Excellent Farewell

From the OOTP2006 forums:

“I played my final game of OOTP 6.5 today. On 7/9/2010 my Cardinals won a 4-3, 10 inning game over the Pittsburgh Pirates to improve to 54-36, 1.5 games behind the division leading Milwaukee Brewers. Fictional player Mark Melancon, my 2006 first round selection (29th overall) who is my 25 year old closer, got player of the game with 2 innings of shutout relief.

Goodbye Melancon (entered the majors the day he was drafted, led the league in saves with 46 in 2007), Pujols (never less than 32 homers, 107 RBIs, 105 runs, or .299 BA and usually well above all of those), Mulder (2007 Cy Young, 22-6 with a 2.50 in 255.2 IP with 5 CGs and 3 SHOs for a 0.97 WHIP), Yadier Molina (always seemed to come up with the clutch hit in the playoffs) and Scott Rolen (won a Gold Glove all 4 years in this sim). Goodbye to all the other times I took over the Cardinals, just to watch Pujols play.

Goodbye to all of those Red Sox teams I ran over the last two years. Goodbye Tigers, goodbye Pirates, goodbye Rockies, goodbye Cubs, goodbye Brewers. Your franchises have been good to me over the many, many, many seasons that I ran them.

Remember that time you Rockies surged from 8 games down in the last two weeks to capture the NL West in your second year of existence? Dante Bichette was a golden god that season, leading the league in homers by at least ten. I remember our #5 and #6 hitters had less RBIs combined than our #3 hitter, simply because Dante kept clearing the bases at the cleanup spot.

Detroit, remember that streak of 7 division wins in a row in the 2020s? Those Royals never knew what hit ’em. Historically, Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker were almost as good as their real life counterparts. They didn’t have quite the longevity, but they produced.

Hey, Pirates, remember the…. well, okay, you almost always sucked. But even I couldn’t do anything when George Brett, Rickey Henderson and Bert Blyleven all got career ending injuries over the course of two seasons. At least we never liked disco.

You Cubs… man, where to start. In one league you’d be mediocre for two decades, in another league you’d win me a couple of World Series, in another league you developed nothing out of your minor leagues aside from catchers and relief pitchers. I swear, every four years I had another stud catcher to play. Could I get a starter every now and then? A shortstop? Maybe a third baseman? Nope. Relievers and catchers, that’s all you gave me.

Ah, Brewers. Those late ’60s and early ’70s were so horrible. Nothing went right in the beginning of your existence. Those late ’70s were fun though. Remember Bucky ‘Friggin’ Dent? The Red Sox (the Red Sox!) offered him to us for some scrub minor leaguers and we desperately needed a shortstop. He was a career .250somethin’ hitter in four seasons and what did he do for us? Three straight All Star appearances and almost a decade of solid play. I almost didn’t accept that trade due to his real life transgressions, but we were desperate to fill that shortstop hole.

Goodbye to all of you fictional teams I played over the years. It wasn’t you, it was me. I just can’t love a team I don’t feel like I already know. I guess we really should have been friends first. Especially you expansion Salt Lake City Sundowners. I think I created you half a dozen times and it never lasted more than a few seasons at a time.

Last, but most definitely not least, goodbye to my beloved Red Sox. The seasons we spent together outnumber the stars in a clear summer sky. I look forward to meeting you in our next life, OOTP’06. You are my one true love and always will be. There were good times and there were bad times, online and solo, but in the end it was always worth it.

Goodbye OOTP4, OOTP5, OOTP6 and OOTP6.5. Goodbye old and busted, hello new hotness!

As the immortal Jimmie Dugan once said; “Uh, Lord, hallowed be Thy name. May our feet be swift; may our bats be mighty; may our balls… be plentiful.”

Time to uninstall and defrag before my last good night of sleep for the rest of the week.”