The Blog for the Sports Gamer

Per last week’s post, I really am considering caving and getting a PSP. Bill and I have had a few chats about this little handheld that puts the “power” of the PS2 in the palm of your hand. On one point, we agree: Do you really have to be able to game anywhere? Of course not. We’ve got our PCs. We’ve got our Xbox’s. That’s really plenty. But for me it’s not necessarily about adding the ability to game anywhere. It’s about whether or not I game at all. Right now, my home is not an environment fit for gaming. My Xbox hasn’t been fired up in months. The only hours available for gaming are from 8-10pm, and usually my wife’s watching TV at that point. If the show is right (24, Lost, NCIS, House, Eyes, etc.) I’m either watching with her or playing poker.

So the PSP has a few things going for it. One, I can play it sitting on the couch while my wife watches TV. I can game on my notoriously boring lunch breaks at work. I can rip a DVD to its memory stick and watch movies on it during roadtrips. I can store a decent mp3 playlist and some digital pics of my daughter (the latter, so I can show off my kid more regularly than I do). Bottom line, I’d be getting one with the goal in mind that I might actually start playing games again instead of hardly gaming at all. If a PSP is the tonic for my MIA gaming mojo, it’s probably worth the expense.

I checked out a friend of mine’s PSP last week and, let’s face it, they are cool little devices with a whole lot of functionality. Expect to the see the tweaker community go nuts over this thing. There’s even a guy who figured out how to make it interface with his media server to turn it into a kick ass universal remote control. I can’t afford the server he uses, but how cool is that? In terms of technology, this is really a first of its kind device. And I’m nothing, if not a whore for kick ass tech. Besides. I’ve got a tax return and a nice long flight to LA when E3 rolls around and I’ll need something to do, right?

If you haven’t noticed by the lack of posts from me, I’ve had the worst work-related 7 days I’ve ever had. It just wasn’t very good, and it ended today with a oh-so-rare Saturday work day. Not just a work day mind you, but a 10 hour one at that. Needless to say, it’s good to be home.

Thanks to XM Satellite Radio while at work, I could listen to the O’s-Toronto game and the NFL Draft and go back and forth…it almost made work…fun. Especially since the O’s won.

If you haven’t guessed, I’m not as anal as Bill and Todd as far as the draft goes. Then again when your team picks last, you don’t really care so much. As you know, when your team picks last, you’ve won the Super Bowl. Oops, did I say that?

Sooo, anyhoo….who’s the lucky SOB that has Brian Roberts on their fantasy team? 7 freakin home runs? Batting leadoff? It may be time to swap him out with Sammy Sosa, eh? Then again, Sammy was 6th today… Raffy sure is hitting like someone over 40, eh ? Tejada, Lopez and Roberts…damn..good luck.

Okay, my son is yelling at me to look at some John Deere tractor thingy…so time to go….

In my eyes, once you leave Michigan and if you come to Cleveland, that’s fine. If Edwards can produce then I’ll forgive him for attending scUM. I like the pick. I’ve seen Edwards play a lot and if he can concentrate on the bunny passes he likes to drop he can be a Pro Bowler. The Browns needs playmakers and that defines Edwards. Edwards, Bryant, Davis, Northcutt, Winslow. Not bad.

The safety from Oklahoma, Brodney Poole, I know nothing about. I’ll take Phil Savage, Browns GM, word when he says he’s the best safety in the draft. It’s not like we can’t use another good player in the secondary.

Aaron Rodgers…ouch.

And with the 10th pick overall the Lions select USC’s Mike Williams… this was shocking to me. One, because I figured Minnesota would take him ahead of them. Two because the Lions, just this week, signed WR Kevin Johnson to fill the slot. And three, every Detroit and national media outlet had them pegged as taking that linebacker, Johnson.

Right now, I’m not against the pick at all. Williams is a heck of an athlete, even though he missed a year due to last year’s draft/age limit SNAFU. And hell, if Mel Kiper has him ahead of Braylon Edwards, you can’t ignore that. I’m just trying to figure out what their gameplan is, given that they have All-Pro caliber receivers already in Charles Rogers (whom they insist is healthy) and Roy Williams (coming off an ankle injury). So, what’s the possibilities?

- Do they plan to trade one of their existing receivers to get more draft picks?
- Are either Rogers or Williams not recovering as well from injuries as the franchise has been insisting for months?
- Do they just want to have the best top 3 receiving tandem in the NFL. (If they can keep them together and they all pan out, the *potential* is there for this to be the best group of receivers in the history of the league.

I just don’t know. Certainly you have to believe that -without a glaring hole to fill- they went with the best athlete they felt was available. And as good as I think Roy Williams and Rogers could be if they get healthy, this guy could be better than either of ‘em. Certainly there’s an argument to be had that if you’ve got a QB (Harrington) that you think can play, but maybe not carry a team, then having 3 all-pro potential receiving targets will get the absolute best out of him. The only thing I know for sure is that I’m very interested to see where they go from here. And why exactly did Minnesota pass on this guy? (If it’s just about foot speed, that seems silly to me.)

Today is a National Holiday for football fans: DRAFT DAY!

There will be lots to talk about after day one and I’ll post some thoughts later tonight. I’m hearing all kinds of crazy shit right now like Cleveland might take DeMarcus Ware at #3. Yeow.

Today is also the Ohio State Spring Game - and it’s SNOWING in Columbus! Snowing! !@#$

We top today’s sports off with the running of the Lexington Stakes on ESPN2. All in all, not a bad day or TV on a snowy day in late April.

I simply don’t know what to make of all this NCAA 2006 info (see Bill’s posts below). There’s some stuff that sounds cool (better physics). Some stuff that sounds like 100% B.S. (”revolutionary” graphic upgrades, indeed). And a lot of stuff that reinforces my belief that what I want from a game is changing away from what the mainstream gamer wants (more analog stick moves that I probably won’t use).

Take the recruiting stuff, for instance. Right now it does nothing for me. Nothing. There was a time where I’d have died for stuff like more “realistic” in-season recruiting and verbal vs. written commitments. Even though the gameplay sucked I played a ton of NCAA Basketball from GT Interactive(?) back in the 90s, just because you could do a makeshift dynasty and recruit players. I railed against the makers of NHL for years because they were slow to adopt any sort of franchise mode. But these days, all this focus on adding more, more and more off-the-field features does less and less for me.

I spent more time dealing with recruiting in ESPN College Hoops than I did playing games on the court. Hell, it wasn’t even the bugs that finally knocked me off playing the game, it was the recruiting. How much fun is it to spend twenty minutes just making sure emails go out to each player you’ve targeted every bloody week just to make sure their interest in your program doesn’t drop? Yeah, you could turn on assisted recruiting but the only thing that would ensure is that your assistant coaches would target every player you don’t want and don’t need.

Don’t get me wrong. I still want dynasty modes. I want to take a small school and recruit ‘em up. I want to snake a 5-star running back from Columbus out from under the jaws of Ohio State and bring him to the land of maize and blue. I want a tougher recruiting model (it’s just too easy in NCAA; always has been). I just don’t want to spend as much time doing that as I do actually playing the damn game. And lately, the more they increase the “features” of recruiting and free agency in these games, the less I actually play them. I know it’s not as authentic, but I’m perfectly happy to have no in-season recruiting whatsoever. Let me play my season, and when it’s done I’ll worry about who I need to replace and whether or not I have as strong a “pipeline” in Terre Haute as I do in Grand Rapids.

The most disturbing thing about this is what it says about me. Seven years ago I would’ve gotten all hot and bothered over these new features. Now I sound like some of the senior members of my family who say things like, “What the hell do you need a DVD player and TiVo for? Yer damn VHS player does the same thing.” It’s more than a little scary. Maybe I should induce the adult geek equivalent of a mid-life crisis and buy a PSP?

This is yanked from the EA Website so you aren’t going to get any tough Mike Wallace questions here. Still, info is info, I guess.

EA SPORTS: Describe the journey the individual player takes on his Race for the Heisman.

(Producer)Tom Vuong: The Race for the Heisman is the ultimate single-player experience where you play as a student athlete at a major Division 1-A program. Your goal is to win the most prestigious award in all of sports — the Heisman Trophy. You start out by trying to impress college scouts in order to earn a scholarship to play for a top football program

Once on campus, you can check out your dorm room, complete with a bed and a computer. During the week, you can go to practice, check out your stats, and even read your school’s newspaper. Once gameday arrives, it’s your time to shine. Perform well and you will increase your skill level as well as your popularity on campus. As the fan mail starts rolling in, so will the accolades and awards. If you continue to pile up the stats and the wins for your program, you may find yourself sitting pretty in New York hearing your name called as the next Heisman Trophy Winner.

Make a quick impact and you have a tough decision of declaring early for the pro draft (to be exported into Madden NFL 06) or coming back for your senior season. Once your playing career is over, you can even continue to leave your mark as a college football coach.

EA SPORTS: Will you need to be at a big school in order to win the Heisman, as is typical in real life?

Tom Vuong: No, you will not need to be at a big school, but performing in big games helps. Of course, it also helps to play for an elite program, but not a necessity as many players from smaller programs have won Heismans in the past.

Smartass Critic: Ok Tom has been caught in either a lie or it’s a case of being a tad ignorant. I don’t know the guy so I’ll say it’s just ignorance. First off, what is the difference between a big school and an elite program? Aren’t those considered, in football circles, to mean the same thing? And let’s see just how “many” players have won the Heisman from smaller programs.

Here, look for yourself.

Ty Detmer? Andre Ware? Flutie? Staubach? Fact is, the VAST majority of Heisman winners played for elite schools and schools that have very strong football programs. Even when a 2nd tier school has a Heisman winner that team had a GREAT season (Ware, Sanders, Detmer). It’s rare. It’s not “many.”

EA SPORTS: How does the focus on the individual player affect Dynasty Mode — or does it? How do you continue a career with your team after you graduate?

Tom Vuong: Race for the Heisman is its own mode (separate from Dynasty) based around the player. However, after finishing college as a player (as mentioned above), you can choose to continue on as coach in Dynasty Mode. Now you have the opportunity of engrossing yourself in the the many aspects of coaching, from training to recruiting.

EA SPORTS: What’s different about recruiting?

Tom Vuong: For NCAA Football 06, we really focused on the most popular aspect of Dynasty Mode, which is recruiting. Now, in addition to the current off-season recruiting, users will be able to recruit high school prospects during the regular football season as well. We really wanted to introduce the concept of targeting prospects in the summer, inviting them to campus for official visits in the fall, and then getting verbal commitments based on how well their visits went.

Smartass Critic: I like how this sounds quit a bit.

We now also have soft verbals, which are prospects who have committed to your school, but are still looking at other schools. So as a coach, you will have to continue to pursue these guys until you’re sure they are committed to your program. So the in-season recruiting experience, although familiar, is a totally new game-within-a-game for our dedicated fans. All of this is packaged neatly in our Rivals.com Recruiting feature, which will bring you news and prospect interest movements in the form of headlines of the popular online recruiting service.

Smartass Critic: Really like that, too.

For off-season recruiting, we’ve totally revamped the user experience as well. We’ve added your school’s academic reputation as a factor in dynasty and during recruiting. Now prospects will look at your school based on your academic prestige in terms of program and in terms of graduating players. The flipside of that is that recruiting players on talent alone may affect your school’s academic prestige.

Smartass Critic: Not sure if this is a good idea because you are going to REALLY piss off a lot of people if their school is listed as Dumb Ass University. EA totally screwed up last year’s Discipline system so this scares me.

Another great addition is the ability to build pipelines when recruiting. Now having success in a particular area will lead to better success recruiting that area in the future. With these elements, coupled with players that do not qualify based on grades, users will have to totally change up their strategy when recruiting.

Smartass Critic: Awesome — and highly realistic.

EA SPORTS: What are the all-new Breakaway Controls?

Tom Vuong: This year, we’re introducing the concept of Impact Players, which are players on your team that can break a game wide open. Along with that, we are introducing Breakaway Controls. This is basically a set of simple to use moves on the Right Analog Stick that is available to everyone, but Impact Players can really take advantage of this.

On offense, users can now pull off jukes with ease including the awesome “back juke,” where you can leave defenders grasping air. You can also celebrate at anytime, anywhere when carrying the ball. Watch out, though, as showboating will increase your chances of fumbling the football if hit.

Smartass Critic: Blech. Why is showboating so important? Why not if you shopwboat on the field it’s a 15 yard taunting flag? 2X blech.

On defense, Breakaway Controls include the Impact Stick, which allows for defensive linemen moves as well as laying the big hit. Timing is the key here as you can really put a move on an offensive lineman or knock the ball loose with a crushing hit. The bottom line is that users can now control their players like never before.

EA SPORTS: How have you improved the graphics and physics engines?

Tom Vuong: The look and presentation of the game has undergone a major overhaul for the 06 product. We’ve gone the extra mile this year in maximizing the power of the PlayStation2 and Xbox. You’ll notice immediately upon starting the game that the stadiums have received a major facelift. Player models and environmental lighting have improved dramatically. We even improved the grass textures, making the game look as realistic as ever.

Smartass Critic: The videos say otherwise. We’ll see at E3.

We also modeled our three-man commentary crew of Brad Nessler, Kirk Herbstreit, and Lee Corso and put them into our pre-game show for the first time ever. You’ll see Lee Corso with his famous tradition of putting on the mascot head when he makes his prediction. To top it all off, we’ve added broadcast-quality in-game overlays and cameras. All this adds up to a great visual experience and the best looking NCAA Football game to date.

On the physics and gameplay side, we’ve reworked our ball physics to be more realistic on passes and bounces. We also worked extensively on blocking ,as you’ll now see offensive linemen aggressively opening up holes in the running game and creating lanes in the passing game. This year, we’ve also added the ability for users to break tackles by jamming on the corresponding button. So if you have a impact power back, you can pound the ball in there and drag defenders for that extra yardage.

Smartass Critic: The Meat.

On the defensive side, we’ve added gang tackling to help counter this. Of course, impact defenders will have an advantage wrapping up the ballcarrier and jarring the ball loose in crucial situations.

Smartass Critic: WR drops are not mentioned, which scares me. The new stuff all sounds good on paper, though. Please, please, at least make Discipline optional.

EA SPORTS: Do things like the Stadium Pulse still exist?

Tom Vuong: The Stadium Pulse was part of our Home Field Advantage feature which was very well received by the NCAA Football community. We’ve been able to tune this, along with the Dynamic Player Ratings feature (which allows for player ratings to fluctuate throughout the course of a game), to make it much more realistic. In fact this works seamlessly with our new Impact Players feature for 06. Impact Players can be “In the Zone” based on the current game situation and their performance. An Impact Player who’s In the Zone can pull off moves others can’t and can change the momentum of the game on his own.

Smartass Critic: Wow, it was? People liked the stadium shake that caused the Xbox slowdown?

EA SPORTS: What makes this game better than past versions of NCAA Football?

Tom Vuong: For all the reasons mentioned above, we believe NCAA Football 06 is not only better than any previous versions of NCAA Football, but better than any other football game out there, period. It’s got something for everybody. If you’re a casual fan, we have a fun-to-play football game. Also the Spring Drills feature provides that quick fix when you want to get in and out quickly.

Smartass Critic: Well, Kreskin, the only football out there, thanks to the NFL and your company, is Madden. Kinda lowers that bar, eh?

If you’re more of a diehard football fan, we’ve gone even deeper in our Dynasty Mode with Rivals.com Recruiting and the emphasis on academics. If you’re into the single-player experience, we’re introducing the Race for the Heisman mode where you try to win the coveted Heisman Trophy as a player. If you like the multi-player aspect, we have a great head-to-head game filled with strategy and taunts. Also, our Play Online feature will keep fans who are itching for competition happy throughout the season. Overall, NCAA Football 06 is the complete package.

EA SPORTS: Anything else you want to add about the game?

Tom Vuong: I’ve been here since NCAA Football 2000 and this is the biggest development team we’ve ever had on this product. This has allowed us to add the big features stated above, but also many of the little things that won’t be uncovered until our fans actually play the game. We have a great team (programming, art, production, marketing, and QA) who truly care about creating the best possible game and it shows. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge their efforts and thank them for their hard work.

Smartass Critic: OK. I’m not going to be judgmental, or at least try not to be until NCAA 2006 is in my hands. But we’ve all heard this song and dance before and not just from EA but from every game publisher. After the utter crap that was NCAA 2005, NCAA 2006 has a lot to prove. Just make the game fun again, EA. Just make the damn thing playable.

Pretty fun read at SI. Ahhh poor Trev.

I knew this would happen. You drop $150 to watch a team and then they fail to get one run in 18 innings. Bastards. Of course, last I went to umpiring school, if someone’s foot gets tagged while it’s on home plate he would be safe (ie glove on top of foot, not foot on top of glove), but apparently the asstastic crew for the O’s-Red Sox disagrees with that.

Gah!

In case you missed it, OS has an NCAA 2006 mini preview with some features, screens, and a movie clip (beware the OS pop ups, btw.) I’m ripping the features but make sure to head over and view the pics and the clip.

Some thoughts:

KEY FEATURES

Take Home the Heisman Trophy: Begin your career as a prep star in search of scholarship offers and work your way to becoming one of the nation’s top collegiate players. Continue your post-college career in Madden NFL 06 or coach a Division 1-A program.

OK. More info is needed here but this could be kinda cool if done right.

Year-Round Recruiting: Issue official on-campus visits all season long in Dynasty Mode as you track prospect interest via Rivals.com.

An updated recruiting system is not a bad idea, either. This is long overdue, but hey…
I do hope they make it more difficult to recruit.

Impact Players: Game-changing performers single-handedly break games wide open with highlight reel moves and special animations.

I have no idea what this means. This is a feature because…

Breakaway Control: New analog controls allow you to pull off special moves and animations like ankle-snapping jukes and QB sidesteps as you break tackles on the way to the end zone.

Scary. Could be good–could be completely silly. If I can take the 3rd string RB from Morgan State and do special “ankle snapping” jukes then we have a problem. Even if I take Ted Ginn and do these special moves — I better not be able to make a player miss 100% of the time. We’ll see.

Totally Redesigned Graphics: From turf texture to sky color, every detail has been redesigned, including innovative stadium lighting and revolutionary player models

This is a lie. Take a look at those pics and then take a look at pics from NCAA 2005 and you tell ME why these are “revolutionary.” Better yet take a look at the movie. Slightly evolutionary? Maaaaybe you can get away with saying that. Revolutionary? I’m not a moron. I can see. I don’t expect or for that matter really care all that much if NCAA 2006 looks much different than last year. Last year looked OK. Not great, but OK. So I really don’t care; I do care when a company tries to play me for an idiot. Maybe the animation is out of this world (I did see gang tackling in the clip, so that’s a plus) but when I think revolutionary I think eye popping and nothing at all like the old game. This is clearly a line of horseshit.

New Dynamic Analysis: Watch Brad Nessler, Kirk Herbstreit, and Lee Corso provide new in-studio commentary and analysis on each team’s impact players prior to kickoff.

Useless. Fucking. Feature. This is my call. I could be wrong — I’m wrong all the time. But this is my prediction for the, “New Dynamic Analysis” based solely on EA’s description. I bet a dollar to a dime we skip this after a few games. Maybe we wait to see which head Corso puts on. Ya know what a bad PR fact sheet is? It’s when you call a feature something and then you don’t give a hint as to why. Why is this called Dynamic? Does it change in some way? What’s wrong with New Analysis or New Studio Analysis? Isn’t that what this really is? Dynamic?

Dynamic: characterized by action or forcefulness or force of personality. or: expressing action rather than a state of being; used of verbs (e.g. `to run’) and participial adjectives (e.g. `running’ in `running water’)

Dynamic Analysis…man I am in the wrong writing market.

All-New Mini-Games: Hone your skills in four new mini-games: Pass Skeleton, Oklahoma Drill, Option Attack, and Rushing Attack.

Eh.

I see nothing mentioned here about gameplay improvements or improvements with NCAA’s dumb as a pine tree Discipline system. I dunno if this is the full blown fact sheet or not (I hope not) but I’d like to hear an EA fella talk about why this game has improved outside of new shit like Dynamic Analysis.

Yes, yes, I’m being harsh. I know this. But EA pissed me off so much last year by shoving out NCAA 2005 to an unsuspecting public that I’m just trying to keep my guard up. I want this game to be great but a lot of stuff needs fixing.

http://images.ea.com/sports/games/06/madden/nextgen/ngday4.jpg

Nice pic and all, and the video quality looks nice but notice the pipe cleaners that mammoth lineman John Runyan has on him. Does that look right to you guys? Those player models don’t look all that stunning to be honest about it. Now granted, we’re still a long way away before this thing is final and who knows how well it will look in motion (which is really the most important thing) but there is definitely still work to be done on those models.

Sports Int. sent over a beta of Eastside Hockey Manager 2005. I’m going to do a brief write up for GameSpy next week. A lot of you didn’t play last year’s game which is a real shame. This is, for all intents and purposes, a hockey version of Championship Manager. I just spent the last two hours with the Columbus Blue Jackets going through Traning Camp - searching for players, doing some scouting, assigning scouts, reading over scrimmage reports, waiting for Nash to get back from International play, deciding on what in the hell to do with the headcase Svitov, and getting ready for the first exhibition against Buffalo. Two hours of just “stuff” and didn’t even play a game. There’s a lotta stuff to sort through but the GUI is pretty darn clean.

The game has a ton of leagues, real teams, players — even real minor league teams and their correct affiliates. (Syarcuse is the Columbus ML affiliate for instance.) Todd would lose himself inside this game, as big a hockey nut as he is. With the hockey negotiations being what they are — hockey fans should check this out just to get a little fix.

Okay, so it’s been a week w/o updates from me. I’m sure you all lived… somehow.

Indeed these are interesting times in the land of Todd. My wife’s doctor has informed her that our baby (not due till May 9th) is officially an “any day now” proposition. I promptly had a nervous breakdown and had to be put in a padded room for a while. I don’t know why the prospect of a second kid scares me so much, given how much I cherish our 16 month old daughter, but despite my confidence in all thing paternal, the experience seems even more terrifying this time around. How do I split my attention between the two of them? How do we afford daycare for two of them? What are the odds that with two kids at least one of them won’t end up a carnie? (Apologies to the huge carnie demographic of this blog.) To me, these are scary propositions. Daycare in particular. But on to other things.

Hopefully everyone’s jazzed (or at least intrigued) about Bill’s “big news.” I really hope we (Que) do the book, but there’s more hand-wringing and hoops to jump through before it’s a go. (I do think it will be.) Personally, I’m bored to death with every last gaming book on the market being a pure strategy guide and I think a “daily reader” type of book with loads of content dedicated to the pure gaming enthusiast (ie - the adult, long-time gamer) can find its niche and be pretty successful. (If you agree, hit the comments section and let us know!)

If nothing else, I’m happy because this title is getting me out to E3 for the first time since 1999. While it can be fun, the “media” seems to like billing this thing as Mecca for gaming. In truth, E3 is truly the king of dog and pony shows. There is substance to be had, but wading through the pomp to find it is no small task. In addition to getting a little work down, I’m just looking forward to roaming the show floor, seeing what all the developers have in store for us, and gauge just how much of my hearing I can expect to lose when passing by the Capcom booth. I will say if that should some ridiculously underdressed booth babe try to slap an ad sticker on my back (which has happened at all three of the events I attended)… well, I’ll probably just take it off later, but I’ll be really, really annoyed. (Seriously, at what point do exhibitors decide that you’ll agree to be a walking billboard just because some chick with a nice rack put a sticker on you?)

In other news. The Pistons have won 11 straight with a game to go before the playoffs. Dark Milicic even got his first start last night and posted 17 points on 7 of 11 shooting (with three blocks). Even if he makes the roster, I’m sure he’ll be back on the bench for the playoffs, but if he can get some minutes in these last two games and play well it’ll at least offer some hope for him next year. We really don’t know what this kid is capable of yet and year three may be make or break for him in Detroit.

The Tigers pretty much endured a worst-case scenario for the first two weeks of the season. They lost Ordonez for at least a couple months after finding out he needed hernia surgery (his knee is fine). The team dropped two of three to Cleveland. And followed that up by misfiring three straight nights to Minnesota. I’m encouraged in that nearly all of the losses were tight games that were blown in the latter innings (I refuse to believe Urbina and Percival will continue to yuck it up in tight games). And, as expected, the hitting has really been solid. Not a lot of home runs, but a lot of hits and plenty of scoring. The starting pitching remains the real concern. Bonderman recovered nicely from his poor second start of the season and is now 2-1 and looking good very sharp. But everyone one of the starters has been either very solid or just awful in their limited number of starts. If they don’t find some consistency, the Kitties aren’t going to place above third in the division. Still, at least they’re finally getting fun to watch. The hitting is there, and there’s been a lot of great defensive play. Rookie Nook Logan had to phenomenal homerun stealing catches in center field against Baltimore a couple nights ago. (FYI - The broadcast quality of MLB.tv does indeed blow chunks. Better than nothing, though.)

I was catching up on reading Bill Harris’ Dubious Quality blog this morning when I came across this link to a video of a local Indiana newscast. I hate to laugh at this poor kid, I really do, but this sportscast is so painful to watch that I just had to share. I’m not one to point a finger at another man’s complete and total collapse — I even felt bad for Star Wars kid. But this is really like driving by a huge car crash — you just have to slow down and look at it.

He passes it to “the guy” and Boom goes the Dynamite!

Thanks to Craig for the reminder about this Madden Next Gen page and make sure to watch the first hour of the draft — hopefully the 60 second EA ad will show more than those trailers on the website. Still…those cropped screenshots…holy shit.