The Recycle Bin

Georgia landed an at-larger bid to host in this year’s build up to the NCAA College World Series. Georgia is currently ranked in the Top 10 by Baseball American (not sure if the rankings have been updated after going down to Vanderbilt last Saturday).

To be honest I am not sure what sort of chance UGA has of making it to the Super Regionals; it really depends on who lands in their Regional bracket, and if they can continue to get just enough pitching with plenty of timely hitting. The good news is that the Dawgs have been playing solid of late, going 14-1 in SEC play leading up to the SEC tournament.

Go DAWGS!

The Braves are managing to put together a nice run, but this has to be some sort of hocus-pocus, black-magic thing, because the Braves cannot be for real with their horrid bullpen problems.

I should be thankful that the Braves are now only 3.5 games back of the Mets, and finally over .500 (27-23), but yesterday the Braves blew yet another late inning lead (12-8 in the 9th) thanks to the wonders of Chris Reitsma, who absolutely sucks on the road. I read somewhere where Reitsma’s ERA at home was under 2, but on the road it has to be 7+.

After 4 blown saves by Reitsma, even Cox has to see the writing on the wall. The Braves will go no where fast with this guy trying to close games.

I think the site goes smoother (and is more entertaining) with three active writers. Chris and I usually keep a decent flow of content and banter going; usually one of us is posting while the other is doing the real life thing, but sometimes the banter thing works out. Geoff is MIA (hello?), and Kevin is off doing his MLS thing (see his site for more info), so we are down a writer.

Please drop me a line (jonathan@calvertgames.com) if you are interested in joining our staff. No special requirements – you just need to enjoy writing about games (PC, consoles, handheld, retro/classic) and sports.

Congratulations to Sam Hornish Jr. on his fine Indy 500 victory. Before the start of the race, my oldest son asked who I wanted to win (he was pulling for Hornish – like father like son). I told my boys that I was pulling for Michael Andretti and Sam, so my racing day went pretty well. As always, my wife and my youngest son were going for the “Target car” � hard to believe that Tonya has already had that sort of impact on my youngest son.

What an exciting finish! I have to admit that at the end I was pulling hard for Marco, and why not, it would have been a heck of a statement. It is sort of hard not to pull for an Andretti, and you have to like his post race statement that “second place is nothing.” Marco drove extremely smart in the end; he could have blocked, but he would have run the risk of crashing out of the race (along with crashing Hornish). At the end of the day, second place was a great finish for a nineteen-year old rookie.

I sort of feel bad for dishing Hornish at the very end, but after coming back to my senses, I am very happy for Sam. He is one of the few IRL drivers that I actually follow. Even if I do not watch a race (or only casually follow a season), I always check on Hornish.

I have been complaining for years that the IRL just does not do enough to push/market their drivers to the same degree that NASCAR pushes their top players. Hopefully that will change now that Hornish has a Indy 500 victory; that is worth pushing. But Marco has to be the story of the day.

Speaking of bad marketing, I had no idea that Marco was even in the IRL this year, and had no idea that Michael was giving it another go. As soon as I saw the starting grid (about 10 mins before the race), I told my boys that I *had* to pull for Michael, but if he was not going to win, then, as always, I would be cheering Hornish along.

Long before I became a racing fan, the Indy 500 was something; so I have been told. Now it has come to a third generation Andretti being in a race, and the IRL did nothing to push the most beloved name in American racing. Or maybe they did, and I failed to notice? For a racing fan, that is a big deal. The IRL should have pushed this one to a much greater degree to try to capture the attention of fringe fans.

The IRL should have a great marketing lineup in Danica, Marco, and Hornish � all solid American drivers that the US racing public should be able to get behind and cheer.

The next move belongs to the IRL marketing folks.

Well, at least in Columbus, GA. I still do not understand why we do not get more major soccer coverage in our local paper. The paper does a decent job of spotlighting local interests – the strong showing from our local high school teams, and our new woman’s soccer team at Columbus State University (2005 co-champions of the Peach Belt Conference). OK, I know most of you do not give a rat’s behind about local soccer coverage in Columbus, GA, but there is a point.

The point is that get very little US National team coverage and very little MLS coverage. The lack of MLS coverage may be due to no regional ties. We do get MLS conference standings, complete with scores (not box scores), upcoming schedules, and the occasional brief (i.e. 50 words or less). The lack of Nation team coverage is bewildering, but I assume is a financial decision. Today we did get an AP story about Bruce Arena; a good quarter of a page, which is a ton for a soccer story.

Hopefully the build-up to the 2006 World Cup will get some play in The Sporting News, which does an abysmal job of covering soccer. I have written several letters to the editor begging and pleading with them to provide one page per issue for soccer coverage. I would love to coverage of the National team, highlights of US players playing overseas, and any MLS coverage the magazine throws my way (i.e. box scores, transactions, league leaders, etc).

One can continue to dream for respect.

This Memorial Day weekend, please pause a few moments to remember why we are fighting the good fight and say a prayer for the safe return for those good men and women defending our freedom. Regardless of your political affiliations, or your view of Iraqi, good men have died for our Country. I believe that they are fighting the good fight.

I wish major media outlets would carry this story as a major headline – “Iraqi coach, players killed” – I found this story in a “brief” section on page two of the sports section for the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer:

An Iraqi tennis coach and two of his players were killed because they were wearing shorts, apparently in violation of a warning by Islamic extremists.

The athletes were in shorts when they were killed and police believe the attack was related to a warning by extremists against such attire.

Imagine living in a place where you will be casually executed by a group of people that do not approve of the clothes on your back.

God bless America.

I hate CBS. Really. They absolutely f’ing suck. I love the Sunday before Memorial Day when the racing gods give us the Monaco GP, followed by the Indy 500, followed by some circle racing at the Coca-Cola 600.

By why enjoy a good thing CBS? Instead of getting racing for breakfast, lunch, and supper, CBS is going to show the Monaco GP on tape delay at 12:30PM EST, so it will overlap with the Indy 500. Good deal.

CBS sucks!

It seems that Total Pro Golf will not be published by Grey Dog Software. Gary Gorski and friends have created Wolverine Studios the self proclaimed “new home of sports simulation games.” Will be interesting to see how a diluted Grey Dog Software survives with essentially two developers. Don’t know why the split occurred, but it seems amicable.

I honestly cannot remember a text-game getting better marketing in the United States, although there are few print/media ads available. SI released a video demonstrating some OOTP 2006 features. In addition, SI will take online league game files and test the import compatibility into OOTP 2006.

Brilliant, just brilliant!

Heading off to FL for vacation. Will post again soon …

I have been lamenting about a lack of good review sites, so I have to throw out some recognition to deeko. I know nothing about the folks that run this site, how long they have been around, or what their slant is on the world of gaming. I do know that the layout of the site pretty much sucks, but I found some of their PSP reviews via GameRankings.

It is hard to find good reviews these days, and I am not ready to go flowery on deeko, but they seem to do a good job of covering enough detail in their reviews to tell me specifically if I will (or will not) enjoy a game. A good example is their Colin McRae Rally review. I have been playing this one for a while, and while I seem to get better and better, the game is flat out hard. After reading the review at deeko, I now wonder if all my struggles have to do with a poorly implemented analog module, and not with deteriorating gaming skills (although that is still a strong possibility).

Anyway, it is not always hard-ass 24/7 around here; credit where credit is due. BTW, for a sneak-peek at my next post (later tonight or tomorrow), check out deeko’s review of Pinball Hall of Fame, which is a game that I am absolutely loving. Second BTW, Best Buy has the game for $19.99.

Last weekend I purchased Bust-A-Move Deluxe, OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast, MLB 06: The Show, and Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection. A few posts down I wrote about my frustrations with OutRun – in short the game did not work. I exchanged the game on Sunday, and all looks well now, but that is a different story for a different post. I have been saving MLB 06 for my beach trip this Friday. So that brings us too …

Bust-A-Move Deluxe was a bad purchase. No. I am not part of some anti bubble busting conspiracy. Actually I like the series, and have spent many an hour with the various games in the series on all manner of platforms. I have not played a home version of the game for several years, having sold my PS2 version (or was it the PSX version several or maybe both) several years back. I also parted with my only portable version of the game, on the NeoGeo Pocket Color, several years ago as well. Because I love puzzle games, because I enjoy the Bust-A-Move series, and because I was in the mood to purchase some PSP games I decided to pick up the new PSP version of Bust-A-Move Deluxe. As I said, I was actually excited to get my hands on the game.

While Bust-A-Move’s formula of matching color bubbles is still fundamentally solid and fun, my problem is that the game has not really changed, which should not have been a surprise. Seriously, what else should I have expected? So my real frustration with the game has nothing to do with the solid bubble busting goodness presented in the PSP version of the game, instead my frustration comes with the fact that I spent $39.99 (plus tax) on a game that should be priced $10-15 lower. I guess it is a matter of opinion if a game is worth a certain amount of money, but I have a feeling that even die-hard fans of the series will question the price point of this one.

Taito did throw in a couple of new gameplay modes, which I will not describe here (GameRankings has plenty of reviews), but these new modes really come across as gimmicky. I guess your mileage may very, and I will certainly give the game another go while I am on vacation to see if opinions are changed. I almost feel bad for saying this, but as it stands right now, I cannot recommend Bust-A-Move Deluxe at full retail price.

News keeps getting better and better for OOTP fans. The latest blog entry discusses the SQL data “dumping” properties available in OOTP 2006. Sweet Jesus this is good news for online leagues.

Interesting article in the New York Times about who owns Major League Baseball’s statistics.

The latest and greatest version of PureSim is available for download. Nobody is screaming bloody murder in the forums yet, so it may be safe to purchase.