The Blog for the Sports Gamer

Okay, we have just about locked up our league over on the forums. We should get this going this weekend, if all goes well.

See, what happened to Bill makes me glad I never exercise and sit on my butt all day whether it be the ‘real job’ or gaming. LOL.

In other news, I’ve taken some time off this week from the real job, but that didn’t stop me from cleaning up the website. And of course, doing things with the kids, so although I had dreams of non stop gaming, I haven’t done nearly as much as I would have liked — even though my Xbox is back in the house! Go figure.

Then there’s this raccoon in my yard. We have a brook on our property and a raccoon was actually in our yard near our pool when our daughter came upon it. Needless to say, it was her first wildlife experience and she was just taken aback. I’m not sure what to do. This guy was obviously injured, but then went about his work in the brook. Now I can’t find him, so hopefully he’s not say, in my house or something.

Alright, it’s late, I need to get up in the morning to take the kids out and about. Latez!

And I have severely strained ligaments in my ankle and foot. So, it’s not broken but it’s not good, either. Monday I have to go see an Orthopedist so he can cause me all kinds of pain. Sorry no gaming updates other than Prince of Persia is pretty cool. I don’t think I’m going to like what the doctor says about how long I’m gonna be on the shelf. I gotta bad feeling about this.

In other couch related activity..

We rented three movies this week and all are worth a rental:

28 Days Later

Matchstick Men

21 Grams

All of these get the Bill Stamp of Approval.

And I still don’t know if my ankle is broken. “We’ll call you tonight or tomorrow.” So I can go online and view my house from space and you can’t tell me if my ankle is broken after waiting an hour to see you?

My mood is deteriorating rapidly. My ankle is still as big as a truck and I now have a purple patch above my ankle. My completely non medical opinion is that this is a high ankle sprain, and since I watch a lot of football I know that it should take weeks before it’s healed. Damn it. And I doubt I even get one of those cool protective boots that football players get.

My doctor told me, and I’m not kidding, “Boy that’s either fractured or it’s a heck of a sprain.” That’ll be $10 co-pay please. Thanks Doc.

The good news is that my wife went out to the store and bought me the Xbox versions of Prince of Persia Sands of Time and Crimson Skies Revenge something rather. I’m kinda of baseball burnt out and wanted to flex my other genre gaming muscles while I’m rottoing on the couch. I rarely, and I mean rarely, play anything on the consoles that isn’t sports related. I use the PC for other stuff like strtatgey gaming, action gaming, and RPGs.

Prince of Persia is a real hoot…lotsa fun…but it’s not very realistic and the stat model sucks.

heh heh heh

Well, yesterday was a banner day. I received my repaired Xbox. Same hard drive and box, brand new DVD Drive. It wasn’t the Samsung, but it was the Phillips, so that’s better than the Thompson. Lo and behold every game I’ve tried works well. Yay!

Our MLB 2005 tournament didn’t go so well. Basically everyone forfeited. I’m not sure how that works exactly, I’ll have to investigate a little more.

The good news is that now that I have my Xbox back, we can get back to ESPN MLB 2K4. I had heard that people might be interested in a league for that? Who’s interested? Let’s post on the forum.

PS There’s new iTunes software and new iPod software as well, so don’t forget to grab those if you enjoy your iPod…

The doc wants me to wait another day before coming in for an exam, to see if any discoloration forms. So far, there’s no black and blue, just a lot of swelling. As I said in the blog forum, my ankle makes my foot look like a ham hock. So I’m hobbling around the house today with Ashley telling me she’s going to take care of me and then getting mad when dad can’t play a rousing game of balloon with her. Kids. heh. I was hoping I’d be back in the swing in a few days, maybe even enough to get back on the court by Sunday, but being the moron that I am, I’m starting to come to grips with the fact that I’m gonna be on the shelf for a while unless this thing magically heals overnight. Argh.

My OOTP6 multiplayer league has started its 15th season this week. I don’t think I have played a sports game this consistently…ever. As much as I go on and on about how much I loved High Heat Baseball, I don’t think I played past my 14th season in that game. I think I maxxed out after year 11 of NCAA 2004. But OOTP keeps on chugging along and I don’t see a reason why we’d stop anytime soon. OOTP isn’t the best replay sim in the world but for fictional player leagues it’s tough to beat.

The reason why people are still playing in MP leagues that have lasted so long is because OOTP does something every single sports game should do, but doesn’t: allow season conversions. Our league started with OOTP4, played through the next year with OOTP5 and now has made the switch to OOTP6. Because I’m a freelance whore, I haven’t paid for any of these games but the people in my league have — that’s an almost guaranteed sale for the OOTP folks every year by its fan base.

How cool would it be to take your current NCAA 2004 Dynasty and convert it to NCAA 2005? Why do we have to start all over AGAIN each year? I invested a LOT of time turning the UTEP Miners into a 4 star program, and now I have to call it quits because EA says it’;s time for a new release? Why? And don’t give me that “it’s a new database structure, or a new game engine,” That’s BS. Just convert the stats over for cryin’ out loud. We have these lovely hard drives on the Xbox, let’s use the damn things! Every sports game should do thus and I don’t want to single out EA Sports, but as much as I love EA’s college football game, I do wish I could keep my old Dynasty. Am I alone on this?

Anyway, Motrin and the couch are calling.

I may have broken my ankle tonight playing basketball. I’ve been playing 3-4 nights a week and Tuesday is my “30 and over night” league and my ankle went pop three times–it sounded like an Ak-47. We’re talking serious pain. So I’m hobbling around on crutches and plan to get an Xray tomorrow. So if the blog slows down (on my end) over the next few days, blame the guy whose ankle I landed on.

Oh, and for the record, I made the running floater on the baseline that caused me to hurt myself. It’s all about the bucket baby!

Ok, actually, it’s all about Motrin right now.

Well, sorry for the brief hiatus from the blog. I’m just now getting over the fact that I will have to root for Kellen Winslow Jr. Man, that’s not going to be easy to do. Deep down I was hoping that we’d either draft Taylor of Big Ben, but we took the player we needed the most, gave up way too much to get him, and I can’t get past the fact that I cannot stand the guy…or at least the guy that he portrays himself to be in the media. I know all too well that the face you put on in public isn’t always the “real” you. Winslow might be a good guy behind closed doors within his circle. I dunno. But the public Winslow I cannot stand. He better be great and I mean immediately or Browns fan will turn on him. Fast. He could start things off on a good note by not holding out…

It happens every year that I want the draft. I come away feeling like a complete idiot because Cleveland ends up doing things that, to me, make no sense whatsoever. The team’s #1 priority is the Oline, and we wait until Round 6 to draft a lumbering tackle from Stanford? We are loaded at RB and yet we draft a RB from Cal in round 7. Ah well.

On a positive note, Ohio State set a new 7 round record by getting 14 players drafted. And Krenzel was drafted before Navarre or Smoker. How cool is that?

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I’m finishing up my Baseball Round Up for GSpy. It’s due on Thursday so should be online next week. It glosses over ESPN, MVP, MLB, ASB and OOTP6. I doubt anyone will be shocked by my thoughts, but hey…

***

I would talk about the NBA Playoffs but I really don’t give a hoot what happens. So, I won’t waste your time or mine. Same with Hockey. I’m burnt out. I can’t help it.

***

I WILL say that I’m a huge horse racing fan and it’s the time of year that people like me get to hear the mainstream sports media attempt to talk horses because it’s Derby Week. I won’t drive you crazy with horse stuff…I know it’s a niche game. I will say this is the weakest Derby field that I can recall in…well…forever. A sad group. That said, you should check out the HBO Sports Documentary, “Jockey” that premiered last night. Talk about a rough way to make a living.

Okay, I was speaking to my wife today and asked her if she knows what Gino’s was. Being from New England and not Maryland, she said no. It didn’t occur to me that she wouldn’t know what Gino’s Hamburgers was.

That got me thinking, what else do I miss that’s no longer there. Well, definitely Burger Chef. Of course, my favorite amusement park, Rocky Point. Let’s see, what else…there’s no Mr. Pibb in New England, which kinda sucks. There’s also no Utz chips or Hires Root beer, and yes I revolve around food. I also miss duckpin bowling. We only have candlepin up here. Ugh. How can you not clear dead wood exactly? Bleck.

Okay, that sure was fun going over old times. Let’s get back to talking sports. MLB 2005′s league is filing up nicely. We now have 7 people in the league, so if you haven’t joined yet, time is running out. Just search for the ‘blog’ tournament when you’re logged in on your PS2.

I’m still waiting for my Xbox to be reparied. D’oh!

Okay, even though I hate the bunt thing and the no check swings, there is some to like about MLB. Because I’m still Xbox less, I’m going to start a tournament. The tourney name is called ‘blog’. Sign up ends Apr 27, league winner gets a phantasy star online dog tag from Japan (ohh). Isn’t that an incentive to play me. My name on 989 is cornholice. Come on over and give it a go.

I received a few emails asking about the Sports Guy and what that all meant. Well, there used to be a site called bostonsportsguy.com and a lot of the stuff I read was pretty darn funny, along with some sports stuff. Bill Simmons is the boston sports guy, and then he started writing for ESPN’s Page 2. He was so funny there he now writes for the Kimmel show and writes less for Page 2.

The article I was referring to was rules for a fan and you can all view it right here.

It’s draft day. And my stomach is in knots. The Browns trade up ONE SPOT to draft Winslow and give away their 2nd round pick to do it? I swear sometimes I feel like I live in a dreamworld.

Can someone explain this to me? The Lions weren’t going to take Winslow anyway, so why in the $##! do you give up your 2nd round pick to move up one spot to get him? If Davis doesn’t make a deal with Northcutt to get back into the 2nd round…ah $#@!

Sigh. This blog sure is a good place where I can vent.

IGN has the dirt on this. EA + Xbox Live? This should make Dan’s week. If all of this proves true, does anyone want a PS2? I’m sure Dan will sell you his, cheap.

Just got it and started fooling around with it. Few observations:

1. Could it take *just* a little longer to do a put out in the infield? It takes way too long still for that throw meter. Reviews I had read said this had improved. If it has, it still needs to be worked on.

2. Uh, EA guys, this is a PC. If Xbox’s ESPN MLB can save games in-game, a PC game should also be able to do this.

3. Playing this game makes me wish I had my Xbox and MLB.

4. At this early juncture, I still prefer Sony’s MLB (with bunt issue) (For PlayStation 2) and ESPN over this game. Maybe I’ll change, I don’t know….

After reading Bill’s post, I just wanted to interject. Bill is correct, this is all pretty much the Chargers fault, but the whole idea of a draft is you don’t get to choose where you are going, right? I’m not defending anyone here, but you see I’m totally biased. I’m from Baltimore. I remember that @#$@#$ John Elway telling the Colts don’t draft me or if you do I’ll play baseball. I honestly believe that that was the big decision for the Colts moving to Indianapolis all those years ago.

Unfortunately, Elway got away with it and is now well loved by NFL writers. He even got a Super Bowl ring. He reminds me a lot of Roger Clemens. You never get the feeling that the word ‘team’ is used in those clubhouses. Sure, there’s plenty of blame to go around (hello, Mr. Irsay), but I’m still mad. I can certainly relate to Browns fans losing their team (ironically to Baltimore) and then they won it all. I feel your pain. I can’t legally cheer for the Ravens under the Bill Simmons’ Sports Guy rules (Colts fan until they moved, then I was given a chance to re-choose a team and I picked the Patriots), so I certainly know what you went through to a certain extent.

Anyway, let’s face facts. The Chargers have pretty much always sucked, they don’t seem to have a plan for winning (what West Coast teams aside from the Lakers do …well maybe the Angels, but whatever), so I can certainly see where dad was coming from, and it’s not like he held a press conference. Oh well draft day should be interesting. The Patriots are charging an ungodly sum to go to the stadium and watch the draft. You do get a buffet though….

OK, actually, that’s not true.

In fact I completely support (not that it matters) what the Mannings are doing. The Media (and thus, as a result, the general fan) are raking the Mannings over he coals because of this “I won’t play for San Diego” thing.

Has no one listened to what was said?

This has nothng to do with San Diego being a sub par team. This is the NFL where a team can go from 1-15 to playoff caliber in a matter of a couple of seasons. Manning knows this. Just look at Peyton. This goes deeper than that. Anyone that thinks the Mannings are doing this just because San Diego has holes to fill isn’t paying attention.

Archie and Eli are much more concerned with San Diego’s COMMITTMENT to winning more than they are how bad they are at the present time.

This is why the sports media sucks. I mean flat out sucks. They don’t listen very well as a group. It’s why when I’m forced to watch the Sports Reporters that I end up throwing objects at the TV screen, usually when I listen to Mike Lupica or Dan Lebetard.

Archie Manning was interviewed on ESPN where he flat out said that San Diego called HIM. They got Archie involved in all of this. It’s not like Eli’s dad called the nearest sports columnist and said that Eli wasn’t going to play for San Diego. So the Chargers get Archie into this mess, Archie tells them behind closed doors that they’d like it if San Diego passed on Eli and the next thing you know it’s front page headlines because the CHARGERS LEAKED IT.

So can someone explain to me how the Mannings are the bad guys in this? Because Eli doesn’t want to play for a teanm that he feels has no chance of competing with or without him because they won’t go aftrer free agents or sign their own marquee players? How does this make him a spoiled brat? I just don’t get it.

This kinda thing happens ALL THE TIME and not just with first round picks. Teams will always talk to a player and his agent before they draft him (90% of the time) and most players just want to get picked so there’s no problems. But this is not the first time nor will it be the last that a player, his agent,. or a family member said to a team, “Please don’t draft him.” The difference is that usually this kinda thing happens behind the scenes and it’s not reported.

You want a bad guy in all this? The Chargers GM wears the black hat. Not Eli or Archie Manning.

Anyway, deep dpwn I don’t care where Manning goes as long as the Browns in the first rouind draft either Gallery, Taylor, Rivers or Big Ben. If we get one of those four, Bill’s a happy Browns Camper.