16 different players, with three shifts of five that you could change during the game. They aged each year and gained skills, although they didn't go above age 9(on a scale of 0 to 9.) So you could just improve them at nine years, and they wouldn't get any slower, but they would get more skillful. This made up for a system that made it very hard for you to improve naturally, even if your team stunk it up for a few years, which got you training points. I'm not sure what skills did; maybe they increased the random chance that you could score on a slow shot from face-off(which you could. Strange if this would happen in the NHL.) They also might have allowed the only way I found for a skill goal(swoop down across the goal face and fire in.) The timer also wasn't real-time; if you had only two guys on the screen(the middle, left and right were broken up separately,) the seconds would tick off quickly. Although twenty minutes were too long as the default for quarters, five minutes would make a very reasonable hockey game. I rarely scored more than four, but I was able to play a few seasons in the afternoon. The game also had practices where you could play the computer, and most importantly, it had cross-checking and a penalty box. Watching a checked player spin around was a true delight. There was also a small problem with how you shot diagonally--it went off 15 degrees from vertical, which made almost no sense. The opposing teams' names were also pretty cool--there was Houliman, the goalie for Vancouver, and New Jersey had Hogan and Logan on a defensive line. It was also cool to see opposing teams' players regenerate after ten years, with lower skills but zero age once again--well, I could whip 'em either way. There was also a forfeit on turn-off feature which took away training points for the next year. The playoffs were also great, with no forfeit for turning a game off. You could decide if they were best of 1, 3, 5 or 7(best of 1 was enough for me, really.) The rest of the bracket would be filled in, so you already knew who you'd face in the finals. Somehow, seeing the league results after each game I played never got old.
BASEBALL
Ah, but America's Game was truly the best of the lot, if for no other reason that you could make your own team, and the scores could read like football scores after a while. Given that baseball's a hitter's game, is it too much to say this game was ahead of its time? No matter. You could have batting or fielding practice, and you could strike out a whole bunch or make a lot of errors, and the computer would adjust to that the next game. You could also strike out with a man on third. If the runner was going, the catcher would run in front of the plate, and you could sneak behind and steal home. You could also make names for each player and choose between two sets of stats and submit players' batting orders as part of the lineup card. There were ways to include a pinch hitter, utility infielder, and utility outfielder as well as a reliever. I can't remember them, but oh well. The game also had an interesting way to decide errors. If you sat around waiting to throw with an imminent force out because of the slightly screwy controls, that was an error. If, however, the computer let something bounce by the infield, that wasn't. There were playoffs at the end of each season, and the teams are listed below:
SouthNorthEastWest
CougarsDazzlesCosmicsSharks
MarvelsCondorsUnicornsSharks
DragonsStarsKernalsSteamers
WildcatsHammersWavesWizards
HawksMysticsLasersGenerals
The south has 6 total points(hit, run, catch, throw, 1 minimum,) the north 8, the east 9, the west 10. You have 8. Batters are also sluggers and liners, and pitchers have endurance, fastball, and curve--adding to six.
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