YFSF

What Would Nostradamus Say?

For those who can't wait, here's the first inning from the 2011 World Series. Adrian Gonzalez in the house!

All-Star Gamer Thread

How many people think it is a rotten idea that the league that wins this game gets an advantage in the Series? Raise your hands.  The two of you that kept your hands down should go watch "Twilight: The Eclipse" together tonight.  There should be good seats available.

Congratulations to David Ortiz for putting an exclamation point on his recent notifications that the rumors of demise have been exaggerated.  Here's hoping the Junior Circuit serves up another can of whoop-ass to the AAAA squad.  Comment away.

Hope Springs: Yanks-Sox Gamer I

Tonight we'll be attending our first ever opening day (night, more accurately) game at the Fens. We grabbed our tickets and who should be staring at us but...Adrian Beltre? Seriously? He's the guy the Sox chose to represent the Olde Towne Team on this first game of a fresh, new season? Not that we aren't excited about this coming year, and we have some reasonable (if not super-high) hopes for our third-sacker, but we might have been a bit more excited had our cost of admission been emblazoned with someone with more than zero games in a Sox uniform.

In any case, welcome to the club, Adrian, and welcome back YFSF readers. 

Use this as tonight's gamer!

The Vanished

As a video game fanatic (I grew up with the original Atari 2600 before it was even referred to as a "2600", just to date things), I have always yearned for the great baseball game. And as interesting and sophisticated as consoles have become, I have still never gravitated towards or been convinced by the replication of baseball on video game systems.  Perhaps it is the lack of a continuous pace, the starts and stops, the restful pauses and the build-up of tension, that prevents baseball from being properly translated. A fluidity of action in something like soccer lends itself to virtual gaming for me (the recent version of FIFA '10 is a truly brilliant sports simulation), far more than something like baseball, or even American football (despite the popularity of the Madden franchise). The most memorable hardball video simulation I ever played was RBI Baseball, quite famously amongst my friends, in fact.  And that wasn't because it was graphically compelling or anything like real baseball. Rather, during college I was able to replicate and actually exceed Orel Hershiser's record-setting scoreless inning streak; I am willing to be that several college classmates remember the moment I broke the record in our dorm's common room, even more vividly than they remember what they learned in Art History 301, sadly.

But this game has piqued my curiosity, as a gamer, a baseball fan, and also as an architect. The ability to play games in fields of yore, on diamonds long since demolished, is a deft touch and a nostalgic feature that has me wondering if I should purchase this game and explore the worlds it reproduces. If the game marries classic lineups with classic fields and supplements those with solid gameplay, I may finally (after two decades of continued searching and high hopes) have found a baseball game that I can accept as a reasonable facsimile of the real thing, one which imbues what is really just a bunch of code with romance and nostalgia, characteristics hardly synonymous with video games.

Sidney's Blue Period: Yanks-KC Gamer I

Sidney Ponson now wears Royal blue. After experimenting with orange and black, navy blue, and a mix of American colors, he has settled on performing his art in this hue. Fittingly he is among royalty (as if this were not inevitable for Sir Sidney), and his first test is against his former mates, our heroes. The game has begun. Ponson is behind in the count to Teixeira. Actually he just walked him! One out and two men on base makes Sidney go boom!

Sources: A-Rod Requests Trade

Alex Rodriguez's days in the Bronx appear numbered. He has reportedly asked management for a trade to a small market team. Sources close to him claim that he can no longer handle the intense New York media and wishes to spend the rest of his career out of the spotlight. Cashman and company say they will try everything in their power to honor his request. Kansas City and Oakland appear on the top of A-Rod's wishlist. The Yanks would seek a package of high-level prospects from either of these clubs. It is assumed the Bombers would have to foot most of A-Rod's remaining contract.

YFSF Fantasy Baseball (Do Over)

Unfortunately many of our regulars (including myself) were shut out of the original (CBS) YFSF fantasy baseball league.  So I have gone back to Yahoo! in hopes that we can finally have a fully functional, fair and enjoyable fantasy baseball league.  Using Yahoo! gives us a chance to get more regulars into the league, the league max is 20, as opposed to 10 at CBS.  So we are going to scrap the CBS league and move forward with Yahoo!  If you are interested in joining the league simply send me an email at: JohnYF13 at yahoo dot com.  The first 19 teams that contact me will be granted league access.  Thanks guys and I am sorry for the confusion.      

Cover Duty

 

To all you baseball gamers, there's a MVP (most valuable pipsqueak!) in your future. 

Question: will the cover art keep diehard "The Show" fan and YFSF blogger John from buying the game at all?

(h/t Boston Globe)

UPDATE: Commenter Rob asks if there is a "Madden Curse" equivalent for this game.  There is.  It's after the jump.  And it's awesome.