The Blog for the Sports Gamer

Lots to talk about today. First off, the sign ups for the Sports Gamer’s Blog ESPN 2K5 College Hoops Tourney is still going on. We have 39 teams taken thus far. Send us an email to get your spot reserved.

These teams are taken:

Ohio State

Maryland

Kansas

NC State

Syracuse

UConn

Iowa

Illinois State

Auburn

Illinois-Chicago

Florida

Michigan

Providence

Miami FLA

Memphis

Indiana

Pitt

Illinois

North Carolina

Arkansas

Wisconsin

Florida State

Marquette

Penn State

Wake Forest

San Diego State

Notre Dame

Oklahoma State

Kentucky

UMass

Arizona

GA Tech

LSU

Texas

Duke

Michigan State

Kent State

New Mexico

Purdue

***

Well, nothing cures your college football team’s ills more than playing Indiana. Ohio State scored 30 points and rushed for 250 yards with Freshman RB Tony Pittman leading the way. Sr. Captain and marginally talented RB Lydell Ross is under suspenion for–seriously–using counterfeit tokens at a strip joint.

We also saw RS Soph QB Troy Smith for the first time and he played very well. Again–it was Indiana. So we’ll see how it goes the rest of the way. If Ohio State had lost on Homecoming to the Hooisers, they may have burned down the city. After this win we look like we may actually get into the Sun Bowl! Woo Hoo! (sigh..)

***

No one gave the Browns a chance yesterday against the Eagles–including many Browns fans. If you watched that game, however, you saw a team turn a corner. There are no moral victories in the NFL–a loss is a loss, but what I saw from the Browns was shocking to the system. It was a flashback to the mid 80s with Mack and Byner. Cleveland ran all over thge Eagle’s defense and Jeff Garcia is showing that he’s much more comfy in this new offense now compared to the first few weeks. Garcia is the leader that the Browns have needed at QB since they’re return.

Garcia moved the ball in the air for 230 yards–with nothing but backup WRs and TEs. Quincy Morgan was traded, speedball Andre Davis was out with a toe injury, and even backup Andre King went out in the 1st quarter. That left slot man Northcutt, practice squad player Frisman Jackson, and newly acquired WR Antonio Bryant as the receivers. and Aaron Shea and Steve Heiden as the TEs–and yet the Browns took the Eagles to overtime, losing on a 50 yard FG 34-31.

The Browns are close. They aren’t there yet and they’ll struggle for a playoff spot this year. Good teams WIN those games..and the Browns still can’t seem to get over that hump. I’m hopeful for a 9-7 season and maybe a wild card spot if things break their way. But this team is not a bottom feeder of the league, as many predicted they would be. There are a few pieces to the Browns puzzle that are still missing. They need better safety play, another horse on the OLine and a serious pass rush threat at DE to seriously contend. But it’s a lot closer than we thought.

***

Ron Zook was fired at Florida today. Anyone else think Spurrier comes back?

***

With Ohio State out of the picture for a National Title I am rooting HARD for USC.

And for Oklahoma.

And for Miami.

And Wisconsin.

And Auburn.

Come on boys! Run the table! I want BCS CHAOS! Please keep exposing this DUMB ASS system for what it is. Keep it up!

***

Lastly, I am totally loving the baseball playoffs. I’ve watched every pitch of every game on FOX even though listening to McCarver is terribly difficult to do. I still think this series goes 7 games. I mean come on…it’s the Red Sox. It has to go 7, right?

Xbox live has been down since at least 1 PM EDT. A visit to the Xbox Live website says…

”

Xbox Live is currently unavailable. The service will be available shortly.

We appreciate your patience.”

Well we know that shortly is more than 4 1/2 hours and counting…

UPDATE: Microsoft fears this blog because as soon as I wrote that, it’s now online. Oops.

Hey, I just finished watching SNL on the Tivo. Looks like Ashlee is a total fraud, lip syncing something awful. During the second song, they are playing that “Pieces of Me” song again, and at the end she blames it on the band. Of course, unless the band can sing as her, the excuse is very George Bush like.

Oh and luckily I have found the links for your non-tivo viewing pleasure. First, here’s how it happened. And then here’s her explanation. Funny stuff. Funniest stuff I’ve seen on SNL all year!

Anyone interested in Madden 2005 Xbox and NCAA 2005 Xbox? I’m selling both for $65 total, with free USPS Priority shipping. I accept paypal. Email me if you’re interested.

Well, what a game 1. It sure had something for everything — home runs that hit foul poles, a lovely back to back error run by Manny, and of course a Red Sox win. And they won just in time for SNL’s update. lol.

Not bad! Oh yeah, and we got to see Ben Affleck’s girlfriend du jour — Jennifer Garner. Damn him!

Well I just finished watching Farhenheit 9/11. Wow, Bush is an idiot? I didn’t know that. Heh Heh.

I’m now putting the World Series on. I just saw what was a 7-2 lead for the Red Sox become a 7-7 game. That’s the Red Sox everyone knows and loves! I hope the person that paid $7000 for one ticket is enjoying the game!

I see McCarver continues to enjoy the sound of his own voice, because I sure as crap don’t.

Earlier today, I tried a game of Madden online. I played against a guy playing as the Falcons. I think he blitzed 99% of the time. I could never get out, I had to pass almost immediately. I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t know if the guy was that good, or if you can exploit an all out blitz. Thoughts?

If you live in the Northeast and are looking for a high speed internet provider, may I recommend Verizon DSL? I was never a big DSL fan before, my cable internet was fine — however Verizon promised me faster uploads and this thing called MSN Premium.

MSN Premium isn’t bad — you get McAfee VirusScan free and McAfee Personal Firewall, craploads of hotmail or MSN accounts, and this one minor thing: MLB.TV. Free.

MLB.TV is fantastic. You can watch any game from the 2004 season you like….say, Game 5 of the ALCS. Over, and over, and over, again. Better yet, the commentators aren’t from Fox! Did I mention this is included in the $29.99 a month Verizon DSL fee? Awesome. Just wanted to let you know.

This is too sad. Take a look at http://boston.craigslist.org and click on ‘tickets’. Some people are giving themselves up sexually in order to get tickets for the World Series. There’s a post in there from someone who claims to be with MLB, and someone who will let you do his wife. Of course, I’m not sure what his wife might say about this. Let’s do the numbers:

High Priced Call Girl according to Boston Escorts website: $300/hour

Current price on stubhub.com for bleacher seat to game 1: $1800

I think I’d sell the tickets for cash myself, but I don’t have any, so what do I know.

In other non-sex, non-baseball news, Tapwave announced a Zodiac version of Madden 2005. Zodiac is the coolest gaming PDA out there (I can vouch, I have it). The Zodiac version of Madden comes out next month and sports:

The Tapwave Zodiac version of Madden will feature:

The Real NFL™—all of the NFL teams, new team logos, and player rosters completely updated for the 2004-2005 season.

Best of Class Graphics and Animations—game play that comes alive on the Zodiac’s large 480 x 320 (half VGA) screen.

Incredible Flexibility of Game Play Options—change stadium location, weather, allow player injuries, allow players to fatigue, change passing and catching options, control the frequency at which penalties are called and more!

Playoffs, Regular Season, and Exhibition game modes—all tracked with updated game stats

Create a Team—the ability to create the team of your dreams though trades, or choose from an extensive pool of free agents.

Actual Voice Recordings—hear the real John Madden and Al Michaels commentary.

The Latest Music—includes the new lead song for Madden 2005.

A Jam-Packed Playbook—call all the shots with over 200 authentic offensive and defensive plays. MDM is also planning to release a Madden update for Zodiac later this year.

As Bill so kindly pointed out, I’m now 0-4 in the league. I was playing a guy from Operation Sports, and my first play from scrimmage, a flea flicker, went for a TD. I thought I was going to do well. But I didn’t. Gah.

Hope you saw Letterman last night, Schillings Top 10 list was pretty funny. Missed it? Check it out here.

As Bill mentioned, GameSpot now has their own sports section. I am so not a huge fan of those Top 10 things as it reminds me of GA-Sports and the weird bozo crap they did. What would be on my list of a perfect sports game?

* Leagues that actually resemble the professional league. Ie - divisions, wild cards, etc.

* QBs that don’t drop like a fly in the middle of a pass

* The ability to have a mutual quit in a game that won’t count as a charge to your ‘disconnect’ ratio.

* Play by play that actually makes sense and is coherent.

* Play by play without John Madden

* The first baseball game to incorporate Tim McCarvers classic ‘a walk is like giving up a home run’ quote will be awesome.

* High Heat 2001 with online leagues.

I saw this at the Elder Gamer’s blog (see side panel). GameSpot has listed off the ten things it (or more specifically a dude named Brian Ekberg) feels should change in today’s sports games.

The article starts off saying, “We all know sports games aren’t perfect.” I would argue that you would never know this if you read a lot of sports game reviews. My list would be a lot different than this, but hey…that’s why we all like lists, right?

Sorry for the lack of blogging yesterday. My little girl turned four and you people just aren’t that important to me to draw me away from playing dress up. Actually, we went to Chuck E Cheese–man I haven’t been there in years. It seemed so much bigger when I was a kid…Anyway–

If you love strategy games and love history then you have most likely already bought Rome: Total War. If not, you need to do so ASAP. This truly is a remarkable game. This entire series is special. Starting with Shogun and then the Medieval Toal War game and its Viking Invasion expansion, this is turning out to be one of the best strategy series of all time. Between this, Kohan 2, Dawn of War and Chaos League…man it’s tough to find time to play sports games.

***

But I did manage to go 2-2 last night in the ESPN Football league after beating the Saints 27-7. Dan and his Pats have sunk to 0-4. Come on Dan! Get a W! The league is starting to iron out some of the problems we had earlier with people dropping out and I think we have a pretty steady group now. Running this league has turned out to be a lot more challenging than I ever expected. It’s fun, though.

***

We now have 32 teams for the ESPN College Hoops Tourney. If you want in, send us an email. Scroll down or check the archive to see the list of teams that are taken. Here we are setting up this big tourney before the game is released–now watch the game be a pile of shit. heh

***

Lastly, a bit of pseudo politics. We do newspapers give political endorsements? I have never understood this. The Boston Herald today “endorsed” Bush. Bush’s hometown newspaper has endorsed Kerry.

Why?

Doesn’t that pretty much make the papers in question (i.e. ALL OF THEM) tools for their endorsed candidate? Isn’t that really missing the point of what the newspapers and the media should be all about? What is even more sad is that people are actually waiting for their paper to give their official endorsement. Again–WHY!? What ever happened to oh..I dunno..thinking for yourself? Just chalk up yet one more thing about this whole process that I simply do not understand.

Sorry, I just wanted to show the same sort of sportsmanship that A-Hole did.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. So glad they got A-Rod. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.

Well, here we are, Game 7 again. The game so big that CBS just decided to air reruns instead of a new King of Queens, making all TiVo users pissed because next week’s episode will look like this week’s episode and therefore Tivo’s 28 day rule will annoy everyone.

Honestly I’m so tired from watching the games, I don’t know what I’ll do tonight. Watch it of course..but still, gah, this game can’t go until 2 am, can it? That Steinbrenner/Torre VISA Check Card commercial is pretty darn funny though.

EDIT: (Added) Oh I almost forgot, how can USA Today talk about how great Tim McCarver is? Last night this idiot said in the 9th inning that a walk was just (almost) like giving up a home run. Except the guy on first doesn’t score a run, last I checked, so I’m not really sure WTF he was thinking. I think he really enjoys hearing his own voice over and over again. This made me so mad, I just had to add it to the blog after I posted this article.

I did have a great meeting today. I met with Senator Joe Biden (not one on one, but with 50 other people). What a great speaker. He spoke about how he’s probably the one Democrat that has spent the most time with the President givne that Sen. Biden is a foreign relations senate committee. He didn’t call the President stupid, actually said he was a smart man, albeit one with a myopic vision that doesn’t allow contrary opinions. It was a very interesting speech. I can tell you, I’d vote for him if he were to run. He seems sane, to the point, and a uniter not a divider.

Back to sports news, I cannot believe the sign up’s we’re getting for a game we havent started yet. This College Hoops tournament should be pretty good!

Okay, go watch the game, cheer, cry, etc. Enjoy!

Okay, regardless of how this game ends, let the record show that A-Rod pulled the worst unsportsman like play since Diego Maradona scored on a handball. If that’s not dirty, I don’t know what is.

And hey, how about those classy Yankees fans. Give it up for ‘em!

UPDATE: Game over. Could this be any more nerve racking?

If you missed Jon Stewart on Crossfire, click here. Definitely worth watching, if not to see Jon call Tucker a dick, then for many, many other reasons.

Oopsie, look like somebody’s got some work to do if they want to win the election, and this time, it’s not Kerry. More and more battleground states are turning blue. Oops. And this is from the Wall Street Journal mind you, not really the bastion of the Democratic Party.

That being said, let me reiterate: Polls mean absolutely nothing. How do you reconcile a “Kerry, Bush in dead heat” in one poll to a USA Today Poll that says “Bush up by 8 points” to another one that says “Kerry kicks Bush Butt?” You don’t. I don’t care what you say, and I’m sure statisticians will take me to task on this, but extrapolating 990 registered voters across the US in a race this tight to a national poll number means nothing. Remember, even with a poll of 1,000 people, a change of 10 people is 1%. So big deal. If the pollsters took a sample of say 10,000 or more, I may give it more credence, but 1,000 out of 200 million is not a good enough sample if you ask me. Especially when you get 49.623 to 48.234 or whatever.

Just vote in two weeks and there’s your freakin’ poll.