Category Archives: UCLA Bruins

No One Loved Their Past More Than Me… And Now It’s Time To Leave It Behind

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Anyone who knows me, even a little bit, knows I’m completely obsessed with my past. I’m not talking about my relationships or my friendships. I’m talking about my experiences. From school to my toys to shows and movies I watched to stores my family shopped at. I had the happiest childhood of anyone I’ve ever met. I still enjoy the shows I enjoyed as a child, including He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe, The Lone Ranger and Looney Tunes.

The happiest period of my life was from whatever point I can originally remember (probably the age of four) through the spring of 2005. At that point, things went downhill and, being honest, they continued in a downward spiral for the next 18 years. The negative points of my life were definitely a result of unhappy relationships but that’s a story for another time.

A couple of times I tried to recreate happy times during my not-happy period and it was an absolute disaster. For example, one of my happy times was a dinner and shopping trip with my parents on December 29, 1995. I attempted to recreate the experience in 2008, with a cretin I was dating at the time. Some of the stores I had been to in 1995 were closed, as was the restaurant I ate at with my mom and dad. Everything about the 2008 trip was bad. So bad, in fact, that it almost ruined the original experience for me, which was the exact opposite of what I had been trying to accomplish. And I’m worried I’m going to do it again.

I have plans this year to do a project I did in 1995-96, as well as 2001. My project is to create myself on NCAA Football 07, NCAA March Madness 07 and MVP NCAA Baseball 07, playing my way all the way through. I’ve went in depth on my project in previous blog entries so I don’t want to belabor the issue, but I’ve been wanting to do this again for over 20 years. And I figured with better equipment (I can play the PS2 games on my backward compatible PS3 instead of the NES I had in 1995). But I’m concerned I’m going to be disappointed because it’s not a carbon copy of my original project. Even though it’s more a matter of mindset than anything else. But I’m hopeful that I can see my way clear and enjoy it.

Which brings me to the whole purpose of this entry.

My obsession with my history is a double-edged sword. While I loved my childhood, my teenage years and my early 20s, that time is gone and nothing I can do will bring it back. And I’m trying as hard as I can to let those days dissolve into the past and not base my whole life on how happy I am NOW in comparison to how happy I was THEN. The fact is, I should be happier now than I’ve been at any point in my life but I just can’t feel it. I can’t find it. I am hoping that finally getting on with my project will bring back the happy I felt in 1995 and 2001. But I can’t let that be the singular deciding factor in what I’m dealing with.

The past 18 years haven’t been so bad that I couldn’t get through them but they have been horrible. Relationships I wouldn’t wish on anyone. One with a fat piece of garbage in the late 2000s that nauseates me even to think about, and she was the one I attempted to recreate my 1995 trip with. The whore of Preston County in the 2010s who nearly ruined my life. A girl in Chicago who was 35 going on 15. These situations made the past 18 years absolutely dreadful. And I’m past all of that now. I’m in a situation that is perfect now. I should be happier than I’ve ever been. But I’m letting those miserable 18 years pull down my happy past as well as my current and my future. Even women I wasn’t romantically attached to, like a girl I knew from 1999 until 2023 just decided to make my life a little more miserable than it needed to be. And I considered her to be my closest confidant in a complete and total friendship situation. After re-assessing the situation, I realize she needed to go as much as the women I had dated in the past. And that needs to be something I never look back on.

I have to let the good and the bad go and stop thinking about how happy I was from 1982 to 2004 and how miserable I was from 2005 to 2023. Those times are both over, and while I’m not as happy as I was in my younger days, I am MUCH happier than I was at any point since 2005. And rather than focusing on either of those things, I am trying so hard to focus forward. And I just don’t know if I can pull it off. If my project doesn’t work out, I don’t know what I’m going to do from there. I’ve put all of my eggs in one basket and I’m afraid I’m going to drop it. And then I’ll know that things are far worse now than I’m willing to accept.

So, for the next 2 months I’m focused on updating baseball rosters on MLB The Show 23 and making an attempt at running franchise mode this season. And if that falls short by any length, it’s time to start on my project and I have everything leaning on that decision. We’ll see what happens but right now I don’t have the highest of hopes and I’m still obsessed with the past. And I have to get past that to move forward regardless of what I’m going to do.

I know this is all kind of a mess, I just felt like it would do me good to get all these feelings out and see how things go in the future. Thank you for taking the time to read. Peace.

How I Plan To Spend The 2023-24 Chicago White Sox Offseason

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Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports

It’s been a long and difficult journey to get to this point, and I’ve taken many side trips along the way. Back in May, I started thinking about what I would do after the baseball season ended, knowing the White Sox had no chance of making the playoffs. I took a number of options into consideration, even starting a few and then bailing out.

So, now I have decided the route I want to take.

I considered following college sports again, specifically UCLA or WVU. I was willing to completely walk away from the White Sox for a couple years while they got their ducks in a row. I figured the break would do me good and I could start attending WVU games again if I started following the Mountaineers. But I did a double take after reading about the hazing situation at Northwestern University, that has also been taking place at a number of high schools throughout the United States. I’m not sure what sodomizing teammates has to do with football, and I have a hard time believing there are that many faggots playing football just for the opportunity to fuck their teammates in the ass, but whatever the reason, I completely lost any interest in anything to do with the sport of football.

Yes, I’m throwing the baby out with the bathwater by lumping all of the football programs together, but I found I couldn’t watch a football game without feeling sick to my stomach. This is not an anti-gay statement, this is me being disgusted at football players, who present themselves as “manly,” literally sexually assaulting their teammates. When did football players go from assaulting their wives/girlfriends (which isn’t any better and I’m not saying that’s what they should be doing) to sticking their dicks, broomsticks and other items up each other’s asses? What kind of moron thought that was a good idea?

Regardless of how it started, the fact is it happened and it’s beyond pathetic.

Next, I really considered going all in with the Chicago Blackhawks and I started a full-on transition. I have nearly as much Blackhawks memorabilia as I do White Sox, and I was ready to start replacing my Sox decor with Blackhawks. But then I took a look at the big picture and I decided I wanted to take one final run at my White Sox franchise on MLB The Show. And that brought me to what I’m going to do this offseason.

Today I downloaded the most recent rosters on MLB The Show 23. I’m going to update them over the course of the winter to be ready for the first Spring Training game. I’m going to listen to the White Sox podcasts every week and watch a couple or three episodes of Chicago Fire/PD/Med and watching my science shows and lectures on YouTube. I still plan to catch a Blackhawks game when its on a channel I can get (I don’t get NHL Network since I traded Dish Network for YouTube TV).

Last year, I was halfway through my roster updates when they magically disappeared, even though I had them saved on my PS5 and in the cloud. Both, gone. This year, I’m saving the rosters on the PS5, the cloud and a USB Drive in hopes of that not happening again.

Some have asked why I don’t just wait for MLB The Show 24 to come out and just go from there, but (1) the game won’t release until Spring Training is almost over and (2) if The Show doesn’t feature year-to-year saves, I’m not going to buy the new edition. I’ve done that for years and haven’t gotten my rosters updated correctly since 2021. I see no reason to continue buying a game that I’m not going to play. So, if this works, I’ll either play MLB The Show 23 next season or, if next year’s edition features year-to-year saves, I will update and move my rosters and Spring Training files to MLB The Show 24.

Either way, this is the final year I’ll be updating the rosters. If it all works out, I won’t need to do a full update next season. If it doesn’t, next offseason will be completely focused on the Blackhawks. I can’t really see a situation at this point where I would ever be able to go back and watch college or NFL football, at this point I’m too disgusted with the whole thing, but I’m not going to make any definitive statements, because every time I do make a definitive statement about something, I end up having to walk it back.

So, I’ll be spending the next four months as White Sox GM on MLB The Show 23 and updating all 30 team rosters and adding free agents as they are signed and making trades as they are made in real time. I’ll post the rosters to the vault when they are finished, in mid-February.

And if anything happens this year to ruin my work, I’ll consider that a clear sign that I need to stop, and I will just walk away from it. But one way or the other, this is the last time I’ll be undertaking this project. I’ve enjoyed it over the past several years but it has to come to an end at some point. This year is the point at which it ends.

Thank you for taking the time to read. Peace.

The End Of The Road: 33 Years As A Chicago White Sox Fan

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This is a time that I never imagined coming, while at the same time not being at all surprised that it’s here.

Today is the day I’m walking away from the Chicago White Sox as a fan, and walking away from social media.

To say the White Sox have been my entire life for the past 19 years would not be even a small exaggeration. In and around 2004 I stopped watching the NFL, NBA, NASCAR, NHL and all college sports and focused exclusively on baseball and specifically, the White Sox. I gave up watching UCLA, West Virginia University, the Cleveland Browns, the Chicago Bulls and the Pittsburgh Penguins. I even stopped watching PGA Tour events at that time. I was strictly a White Sox guy.

I was rewarded for that the following year when the White Sox won the World Series for the first time since 1917.

Since then, not so much. Constant losing with the organization consistently being the laughingstock of professional sports. But things have gotten so much worse since the 2016 offseason. And I think I knew it was coming.

In late 2016 the White Sox began a rebuilding process that was going to make the team contenders from 2020 through at least 2025 with a consistency of contending yearly being the goal, according to general manager Rick Hahn at the time.

So, three losing seasons in a row (completely non-competitive, as compared to the slightly-more competitive years that proceeded the rebuild which generally lead to third or fourth-place finishes) lead to what was going to be the “contention window.” That “window” lasted two years, as the White Sox earned a Wild Card birth (2020) and a division title (2021).

The wheels started falling off LONG before that, however.

The first piece to fall off was the failed attempt at signing free agent shortstop Manny Machado in late 2018 and early 2019. It was deemed “too early” by the inept front office and they went on to sign aging catcher Yasmani Grandal the following offseason, who promptly fell flat on his ass, to a $73 million contract, a record at the time. Also signing was pitcher Dallas Keuchel, who was solid during the COVID shortened 2020 season and so bad after that he was designated for assignment.

Prior to the 2021 season the White Sox made a managerial move. After firing Rick Renteria, we all waited for the announcement that the White Sox were going to hire A.J. Hinch, the World Series winning manager who was available after being fired by the Houston Astros due to their sign-stealing scandal. But, alas, the White Sox managed to screw that up and instead hired retirement-home refugee Tony La Russa, who hadn’t managed in a decade and was completely out of touch.

So, everyone laughed at the White Sox. They managed to win 93 games and the AL Central title in 2021, La Russa’s first season back, they proceeded to go .500 (81-81) in his second season and he was relived of his duties for health reasons before the season ended. The front office told us that was just a blip on the radar and we’d be contending again in 2023.

Major changes were expected, and most of the staff was replaced by lifelong loser Pedro Grifol from the Kansas City Royals organization, a franchise with the worst winning percentage in baseball overall since the year 2000. The bottom then fell out of everything and the team (28 games under .500 as this is written) has not chance to contend now or in the next couple of years, despite playing in the worst division in baseball. And the front office that built this turd sandwich has been fired. With the rumor being that another “yes man,” minor league director Chris Getz, will be taking over as GM.

Nothing ever changes and being a White Sox fan has taken on a feeling of embarrassment and humiliation among the fan base, of which I strongly consider myself a member. But that is fading quickly and if Getz is, in fact, announced as the GM in the near future, I’ve made a decision that will drastically alter my life going forward and how I plan to spend my time.

The day that Getz is announced as GM, I will begin by closing my social media accounts, which are used for nothing but posting White Sox news and memes. I’ll be boxing up all of my White Sox memorabilia and may consider selling it. I’ll then move on to something else, most probably following college sports again, either with WVU or UCLA. That decision will come later, it’s not pressing at the moment. Thinking about it makes me happier than what I face as a White Sox fan.

I have enjoyed the past 33 years at times. I used to pitch outside in a White Sox jersey I made out of a plain black and white Nike jersey and a Sharpie and my Sox hat when I was in my early teens. Playing Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball on the PlayStation. The 2005 World Series and 2008 Blackout game. I took in two games at Sox Park in 2001, which will always be a lifetime highlight. But at this point, I just can’t justify continuing to follow an organization that keeps me awake at night. My dad and my girlfriend have both said I take it too seriously, and I’m definitely not going to argue that point.

Once I’ve closed my social media accounts and removed all the White Sox memorabilia and things from my sight, I’ll replace them, probably not all with sports but with other things I enjoy because I don’t ever want to get so deep into a sports team again that I’m losing sleep and not being able to eat with anxiety. It would be nice to watch college sports again, football once a week and basketball a couple of times a week and, if I start following WVU, actually attending games again.

One of my biggest issues with the White Sox over the past couple of years is just how unlikable this team is. Not just the front office goons who are finally gone, but the players. After Jose Abreu left, I realized there isn’t a single player on this team that I like, and that’s never happened before. The closest I can come to with this group is Andrew Benentendi. I’m not a big fan of his but the rest of these guys are just insufferable, lazy slobs. There’s nothing here to like. No reason to follow.

So, now I’m playing the waiting game. I’m continuing to watch this dumpster fire until a decision is made. I try to just forget it, because in the grand scheme of things it really doesn’t matter at all, but this has been my life for so long it’s hard to just walk away, it’s literally a thousand times worse than any break up I’ve ever been through. But I know there’s something better on the other side, whether it be a competent general manager, or, if it’s Chris Getz, a whole new world of college sports opening up to me. So I’ll be fine either way. I just hope a decision is made at some point in the near future.

Thank you for reading. Peace.

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.

CAN 2023 BE THE YEAR I WAS HOPING 2020 WAS GOING TO BE?

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This is going to be one of my shorter blog entries, because I don’t want to spend a lot of time dwelling on 2022 (or 2021 or 2020 or any of the past 18 years) or over-hyping what may be another year in a long line of really bad years.

If you roll back in my blog to December 2019 you’ll see how much I looked forward to the 2020s beginning and the miserable 2010s finally coming to an end. Not much in my life has gone well or been pleasant since around 2004, and I know most of this is due to the fact that I got home internet service in 2005, and life has gone downhill ever since.

While the first six weeks of 2020 were amazing, the second week of February brought about a lot of things I don’t like to even think about (COVID, people I had discarded returning to my life) and 2021 and 2022 would prove to be even worse.

I’m not saying they were 2010s worse, because I really don’t know how life could have been any worse than it was during the 2010s. I wouldn’t wish that decade on my worst enemy, and I’m hopeful things will never be that bad again.

The main difference between standing in 2019 and looking toward 2020 and standing in 2022 and looking into 2023 is at least I had a plan for 2020. It may have crashed spectacularly in a mere month and a half, but I still had a plan in place.

I have no plan for 2023. I have some contingencies in place, in case whatever I do decide to do doesn’t work out. For example, my baseball burnout is so extreme I’ve been trying to decide what to do when it finally engulfs me. I am 99% sure at that point I’ll begin following either UCLA or West Virginia University sports.

As everyone knows, I love my White Sox and I’m trying as hard as I can to focus myself on it but things that have happened this offseason have hampered that, not the least of which was my loss of my MLB The Show 22 roster files I had been working on for seven weeks. I have since restarted my work using my previous year’s files from MLB The Show 21, which I preferred far more than the 2022 version anyway.

I want to do all the things I wanted to do in 2020. And 2021 and 2022. And while I did a few of them (specifically my two trips to Chicago in 2021 to see the White Sox in person) I have yet to “turn the corner” with my life. All I’ve done is waste it. And feeling the way I do (lack of sleep, lack of eating right, lack of exercise, etc) has done nothing but cause me more issues than I had before. Things have got to change.

And while I know there’s nothing special about another trip around the sun I do still want to improve my situation. I’m 45 years old and have a number of contemporaries who have passed away due to heart attacks and other issues I could be just as susceptible to at my age. If that happens, so be it. But I want to be better than that.

It’s time to leave all the trash in the past. Not just the trash of 2022, but all the trash since 2005. And there has been a landfill full of it. I just want to be happy. For the first time in almost 20 years, I just want to have an extended period of happy

Peace.

THE BREAK-UP I COULDN’T HANDLE: THE 2022 MLB LOCKOUT

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I tried. Lord knows, I tried. I tried, and I failed.

Knowing there was going to be an MLB work stoppage as far back as 2019, as my friends and I discussed regularly on Facebook. I started taking steps to ween myself off of baseball and get into something else. But that was an exercise in futility.
Starting in the summer of 2021, I started trying to push myself toward other sports I had enjoyed in the past. The NHL, and college football, basketball and baseball. I figured if there was a baseball strike or lockout, I’d have something to do.

At first I started following the Chicago Blackhawks, as I had been a huge NHL fan back in the 1990s and early 2000s. I also tried to follow West Virginia University and UCLA football and basketball, but no matter what I tried, it kept coming back to baseball. Baseball has had a stranglehold on me since 2006, and it’s not letting go.

I basically stopped watching the NFL in 2004, the sport was changing so much I was losing interest on a weekly basis. I had been a fan of the Cleveland Browns since the late 1980s, and the Chicago Bears for several years before that. My college sports fandom hung around until the mid-2000s, and absolutely cratered during all of the conference realignment of the second half of the 2000s.

By that point my time was completely consumed with baseball, And for the past 17 years or so I’ve made a point of following baseball 12 months out of the year, whether it was spring training, the regular season, the post-season or the offseason, I was always involved and following the happenings on a daily basis, 365 days a year.

I’ve always had such an easy time letting things go. In 2005, after almost 25 years as a fan of professional wrestling, I had reached the end of my ability to care. At the time I had posters of Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock in my man cave, a VHS and DVD collection anyone would have been jealous of, a closet full of wrestling t-shirts and a massive action figure collection I displayed. I watched wrestling six days a week (WWF and WCW had their flagship shows on Monday, WCW Thunder on Wednesday, WWF SmackDown on Thursday, ECW on TNN on Friday, and syndicated shows from WWF and WCW as well as independent Pittsburgh-area wrestling shows on the weekends. My only day off was Tuesday, so I would spend Tuesday watching wrestling videos or playing wrestling video games.

You might say I was all in. And then I was all out.

Some people laughed and said I was such a huge fan there was no way I could walk away. But I did. I sold my entire video collection, donated my shirts to Goodwill and sold the vast majority of my action figures and posters. And I never went back. That was 17 years ago and I have had no interest in ever going back. It’s dead to me.

Football and basketball became nothing but thug sports over the years. I read more stories online about arrests than I did transactions or scores.

But I always had baseball. So I absolutely sunk my entire life into baseball and the Chicago White Sox. But don’t misunderstand; I first became a White Sox fan in 1991, when I was a freshman in high school. We’re talking over 30 years. This didn’t happen overnight. Overall, I’ve been a baseball fan since 1988, as I followed the Pittsburgh Pirates prior to jumping on the White Sox bandwagon. While I did follow many sports during the 1990s and early 2000s, baseball was usually number-one on the list.

But now I’m at a point where I can’t picture my life without it. By this point most people are thinking “just wait it out, there will be baseball at some point.” Which, yes, is true, but I’m at the point where I don’t want to hand my money to MLB anymore, they’ve already gotten thousands and thousands of dollars out of me. I was ready to start handing money over to anyone else. I bought an insane amount of Chicago Blackhawks gear (which I still intend to use in the future) as well as WVU and UCLA gear.

So when the deadline came to get a new collective bargaining agreement signed between MLB and the players union, I figured it was time to move on. I was able to do that for roughly 24 hours. And now I’m just physically ill at the thought of moving onto something else because my heart isn’t into it. I want spring training and regular season baseball. And I’m trying to figure out what I can do to fill that void.

I’m still willing to give UCLA sports another go, my favorite college team since the mid 1990s. But at this point, I don’t know how I can get myself mentally motivated for it. My best hope is March Madness, but I feel no real urgency or desire the way I feel for MLB spring training to get underway. I know part of this is because everywhere I look in my house there’s a White Sox logo staring back at me. That’s definitely not helping.

So if jumping ship to UCLA doesn’t work, I figure I’ll do a variation on what got me through the lost 2020 summer due to COVID: I’ll start on a video game. I haven’t played Grand Theft Auto V yet, so I think I’ll start on that. I will also watch Chicago Fire/PD/Med on a nightly basis and that should help me to pass the time as well.

Ultimately, I hope UCLA can extricate me from this mental prison, and I plan to start putting that in motion very soon. But if it doesn’t, all is not lost and at least I know, once and for all, that I won’t be going back to college sports or the NFL ever again.

I have decided, though, that it would be a real good idea to leave baseball alone as soon as the season is over and get back to following the NHL, the Hawks in particular. This should alleviate some of my problems and give me something else to do besides baseball every minute of every day all year long. It can’t keep going like this.

This lockout needs to end, but if it doesn’t I’ll get through it, one way or another.

Peace.