Category Archives: PlayStation

The Ultimate NCAA Sports Video Game Project

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It’s difficult to even know where to begin with this blog entry. Even though it’s many years in the making, it’s still difficult to put everything into words and try to lay the groundwork for an explanation. So this may seem long-winded and rambling but it’s the most important blog post I’ve ever written.

In late June I’m going to be walking away from social media and the Chicago White Sox. Yes, I know, I’ve said it before and did not follow through. This was a timing issue more than an issue of desire. I’ve been planning this out carefully, down to the last detail. And while I’ve been considering this move since at least 2011, the actual want to do this stretches back much further than that… 2001… 1997… As far as 1993.

I’ll begin with exactly what my plan is and why I want to do it. The plan part is easy, I want to play an entire college “dynasty,” or career, in the video game world. I want to play four seasons of college football, basketball and baseball. You may wonder what that has to do with the White Sox or social media, and I’ll get to that as I go on. The why, I can’t answer for sure. It may be a midlife crisis, it may be a longing for happier days, of which I’ve had many, back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It may be a lot of things combined.

As a lot of you know, EA Sports stopped making college sports games in the 2010s (and at least one college franchise in the 2000s) due to the athletes not receiving any kind of royalties due to their likenesses being used in the games. The last college football game hit the shelves in 2014, the last college basketball game in 2010 (both on the PlayStation 3) and the last college baseball game (of which there were only two) in 2007 (on the PlayStation 2). So it is here that I made my decision to play the entire Dynasty on the 2007 games for the PlayStation 2. NCAA Football 07, NCAA March Madness 07 and MVP NCAA Baseball 07.

Yes, they’re severely outdated (like 16 years outdated), but that means less than one might imagine since updated rosters are available not only for download but on memory cards that can be purchased from eBay or other online stores. So while the graphics will be extremely dated, the experience won’t be.

Now, I want to take a step back in time and explain how I got to this point.

I have a long experience as a sports video gamer. One of the absolute highlights of this came back in 1993, when my friend Calvin and I spent a weekend playing Baseball Stars on the NES.

Baseball Stars was the first video game to include a fully programmable option, you could create your own teams and your own leagues, even with the ability to make players male or female. This was unheard of at the time, and that game was, and still is, one of my all time favorites. Calvin and I had what might be considered a fantasy draft, selecting players for our teams, as well as one minor league team each. We then created ourselves and our entire teams and proceeded to play an entire season.

The idea of “creating” yourself in a game stuck with me. My next favorite sports game (chronologically) was Tecmo Super Bowl. This was the first sports game to feature not only real teams but real players, but the “creation” option hadn’t reached it’s point in time yet. At this point, my senior year in high school, my friend Joe Nunez and I played a complete season, just “pretending” we were the players in the game, as Joe played as the Cleveland Browns and I played as the New Orleans Saints. But I wanted to “be” me.

In the summer of 1995, I bought a copy of an old NES game called John Elway’s Quarterback. This game had neither real players or real teams, just a bunch of bland players and city names instead of teams. It’s at this point I began the “dynasty” concept; I would play four “seasons” of football on John Elway’s Quarterback and then I would start playing Tecmo Super Bowl as an NFL draftee.

John Elway’s Quarterback doesn’t have any kind of stat saving ability, so while I played I kept a spiral notebook in my hand, and every time I completed a pass or ran for positive yardage, I would write that number down in parenthesis in my notebook, and if I threw an incomplete pass, I’d mark that with an “x.” Then I could figure out my completion percentage and total yards, as well as my touchdowns and interceptions. I used the “Los Angeles” team on the game as the UCLA Bruins, and when I finished, I was “drafted” by the Cleveland Browns. I proceeded to play seven seasons with the Browns on Tecmo Super Bowl, winning three Super Bowls before I quit. For whatever reason, I didn’t keep all of my stats like I wanted to.

The next time I decided to do a Dynasty was 1997, and it was much more advanced and involved than the 1995 version. This time, I was using the Super Nintendo and was playing both football and basketball at UCLA, using College Football USA 97 and NCAA Final Four Basketball and when I finished, I created myself on Madden 97. This was leaps and bounds ahead of what I had done before, with College Football USA 97 keeping all of the important stats I needed and, while NCAA Final Four Basketball didn’t really have a season option, I made the best of it and played what amounted to four full seasons. When this was finished, I was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers on Madden 97 but I never got around to actually playing for them.

This was not my least successful run, but it was definitely not my best. While College Football USA 97 was a million miles ahead of keeping my own stats with a “fake” team, there was still no option to create myself (however, on the Sega Genesis version of College Football USA 97, player creation IS an option) and the game play was so unbelievably slow, there was no real enjoyment to be had playing the game. But the fact that I was able to play football AND basketball was a revelation and really did change everything.

Fast forward to 2001. I had upgraded to a Sony PlayStation and the first thing I did was purchase NCAA GameBreaker 2000 and NCAA Final Four 2000, as well as NFL GameDay 2000. These games were all produced by Sony’s 989 Studios, and what a major improvement compared to my previous dynasty. I could play a full career at UCLA in both football and basketball with real stats, schedules, etc.

I enjoyed this immensely, and allowed myself to be drafted on NFL GameDay 2000 and ended up with the Carolina Panthers as a second round pick. I decided to run with it. A couple of games into my second season with the Panthers, it said my character had suffered a knee injury and I ended up being out the rest of the season. This was doubly bad when, at the end of the year, I was on the Panthers’ list of retired players. This bothered me more than it should have, and it would be nine years before I decided to try again.

I went on to pick up MLB 2000, and by 2004 I was completely off on college (and pro) football and basketball, and subsequently bought MLB 2004 and MLB 2005. Once the MLB The Show series started, I bought every game every year, including 2023. As I mentioned, during this time, EA Sports stopped producing college sports games, and at some point in the early 2010s I did buy NCAA Football 10 and NCAA Basketball 10 and eventually bought NCAA Football 13 and NCAA Football 14. They were never used and, in fact, NCAA Football 14 has never been out of the case. I just didn’t feel anything anymore for college sports, I was all in on baseball.

The problem with that is I have burned myself out beyond the ability to even function anymore. My life has been all baseball, all day, 365 days a year since 2004. I got on social media in 2005 (MySpace) and it’s been posting stories and lineups and transactions every day for 18 years. And I am ready for a change.

And I’m ready to take a step back in time to happier days and even though I know the experience won’t be the same, I still want to take the time and do this one more time, a little better than the last time I did it, because now it’s time to play college football, basketball and baseball. The complete experience.


I have procured brand new, unopened copies of NCAA Football 07, NCAA March Madness 07 and MVP NCAA Baseball 07 as well as updated rosters for each. I’m going to create myself and play all the way through, all three sports, until I “graduate.” After that, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I may “get drafted” on Madden 07 or I may buy the newest Madden (whenever that may be) for the PS5 or I may break down and play Road To The Show for the first time on MLB The Show. I’m not worried about it right now. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Right now, my focus is on unfocusing on the White Sox.

I’ve not yet decided if I’m going to do this dynasty with the WVU Mountaineers or the UCLA Bruins but at the moment it’s definitely 90% UCLA. That decision will come within the next month. The other decision I’m battling with is what to do with social media. I know the vast majority of people who are friends or followers on social media are there for my White Sox posts, so my plan at the moment is to just create new social media accounts strictly for college sports. I’ll keep my other accounts in case this idea falls flat or something happens to hasten my return to the way things are now. I’m hopeful that doesn’t happen and I hope my friends who enjoy college sports will follow me to my new platforms. That decision will also be made in the next month.

So, in closing, as I stand right now, I’m fully planning on making this project a reality. And while I’ll be using PS2 games, I have a backward compatible PS3 that does upgrade the graphics slightly. Once I’ve made the decision, I’ll be boxing up all of my White Sox memorabilia and putting it in storage. I figure this project should take roundabout two years to finish completely, at which a White Sox return is certainly possible.

Thank you for taking the time to read.

WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?

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As I enter the final quarter of 2022, my life hasn’t been this confusing in years.

This has been one of the worst years I’ve had to put it, between my personal life, my spiritual life, my health and my life as a sports fan. In fact, when you put it all together, 2022 may well rank as the worst year of my life. And I can’t wait for 2023 to get here and put an end to this.

To be fair, I need to put the blame where it belongs, right on top of my head. I’m the reason, my poor decisions have lead to everything that today makes my life very confusing and unhappy. But I’ll tackle all of that in my end-of-the-year blog entry. Right now, lets look at the road signs.

This Chicago White Sox season was miserable. A team that was supposed to contend for a World Series championship finished 81-81 and couldn’t even make the playoffs, let alone make an extended playoff run. And I watched all but maybe 5 of those games this season.

In the post season, since 2015, one of my favorite projects has been doing updates to the MLB The Show rosters to upload to the servers for others to use, then I can use it to build my own White Sox roster to play franchise mode on the game, putting myself in the general manager position and making the trades and signings I would make if I had the opportunity to do so.

But I don’t feel the excitement about that this offseason, due to the poor season overall as well as the potential loss of free agent first baseman Jose Abreu, who has been my favorite player on the team since he signed prior to the 2014 season. If he leaves, I am not even sure I want to continue following the White Sox, let alone putting months of work into updating rosters.

So, I look to what I used to do immediately after the season during the White Sox rebuild, I would completely immerse myself in the DC Universe, playing the Batman Arkham video game series, watching Justice League cartoons and The Dark Knight trilogy until the MLB postseason was over, also listening to old Superman radio shows and watching shows like Gotham and the old 1950s The Adventures Of Superman and the 1960s Batman series.

While I’ve started out by playing my way through Batman Arkham Asylum and I’m currently working on Batman Arkham City I don’t have the same excitement I used to have in the past.

Finally, a little project I’ve covered previously in my blog, is my NCAA project, which is basically me running through franchise mode on NCAA Football, NCAA Basketball and MVP NCAA Baseball on the PlayStation, and ultimately moving on to either Madden NFL or MLB The Show after finishing my “college eligibility.” I’ve done the project twice in the past (in 1995 using John Elway’s Quarterback and Tecmo Super Bowl on the NES and again in 2001 with NCAA GameBreaker and NFL GameDay on the PlayStation. At this point, I have everything I need to do the best job I’ve ever done but like everything else, I lack the motivation and desire to do it.

I should say I don’t lack the desire or motivation, because that’s not entirely accurate. I think I’m in the middle of a deep depression based on everything that has happened in 2022 and I’m just waiting for the next “bad thing” to happen. Basically, I’m dealing with a form of mental block.

I have decided, after talking to a number of people, that I’m going to basically take the month of October off before making a decision. I’ll continue playing Arkham City and follow it up with Arkham Origins and at the end of the month, I will make a decision. We’ll see how that works.

In a perfect world, I’d take this month off and focus 100% on the DC Universe and in November, when free agency begins, I’ll start updating my rosters on MLB The Show with a renewed vigor. And there’s every chance that may happen. But the stress of this year has beaten me down physically and spiritually and I need to make improvements there as well. I need to get back into a routine, including a workout program, eating right and finally sleeping again, which is something that I’ve been neglecting for close to 18 months due to my personal life.

On the flip side, I can see me having no desire to do anything when this month-long sabbatical ends. If that’s the case, I’ll know I’m in a deeper depression than I realize. And I’ll have to deal with that when, and if, the time comes. But for now, I want to focus on the potential positives.

So, we’ll see what happens in about a month, and I’ll go from there. Thank you for taking the time to read, I really am not one for posting publicly about my issues, but sometimes just laying it out there is the best way to get it out of my head. Whether anyone sees it or not.

Peace.

BACK IN THE CLINK: FACEBOOK JAIL 2022

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Back in the clink.

This is my 11th trip to Facebook Jail, and I consider it to be just about as legitimate as the rest of my trips.

A friend of mine had posted a video on my wall, taken at the MLB All Star Game in Los Angeles. A group of kids were standing behind a fence waiting for a player to sign baseballs for them. At one point, a man with gray hair and a gray beard, forced his way into the line, shoving children in the process, to get a ball autographed. I commented that this man “should be taken behind a building and have a few of his bones broken.” Shortly thereafter, I was told that I would be going to Facebook Jail for 5 days.

My crime? “Inciting violence.”

To be fair, I had 2 prior warnings. In December 2021 I posted a meme featuring a scene from the film National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. In the scene, Clark and Rusty Griswold are hanging Christmas lights on the roof and the caption read “Rusty, like Jeffrey Epstein, these lights aren’t going to hang themselves.” This was a violation for “promoting suicide,” even though Epstein memes are strewn about Facebook like party favors on New Year’s Eve.

In November 2021, I committed the ultimate sin, which I’m surprised didn’t land me in Facebook Jail permanently, or maybe even in “real” jail: I posted that there are two genders and everything else is mental illness. That was removed for “hate speech.”

So, before I jump into where I go from here, I just want to put a few things out there because I’m not ashamed of my beliefs and I will continue to hold them whether or not I’m able to mention them. There’s a fine line between free speech and a complete shutdown on same, so if this also gets me into trouble, well, I’ll talk about that later in this dissertation.

I hate Joe Biden with the fury of 1000 suns. If I woke up tomorrow and he had died from COVID, I’d consider it a national holiday. I think he’s a miserable, lying, good for nothing, worthless piece of garbage and he has been for as long as I can remember. I first became aware of him in 1987, during the 1988 Presidential race, which we covered in my 6th grade social studies class. This was my introduction to politics. Ol’ Joe was running for the Democrat nomination but had to drop out after it was discovered he was falsifying (i.e. lying about) his academic history.

Along with Joe, I hate his entire party, especially the far left liberals. The ones that Malcolm X very eloquently outed in the 1960s who have only become worse over time. The “woke” folks. The “trans community.” You people are all sick. Like mentally ill.

I’ve made no attempt to hide my feelings about these “people” on social media, and to be fair to the Facebook cocksuckers, er, “fact checkers,” it wasn’t my posts on this garbage that landed me in Facebook Jail. To be honest, I’ve had very few problems posting my thoughts on these subjects on social media, whether it’s Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

The issue at hand is that I was at a tipping point anyway. I’m not in a good place in my life. I’m burned out on baseball (I think), but I’m not sure if I’m actually burned out or if its being pushed at me by certain people in my life that I’m burned out. There is a person in my day to day life that is doing everything possible to change everything about me. I don’t like it, and I wouldn’t do that to anyone. I keep hoping it will subside, but if it doesn’t, I will need to extricate this person from my life. However, there’s also a possibility that she’s being honest, I may well BE burned out.

I’ve been trying to roll my life back as much as I can to the last time I was happy, which was anytime between 1995 and 2005. Actually, to be completely fair, I was happy from the day I was born until around May 2005. Since then, it’s been one disaster after another, more misery piled upon more unhappiness, so I’ve been trying to find a way to go back to happier times.

What has been at the center of my unhappiness for 17 years? Social media and the internet. I don’t beat around the bush about this, it’s been women on social media that have made me miserable for 17 years. Every unhappy moment and every aggravation can be traced to some female I never should have been dealing with in the first place. This is not hyperbole in any sense of the word. These are facts. Those who have been around me can verify that this is a fact.

So, part of what I have been looking at doing to try to turn back the clock is getting rid of social media. Beyond that, I have fantasized of getting rid of my smart phone. I recently got my dad a 4G flip phone (which I had no idea still existed) and this has made me yearn for one. I can’t get rid of the internet completely, as I have 2 internet businesses I run so getting completely off the grid is impossible. But it’s possible to remove myself from 90% of it.

However, I’m not positive that’s going to make me any happier, and a large number of friends have agreed that leaving social media isn’t going to make me any happier. One person, though, thinks its a great idea because, as mentioned, she would like to change everything about me. My theory up until now has been if I changed social media to fit me, I might be OK with it.

I’ve been active on Twitter for a decade, and I’ve had less trouble on there with my posts than I have had on Facebook, which seems to be the polar opposite of the problems most people have. I’ve had an Instagram account since around 2016, and my problems on there are pretty much equal to my problems on Facebook (which makes sense because they’re under the same corporate umbrella and are likely policed by the same “keystone cops” who fact check on Facebook.

Ultimately, I don’t think turning back time (or making a half-assed attempt to) is going to be the answer, it might seem novel at first but I think it would get boring very quickly. Yes, I was very happy in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but I’m also not the same person I was back then. Everything has changed, including my mentality. I was naturally happy back then. Now I would be taking an angry and bitter version of myself who is 20 to 25 years older and trying to stick myself into a situation that is devoid of the few things that make me happy NOW but trying to recreate the things that made me happy THEN. Considering how much has changed, I just don’t think it’s possible.

When I look back 25 to 27 years ago, I was in college. I had a girlfriend across the county. I had one video game console, an original Nintendo. I watched Three’s Company and Perry Mason on a daily basis, taping them off television and watching the VHS tapes over and over and over. I had my cat, Bubbles. My mom was still living then, obviously. I didn’t have a lot, but I was so happy.

Fast forward to now. I have everything. PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 5 consoles which play games for every generation, as well as a Retron 5 to play everything else. A 55-inch 4K TV. Those shows I enjoyed? I have the entire series on DVD, not just the ones I mentioned but several others that were a huge part of the 2000s for me. I have more “stuff” than I have room to put it.

And it really doesn’t do anything for me. Back in those days I had a word processor that looked just like a computer from the early 1990s, complete with a full size CRT monitor. I was so happy. Now I have a $1000 gaming computer with a 25” monitor and it’s just kind of “meh.” The 55” TV instead of the 25” TV. A Blu-ray player instead of the old VCR I build out of parts from 3 broken ones. Multiple streaming services instead of cable. But I also have DISH Network. I have everything.

And I have nothing, because none of it is making me happy.

I know a lot of this, and by extension, my unhappiness on social media, is mostly in my head. I do things that annoy me. For example, if I would just completely ignore the news, be it on the radio, the TV or the internet, and I never saw Joe Biden’s face again, that would go a long way toward making me less angry. I need to stop listening to people who want me to change for their benefit. My life is my own, it belongs to no one else and no one else should have any say in it.

So at this moment, what I’m looking at doing is, when I return to Facebook on Tuesday, changing my entire presentation. Instead of anti-Biden memes and “woke is a joke” posts, I need to stick strictly to baseball, maybe a cat meme here and there, and not let politics so much as be a blip on my radar. All the news does is make me angry, and it needs to be cleansed from my life.

I also need to eliminate the people who cause me these problems as well. And there are several of them. Whether or not that means unfriending, unfollowing or just blocking, they need to be where I can’t see them and don’t have to deal with them. I am just at a point in my life where I can’t deal with such flagrant stupidity and mental insanity. Especially when it accomplishes nothing for them and nothing for me. I’m also going to go on Twitter and do the same thing.

Hopefully, this will work. If it doesn’t, I’ll admit I was wrong and consider my other options, including complete disconnection from the world and an attempt to go back to 1999 in 2022. Even though I know it won’t work, at least I will make the attempt. I hope I won’t have to, because it will likely hurt more than just knowing how much unhappier I am today than I thought I was.

In closing, I apologize for the fact that you just spent 15 minutes reading the ramblings of a guy who just let his mind vomit out everything that was going through it and you won’t get those 15 minutes back. But if you happen to see this and you know of a way I can try to close my life off to things I don’t want to see or hear about in the digital age, and how to keep from voicing my displeasure on social media with everything that aggravates me, please fill me in.

Thank you for your time. Peace.

Pre-ordering MLB The Show 20 from Walmart: The Jokes On Me

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I have been a fan of the MLB The Show series since it’s inception in 2006. In fact, I’ve owned a copy of every season’s game, including a few years when I owned two copies; one for my PlayStation 3 and one for my PlayStation Vita. I could play a game at work on my Vita when I had a chance and save it and be able to access that save from my PS3 later and continue my season. I think that was a very underutilized option.

But that’s neither here nor there.

I pre-ordered MLB The Show 20 from Walmart on December 19, 2019. And I selected the MVP Edition due to the option of getting it three days earlier than it would be available on store shelves. It was only $20 more and I had regularly bought the MVP Edition in the past, just because I liked the steelbook case. But this year, it was all about the early release.

This was also my first experience pre-ordering from Walmart. I have pre-ordered a number of items from Amazon over the years, but Amazon isn’t one of the “preferred” distributors for The Show, which has become Best Buy, Walmart, Target and GameStop.

I decided on home delivery rather than a trip to one of my local stores for in-store pickup because it’s a 20 to 30 minute drive to a store and a 10 minute round trip to the post office. So I was all set, $84 and change with a delivery date of March 13, 2020.

… and then this happened:

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“The product manufacturer controls the release date for this product…” Yes. Yes, they do. And it was known all along that pre-orders were to be fulfilled on March 13. That was literally my ONLY reason for pre-ordering in the first place. But Walmart is attempting to pass the buck off on Sony. Like it’s somehow Sony’s fault that I didn’t get my game.

Except that a number of friends on Facebook have already received their games, having ordered from Best Buy and GameStop. So that instantly takes the blame out of the hands of Sony (where it never belonged in the first place) and puts it SQUARE in the hands of Walmart. The game should have shipped two days ago so it would have been in my hands on March 13. That is a common-sense kind of thing that any idiot could figure.

But it gets better. The game finally shipped today (you know, the day I should have RECEIVED it) and it shipped to me, in West Virginia, from Lake Forest, California. Now, I’ve done enough purchasing and shipping (I run a thriving Amazon store myself) and I know it takes a minimum of two days and usually three for an item from here to reach California, and vice versa. There are at least three mail hubs between California and my house, one in Pittsburgh (though some mail is routed through Ohio), one in Bridgeport, WV and finally, my local post office. So that’s a 2,500 mile trip along with two stops.

And that’s not all:

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It’s going to arrive “by the end of the day” on Saturday, March 14. Yeah, that’s cute. My post office closes at 12:30 on Saturday and isn’t open on Sunday. So even if it somehow made that 2,500 mile trip with two stops on the way in 24 hours, it would sit somewhere until at least Monday morning (March 16). It is far more likely it will be available for me to pick up on Tuesday, March 17. Which just so happens to be the same day it is available on store shelves and any schmuck can go out and buy a copy.

So, let me lay this whole situation out as clearly as I possibly can.

I ordered MLB The Show 20 on December 16, 2019, and selected the MVP Edition because I could get it three days earlier than those who didn’t pre-order that version or the online version. I paid $79.99 plus tax, as opposed to $59.99 plus tax for the “regular” edition for no other reason than to get the three day early release.

Now, rather than getting my game three days early, I will get it on the same day everyone else does, and could have just walked into Walmart on Tuesday and picked up the “regular” edition for $59.99 and been in exactly the same place in life I am right now.

The way I see it, Walmart owes me $20 for wasting my time. And while I’m sure they don’t see it that way (since it’s Sony’s fault, somehow) I figure I’ll take my $20 back another way, if I can keep just one person who reads this from pre-ordering anything from Walmart again, I figure we’re even. I know I will never pre-order another item from Walmart again, if it’s not available from Amazon I’ll find it somewhere else but Walmart is out of the loop from now on. I’ll just consider this to be a learning experience and move on.

So, a word to the wise, don’t pre-order from Walmart. Especially if time is of the essence, because in my case, it truly was. The only positive to come out of this little exercise (if you can call it that) is the fact that the Opening Day of baseball season was pushed back due to the Coronavirus situation, so even if I don’t get my game for another four days, it’s not relevant in the grand scheme of things.

But it’s still my right and duty as an American taxpayer to complain when the rules are not followed. And as Walter Sobchak said in The Big Lebowski, “am I the only one around here who gives a shit about the rules?”

Thank you for taking the time to read.

 

2020 Update: Random Thoughts

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I realize it’s been a long time since I’ve blogged and that was by design, as I wanted to let the new decade fully begin before I gave my thoughts on it. I wanted to do a little random “blurb” to give my thoughts on the lay of the land in the 2020s.

First, let me say that this month has been everything I had hoped the 2020s would be. I haven’t been this happy in probably 15 years, maybe more. Admittedly, I take to the single life like a fish to water (yes, I know it’s correct to say “like a duck to water” but a fish takes to water because it’s life depends on it, I think that’s more appropriate for me). So that was a great first step and really helped me to focus on myself.

More so, that allowed me to sit back and watch people who spend all their time on social media complaining and whining about how they were treated by an ex, and how uncouth it all is. We’ve all been mistreated by exes. I’ve been kicked to the curb, ghosted, mislead, lied to, stolen from, cheated on, used for leverage and had fake charges filed against me with the county sheriff’s office, and that’s only the past two years!

Everyone has had bad experiences (in my case I’ve had 100% bad experiences) but that doesn’t mean it needs to be beaten to death on social media. Yes, I have a very anti-relationship stance, and I do occasionally post memes in that vein, but I also love women and I celebrate them on social media as well. I found a middle ground between being ridiculous in any direction. And I feel good about myself for it.

This is why 2020 is being spent focusing on me, because no one else is going to. I have learned the hard way that everyone is out for themselves, and now it is my turn. I am putting myself and my happiness ahead of anything or anyone else. There’s an old saying about the fact that you can’t love someone else if you don’t love yourself first, and that’s very true. You need to be at peace with yourself and your situation before you should get involved with anyone else. I have my own problems, I don’t need yours. Get your problems taken care of and then we can see where things go.

On a happier note, I am continuing to update my MLB 19 The Show rosters and have done the best job I have done to date on offseason updates, dating back as far as 2014. Usually I try to do as much of the major transactions as I can and let the minor league stuff sit, especially the Class A rosters. But this year I have spent hours every day making sure everything is as it should be. I hope to start playing my franchise on February 22, which coincides with the first Spring Training game the White Sox play.

This will be the 16th consecutive year I have bought Sony’s MLB offering for a PlayStation console, dating back to MLB 2005 for the original PlayStation. I also bought MVP Baseball 2005 that year and have bought a new game every year since. Prior to 2005, I made due with MLB 2000 on the PlayStation and MVP Baseball 2005 on the PS2.

One of the biggest negatives of 2019 was the six stints I spent in Facebook jail. But the silver lining in that cloud was that it allowed me to diversify my social media presence and I have been much more active on Twitter and Instagram, for better or worse, I suppose. While Facebook remains my base of operations, Instagram has become a repository for my daily meme posts and Twitter is a great haven for Chicago White Sox news.

I have worked myself into a very good daily and weekly schedule but that’s all due to change as soon as baseball season begins, and then I’ll have to do a life reboot and change a lot of the things I do to make time for baseball games five or six days a week. That’s definitely not a complaint, it’s just a fact that things will be changing soon.

I continue to feel positive about everything. My decision making has taken a major step in the right direction, I’m not making bad decisions on a daily basis like I used to, in fact, I haven’t made a poor decision yet in 2020. I’m also learning to be less off the cuff and ill-prepared for things, I have a habit of running into burning buildings (metaphorically speaking) without thinking about the consequences and that has been a lifelong issue for me, my attitude has always been “let’s do it and worry about the consequences later” and that has a 0% success rate with me. Now I am learning to do my research and think things over before I act, and not just act on impulse and screw everything up.

I’m the luckiest man in the world. I am financially secure, I have everything I want (that money can buy, that is), I have great friends and their support means the world to me because without them, I would no doubt be in a bad situation somewhere, and the only thing I lack in life is a partner to share it with, and if that’s as bad as its going to get, I’ll take it. I can get by on my own with ease, I’ve done it before (proudly single for nine years between 1996 and 2005) so if a second go-around of that is in the works, I’ll take it and make the best of it. That era was the happiest time of my life, by far.

Which brings me to the fact that I should be living my best life right now, but I am still having to work my mind into accepting the fact that it’s OK to be happy.

So, in closing, I put a lot of pressure on the 2020s, and so far it’s has been everything I had hoped it would be. I came in well-prepared and so far, so good. I just hope it continues to chug along nicely, and that spring and summer offer me the opportunity to catch up on my cigar smoking that has been neglected all winter, and of course I am looking forward to the first winning White Sox season since 2012.

Thank you for taking the time to read. Peace.

Letting Go Of The Illusions Of The Past…

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Anyone who knows me has no doubt become annoyed at one time or another as I have reminisced on the happiness I had in 1995. It was truly an amazing year. For Easter, my girlfriend at the time presented me with the love of my life, my tabby cat, Bubbles, who passed away in 2013. I graduated from high school and started to college. I reintroduced myself to some of the classic TV programs I had enjoyed in my youth (particularly Three’s Company and Perry Mason).

I also began my lifelong love of sports simulation video gaming. Something that didn’t exist at the time but that like-minded people helped to bring to fruition in the following years. I also began my love of UCLA athletics. This actually started when I picked the Bruins to win the 1995 men’s basketball tournament in the pool at school, and they did, the first time in my life a team that I followed one any kind of championship. The UCLA baseball team would follow suit in 2013.

But when you brush away all the fluff, 1995 wasn’t the best year ever. By a long shot. There were still a multitude of annoyances. A relationship I was quickly growing tired of, that engulfed all my spare time and left me with little opportunity to enjoy any of my growing pursuits.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, since next year will mark 25 years since my most “incredible” year. And today I realized, I have had at least three better years than 1995; the earliest being 1982, followed by 2010, and amazingly, 2019, which may be the best year of all.

I started Kindergarten in 1982. My obsessions at that time were the Lone Ranger and the Dukes Of Hazzard. I would soon be introduced to Masters Of The Universe. It was a great time to be a kid. And I remember few moments of unhappiness. My uncle committed suicide that year, but at five years old, who has a grasp on the concept of death? I do remember sitting on his front porch, trying to play his fiddle as I saw the musicians do on Hee Haw every Saturday night.

My family took our first vacation in 1982, to New Mexico and the surrounding area. I remember it, but not clearly. Obviously there were more important things going on then.

To compare 1995 and 1982 is a bit like comparing apples and oranges, but taken in the right context, there really is no comparison for me. No doubt, 1982 was the better year.

The same applies to 2010. I had become a single man in November 2009 after a rather annoying three-and-a-half year relationship that was ill-conceived and ill-advised. I would spend a full year single, 375 days to be exact, minus a six-week period where I was in a “Facebook official” relationship that was anything but real. I had an amazing time and really started to grasp what it meant to live. I had good years prior to that (2000-04 were absolutely incredible and maybe equal to 2010, but included more minor aggravations) but 2010 was the closest thing to perfect.

Until now.

Today I elected to take stock of things and I realized that this is, without question, the golden year of my life. I should be happy beyond description. I have everything I could possibly ever want. In 1982, I had a 19” tabletop TV, a ColecoVision video game console and a small, handheld cassette player with three blank cassettes. The VCR hadn’t made it’s way into my world yet.

In 1995, things had expanded dramatically. I had a 25” TV, VCR, Nintendo Entertainment System, a 200-watt stereo with dual cassette deck and a Sony Walkman plugged into the auxiliary jack. I was videotaping Three’s Company and Perry Mason from TV and watching them at my leisure. At that time, it felt like I had it all and I had no idea what the future would bring.

Now it’s 2019. I have a 55” Samsung Smart TV, a DVD recorder, a PlayStation 3 and 4, a Retron 5 (which plays a multitude of old video game cartridges), a 400-watt stereo with a 5-CD changer, an incredible PC I built myself, a Samsung Galaxy S8, more DVDs and CDs than I could ever watch or listen to for the rest of my life, and enough money to have anything I want.

Even though that’s the case, I still find myself dreaming back to 1995. And I can’t stand it. The problem with me is, when I’m unhappy, I try to wish myself away to happier times. But when I’m in happy times, I do the same thing. I can remember back in 1995 reminiscing about happier days, 1982 and 1985 and 1989. Then by the time I got to the early 2000s, I was pissing that time away wishing back to 1995. And here I am, in my happiest period, still wishing the same.

In 1995, I didn’t have the luxury of pulling up any TV show in the world and watching it at any time I wanted, only the ones I had managed to tape from TV and even then, I had to wait to tape them day by day, because the concept of just buying a season or complete series of a TV show was non-existent. Cell phone? Nope. And the concept of a smart phone wasn’t even close. Back then I was at the mercy of whatever baseball game happened to be on at the time. Now I just turn on the MLB app on my Smart TV and watch the White Sox game when it’s on.

This is, literally, my time. Everything is in front of me. As happy as I have been in the past, in 2010 or 2002 or 1995 or 1989 or 1982, this should be putting all of those years past to shame. But I keep trying to sabotage myself, either through constant reminiscing of year’s past or trying to do stupid things to wreck the current wavelength I am living on, like introducing women into the fold. No woman has ever brought anything but misery and unhappiness into my life, yet I kept remaining open to allowing more and more of them into my life. Why I keep doing this is beyond my comprehension.

Some have said it’s just a part of my life that’s missing. I disagree. From 1996 to 2005, I was single. I spent nine glorious years as a single man. And that’s what 1982, 2010 and 2019 all have in common, there is no woman taking over my life and making it unhappy and dramatic and boring and miserable. That’s how 2010 came to a grinding halt, I allowed a bottom-of-the-trash-can greaseball to come into the picture and it was almost instant misery for the seven years that followed.

So why would I be stupid enough to even consider allowing that to happen again?

I am NOT a good fit for relationships. For one thing, I am extremely selfish and protective of my time. I have things I want to do and one of those things is watching White Sox baseball, a privilege for which I pay money. If I am doing so, that is going to take precedence over other less-important things, like whatever some girl wants to do. I also enjoy spending my money on me for a change, so I have spoiled myself to the ultimate degree. Not just the smartphone and stereo and TV and game consoles and DVDs but all the other little purchases that make my day seem a little happier.

And then I realized just how much women can negatively affect my life, as this past Friday I allowed a female to corrupt my schedule, missing Friday night’s White Sox game to watch a movie. It took me three days to get myself back into my groove, and to what end? What was the point of spending my Friday night doing anything other than what I want to spend my Friday night doing?

Now, understand, I’m not saying I am 100% anti-woman, if I ever met a woman who enjoyed baseball and video games and Star Trek who cooks like Nigella Lawson and is built like Raine Michaels I might give it a go. But until that time, why should I sell myself on millimeter short?

I have taken great pains in the past week or so to detach myself from anyone who brings anything but happiness into my life. This has included pretty much every local single woman in my area. Whether they had an interest in me or not (not in 96% of the cases) didn’t matter. I needed to build a wall and they needed to be on the other side of it. I have changed my Facebook settings so I am almost unreachable unless you are a Facebook friend or you know my cell phone number.

And even those who I know had it are finding themselves blocked and unable to use it.

I just can’t let this time period be corrupted. This is MY time. This is my golden hour. This is the point in time that my whole life has been focused on. When all the parts come together and make a complete picture, this is it. I will not do anything to ruin it, and that includes spending it reminiscing about times in the past that don’t hold a candle to what I have right here in front of me.

From this day forward, and maybe through the end of my life, it’s all about me. I cannot have it any other way. I nearly ruined my life a number of times, and I managed to extricate myself from those dilemmas and reach the point I am at now. And I am going to make the most of every second. Everyone deserves to be happy. And now, finally, it is my turn. It’s all about me.

Thank you for taking the time to read. Peace.

Simulating My Life: Sports Video Games, 1995-2019

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As age begins to get the better of me, I spend more and more time reminiscing about days gone by, and a couple of days ago this lead me to thinking about video games; specifically sports game simulations and the whole “create yourself” concept.

This is the idea of creating “yourself” within the game and playing CF for the New York Yankees or center for the Los Angeles Lakers or quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. That’s YOUR name up there. Your height, weight, hair color, etc.

My first experience with this came in the form of Baseball Stars, a game for the Nintendo Entertainment System, released in 1989, Baseball Stars allowed you to create an entire team by name, including your franchise itself. A favorite among my friends for many years and still in my NES collection to this day. It was a simplified game in terms of the actual gameplay; the ability to create players and teams made it stand out.

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By 1995, a second version of the game had been released and the concept of player creation was removed. By that point, a large number of licensed sports games were hitting the market and the niche was “real players” and/or “real teams.” NBA Live had both. Madden NFL had real teams, but players were identified by jersey number only. RBI Baseball had real players, but the teams were identified only by their home city.

Tecmo Super Bowl was the exception, featuring real teams and real players. The idea that you could sit down and play an actual video game that featured real NFL teams and the actual players, by name, that played on those teams, was amazing.

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But that didn’t quite cut it. My friend Joe and I craved the concept of having OURSELVES in the game. Wearing the jersey number we wanted. But this was not yet feasible. So, I took it upon myself to create my own universe, using an old NES game called John Elway’s Quarterback, and Tecmo Super Bowl. And it went something like this:

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John Elway’s Quarterback was an arcade-style game that featured no real players and no real teams, which made it perfect for the simulation I wanted to run. I used it as a college football game before such a thing really existed. I would play a schedule I made up on my own, using the “Los Angeles” franchise as UCLA, and since the game did not feature any type of post-game statistics, I would sit with a binder in my lap and a pencil, and when “I” completed a pass in the game, I would see how many yards that completion covered and write it in my binder. At the end of the game I would count up my completions and yards and know how I had performed in that game. I did this for four simulated seasons, and then moved on to play Tecmo Super Bowl as a draft pick of the Cleveland Browns.

In addition to being my favorite NFL team, Tecmo had apparently been unable to obtain the rights to Browns’ quarterback Bernie Kosar from the NFLPA, so he is simply named “QB Browns” in the game. This offered me the opportunity to select my own number (I wore number 9 in my simulation) with the Browns. I played seven seasons with the Browns, winning three Super Bowls, before leaving as a free agent to return to California, signing a deal with the (at the time) Los Angeles Raiders. I played one more season with the Raiders before I started to get bored with the whole concept of the game.

Fast forward a couple of years and I started anew, with a new console and new games that upped the ante considerably: College Football USA 97 and Madden NFL 97 on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. This was a step up in every way.

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While College Football USA 97 did not include the option to create a player (which it did on the Sega Genesis version of the game but I didn’t get it until many years later) it did include ALL NCAA Division I football teams. And Madden NFL 97 did have the option to create a player, so I basically did the same simulation over again, four years of games with the UCLA Bruins followed by creating myself with the Pittsburgh Steelers, as I didn’t have the option to play for the Browns in 1997 as the franchise didn’t exist in that form.

I never actually played a game with the Steelers, as I ended up ending my run in order to start playing Ken Griffey Junior’s Winning Run on the Super NES instead.

By the time I came around again, things had changed exponentially. I had bought a Sony PlayStation and bought every sports game available from 989 Sports, Sony’s proprietary division that produced college and professional sports games.

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NCAA GameBreaker 2000 and NFL GameDay 2000 were truly amazing. I could create myself, by name, height, weight, hair color, facial features, hometown and a number of other settings. Not only that, but I could download myself onto a memory card from NCAA GameBreaker and then upload myself onto NFL GameDay for the NFL Draft. And it was here that I found my most lasting success, fleeting as even it may have been.

Four seasons at UCLA, playing both football and basketball for the Bruins. I was then drafted into the NFL by the Carolina Panthers, a franchise I was never a huge fan of but decided to run with it; I even went out and bought a Carolina Panthers Starter parka, back when that was a thing. It was to be short-lived, however, as my created self suffered a knee injury in week two of my second season with the Panthers and I was on the retired list at the end of the season. That $100 jacket may have been a mistake in hindsight.

My next run at this simulation was in 2013, with the release of NCAA Football 14 from EA Sports along with Madden NFL 25, the 25th anniversary edition of the game, for the PlayStation 3. I wanted a true full-on experience, so in addition to UCLA football I also bought a copy of NCAA Basketball 10, which was the final release of that franchise, as well as a copy of MVP NCAA Baseball 07 for the PlayStation 2, the second and final release featuring college baseball. But, I learned that unhappy, time-consuming relationships don’t mix well with time-consuming video game simulations, so I never so much as got started. I boxed up my games figuring I would try again in the future.

No such luck, as NCAA Football 14 was the final college football game ever released, still to this day. So I keep them, hoping maybe someday I’ll take one final run…

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Which brings me to today and my latest simulation attempt, completely off track from previous attempts. This attempt has begun with me simulating a self-simulation. I created myself on MLB 2005 for the PlayStation 2 and then simulated my career, playing 14 seasons with the Oakland A’s, Toronto Blue Jays and Chicago White Sox. I manipulated this a bit, as I had been a big Oakland A’s fan in the 1980s and began following the White Sox in 1991. I kept my statistics and outlined my career running from 1982 to 1995, those years beautifully encompassing my public school years, from my entrance into kindergarten in 1982 to my graduation from high school in 1995. From here, I will simulate myself as the general manager of the White Sox, on MLB The Show 19.

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While the game will drop this Tuesday, I will not be doing anything with it until the Operation Sports Full Minors rosters are released in the roster vault at some point this spring. At that point, I’ll start playing, making the roster moves as I would as GM. I hope to continue this through the end of the season and when the 2020 version of the game is released, just transfer my up-to-date saves to the new version on a yearly basis.

I wish I had started this three years ago when year-to-year saves became feasible.

While the desire still burns within me to go back to the NCAA Football 14/NCAA Basketball 10/MVP NCAA Baseball 07 games and head back to UCLA, I see that as more of a future option. I am so completely invested in baseball at this point its going to take something major to push me back to other things. Like a potential 2021 MLB strike.

Basically, that’s what I’m holding out to see. If there is, in fact, a work stoppage, I’m boxing up everything I own of a White Sox persuasion and replacing it with everything UCLA I can get my hands on. I won’t lie, there’s a part of me kind of hoping for a work stoppage just for that reason. But we’ll see how I feel when 2021 rolls around.

That’s my life’s experience with sports video game simulations. I’ve loved it every step of the way, and I hope I can make the adjustments to make this new round as satisfactory as previous years. In the early days of this exercise, Joe and I would go so far as to keep our own newspaper headlines and storylines, which certainly added a major creative outlet to the whole experience. I am so ready to do that again. It’s time.

Thank you for reading, and God bless.

Some Changes I Would Like To See To The MLB The Show Video Game Franchise

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I had hoped this blog would be about the start of Spring Training and the final destination of Manny Machado and Bryce Harper, but since that never-ending saga is, well, never-ending, I figured I would take the time to address something else that’s been on my mind lately: The state of the MLB The Show PlayStation franchise.

I began playing the Sony MLB offering back when it was known simply as MLB, in 2000, which featured Mo Vaughn on the cover (apparently in those days it was easier to get an Angels player on the cover than it is now, since Mike Trout is clearly this generation’s Mickey Mantle). In those days, the game was stripped down to the absolute minimum, no franchise mode, a “minor league” system that amounted to three players per team, etc.

Prior to owning a PlayStation, my game of choice was Ken Griffey Jr.’s Winning Run for the Super Nintendo, back in the days of games that either featured real players and was sponsored by the MLBPA but had no real teams or games that featured real teams and was sponsored by MLB but featured no real players. KGJWR featured all the real MLB teams but with made-up player names, including “Big Magoo” in place of Frank Thomas with the White Sox.

Going back even further, my game of choice was Baseball Stars on the NES. Most people seemed to prefer the RBI Baseball series because it was licensed by the MLBPA, but I liked Baseball Stars because it was completely programmable. You could create your own team, players and league as well as having the ability to trade players. Back in 1993, in the days before the current generation of fantasy baseball or games like The Show, a friend of mine and I spent a whole weekend holding a player draft, creating a team, creating a minor league team, and playing a full season on Baseball Stars. It was a lot of work but definitely a lot of fun in the end.

When I bought MLB The Show 07 (featuring David Wright on the cover) for the PlayStation 2, I was dumbfounded. I thought it was everything I could ever want in a baseball video game. Real teams and players, just like the previous generation simply known as the “MLB” series, but with real expanded minor league teams and league rules, to an extent.

Now, I need to point out that, of all the gameplay options on The Show, I am a Franchise guy. I like the concept of playing GM better than the Road To The Show option (where you create yourself as a player and work your way through the system). I also don’t bother with all the bells and whistles including the card collecting and that kind of thing. I’m a baseball card collector in real life and have an extensive collection, I don’t need to collect “pretend” cards.

This is not a complaint, I have no issue with this being part of the experience, but it brings me to my first issue with the MLB The Show series:

Make Different Versions Highlighting Different Aspects Of The Game

As it is now, you can buy three different versions (though I’m cheating a bit because one is an online version and two are physical versions) but why not make MLB The Show: Franchise, where you can play the game in franchise or season mode, without all the extra card collecting and packs and stubs and things that I have no interest in.

Make a second version, or even an expansion pack, featuring the cards and all the extras that have nothing to do with playing baseball.

Release The Game When Spring Training Begins

As one who enjoys playing Spring Training games, there’s no reason why, in this day and age, the game can’t be released a month early. With downloadable patches and rosters, the game could be updated throughout Spring Training and give games like me a chance to play the Spring Training games in real time, with up to date rosters, which I do anyway because I spend the winter updating rosters on the previous year’s game, then I play Spring Training through and then transfer my saves to the NEW game once it’s released near Opening Day.

As an example, Madden NFL 19 was released on August 10, 2018. The NFL season didn’t begin until September 6. The preseason began on August 2 with the Hall Of Fame game. Why can’t Sony release The Show on a similar schedule as EA releases Madden?

Make Saved Rosters Transferable

I do my updates on saved rosters. It would make the game a lot more easy to play if I could just transfer those rosters to the next year’s game like I can transfer my season or franchise saves. This seems like a no-brainer to me, considering that, when you transfer franchise saves, the roster is going along with it, it’s just not transferable individually.

Work on that.

Upgrade The Managerial And Coach Hiring Options In Franchise Mode

While you can trade players from one team to another, and sign free agents, you cannot hire another team’s manager or hitting coach or pitching coach. That is ABSURD. Instead, you have the option of hiring your manager and staff from a list of computer-generated made-up names. There is NO excuse for this. The option to hire another team’s coach should be no different than signing another team’s free agents, it should be part of the experience.

Allow Non-Roster Invitees During Spring Training In Franchise Mode

This could be a little trickier but certainly not at all impossible. As each team has it’s MLB roster, AAA roster, AA roster and A roster, add a roster of NRI’s for spring training that can be added to the main roster if need be and released to the free agent pool if you decide not to keep them. Once the regular season rosters are set, the NRI roster would just disappear until the end of the season. There are a huge number of available free agents on the game, so this isn’t impossible by any stretch, and it would add another level of realism.

Make Regional Or Downloadable Covers For Each Team

Too much is made of the cover athlete and this year showed just exactly what a clusterfuck that can turn into. We’re six weeks from launch day and have no idea where the cover athlete will be playing. Why not make regional covers that are available nationwide via purchase from GameStop and Walmart and Target online? Or, even better, have a generic cover or a “legends” cover and make 30 different team covers available for download on the official Show website. I have made my own custom covers three times over the years, it’s not rocket science. If you can make 30 team custom themes for the PS4, I’m sure you can produce custom downloadable covers.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the game and I can deal with not having these options available but, for how little it would really take to make these few alterations, why not do it? Too much time is spent on “1,300 new defensive animations” when, does that really matter? I mean, you make a great catch, but in the long run does the style of the animation of that catch really make that big of a difference in the gameplay aspect? Or is it a wig for a bald personality? It’s just a catch. Basically, what I’m saying is the game needs more steak, not more sizzle.

I love MLB The Show, and it’s a hell of a lot better than lining up Big Magoo to play first base for the White Sox on Ken Griffey Jr.’s Winning Run or having no options to make trades or transactions on the old RBI Baseball series on the NES.

But it could be improved. Let’s work on that.
Peace.