Owens? Right Guard?

So, yesterday I heard that Terrell Owens was in a new commercial for Right Guard starring 2 NFL superstars and a jackass - coincidentally, anyone know who the 2 players are?

Like a swift kick in the groin...

Hope everyone had a happy draft weekend, that is unless you're a football fan of anyone other than the Cincinnati Bengals - in which case I hope your draft sucked. I posted thoughts on how my Bengals did over at Maddenmania, which all-in-all translated over to a B+...pretty close to Kiper's A- rating (he's wrong, I'm right). But now my fingers are much too tired to post anything else related to the draft, so I've saved my last few keystrokes for this blog and useless video game talk.

Anyway! Hey check it - I played NASCAR: Chase for the Cup all night last night and only drank 1 beer! Amazing!

So ya, I've been farting around auto racing since last Thursday night, working to achieve a 100% rating in another game I likely never will. When I received the game complimentary of the EA Sports online community leaders program back in August, I raced online against other leaders and ran up an impressive 18-0 record that I haven't touched since (you just hate losing perfection sometimes). Offline, I was playing the "Fight to the Top" mode pretty hardcore before I drifted back off into NCAA Football 2005 and the newest Tiger Woods (coincidentally enough another game I'll never achieve 100% game progress in), and in it I was up to 13% from a combination of Trophy Progress, Thunder Plates unlocked and Challenges completed. Now I'm up to 34%, and I assume I'll be racing to my little hearts desire for the next few nights while I recover from the online mortality I was faced with last week.

Chase to the Cup is really a great game. Back when I was previewing I gave it fantastic marks and had a great time with it, but my blind loyalties to football often clouds my judgement on great games (for instance I'm still like 54% thru GTA: SA - or better known as the 3rd game of this article I'll never achieve 100% on). I'll always remember testing it - we were running easy mode (no damage to cars and whatnot) and I was early-on the only one who raced with any consistency (only like 8 online people at this point). We qualified for Watkins Glen much to the other 3 people's dismay, and I was the only one who qualified near the front (was like #9 or something). Well, WG starts down a straightaway and makes a near 90º right turn - so, I'm falling in line heading into it, and out of the corner of my right eye I see 3 cars plowing thru the grass infield and completely destroying the first 8 cars, I think even one of them went flying over the wall - to be listening in on that microphone conversation is one of those "had to be there" moments, but I'm sure you can get an idea of the hilarity that race caused.

I mentioned my earlier mortality in MVP '05 - lemme tell ya it was a major-ass kick in the groin if I've ever had one...

First, I get challenged by Lord Unk, a baller ranked #186 in the world. Never one to shy away from a challenge, I accept and it's on like Donkey Kong. I scored in the first inning after loading the bases with 3 singles to start the game, but my inability to score more than 1 came from inability to suddenly hit long fly balls to get the job done for tag-ups and whatnot. In the bottom of the first (oh ya, I'm Florida he's Chicago), he hits a solo HR with Nomar (the irony) to tie it up at 1-1. Top of the 2nd I'm still all over this guy, putting up 2 more runs on 5 base hits, he in the bottom half of the inning hits a 2-run HR after fake bunting a 3-1 count to get me to throw a yellow X-ball to put a runner on board.

3-3 in the bottom of the 5th, I go to Alfonseca. Patterson leads off with a single, and Hairston comes up and fake bunts for ooooooooohh, I dunno, 3 minutes until my cursor disappears. Make no mistake I don't need a cursor to throw strikes, but all of a sudden I can't stop my pitching cursor and throw 4 consecutive balls to walk Hairston...then the same fake bunt bullshit to Nomar. Finally the fake bunts lead me to throwing a meatball to Burnitz, who jacks a single into LF for the game winner. Fun...

Looking for redemption I challenge a low ranked like 5-9 record guy, and he swings at EVERY pitch I throw the entire game. Johnny Damon leads off with a lineout to RF, and after that I never again throw a strike - striking out the next 15 batters on 3 straight strikes out of the zone. Unfortunatley for me, he's throwing nothing but sliders, curveballs and change-ups with Curt Schilling and I can't get anything out of the freakin' infield. In the top of the 6th, I accidentally throw a high fastball that apparently doesn't go far enough outside of the strike zone to where Damon again cracks it, this time over the right field fence - and then I can't score in the bottom half, losing 1-0.

Next game (I'm using "Play Now" btw, broadband only/any rank), I get Like a Mug1, who gets the Royals against my Reds and throws Zach Greinke - who throws a 56 mph curveball. Impossible. He threw an occasional fastball (when he had 2 strikes and wanted to throw it high), but he basically just did change-up/curveball/slider - and the curve/slider both being red out of the pitcher's hand should just be illegal. I won 1-0 on an accidental single to RF by Austin Kearns.

Like I said...my mortality? I can't hit, and that's apparently cause I don't hold up on the stick the entire game and wait for that one mistake - see, it's like a swift kick in the groin.

Mock Drafts

With the NFL Draft coming up this weekend you're beginning to see analysis by everyone and their father's brother's cousin's nephew's former roommate about who's going to take who with what pick, and their reasons why. Now, sitting from my comfortable chair here at work I should be working in, let me remind everyone that reads these, makes these or trusts these for their pre-drafts...they're wrong.

Hitting the NFL draft's first round is like hitting every game going into the Sweet Sixteen on your office bracket you stepped up to the plate to and paid your $2 to get in. Not only is one pick going to upset an unspecified number of picks thereafter, but you also have projected people falling out of the first, unexpected people being pulled into it and then the mother-of-all draft screw-ups - the trades. So no matter how much you study a team's needs, tell your friends who your favorite team is going to take or think you should be sitting in Mel Kiper's shoes - just remember: you're wrong, your friends are wrong, and Mel Kiper is an overrated, light-loafered, Diet Coke-drinking cockstamped slapass who needs to care less about male collegiate athletes and more about surgically reducing the size of the ball-stand otherwise known as his chin.

G.O.A.T.?

Remember last post where I said I was the most dominant pitcher in the history of MVP Baseball? Well, perhaps I didn't ellaborate enough - my online experience over the last 6 games against random online lobby trash was simply dipping into a 12-pack of "making you my bitch" and then breaking out the beer funnel. Seriously, no one's scoring on my ass again without flowers and an expensive dinner beforehand.

I always give the back and forth banter about me being simply unhittable, but for the last 6 games I've been un-score-on-...a...ble (or something). Now I am beatable, as I was defeated last week on a 2-out 2-run walk-off HR by Jose Reyes off Danny Graves in the 8th inning - but by god if I'm able to score 3 runs I'm going to go ahead and say, "Start the busses, bitches" cause I ain't getting beat after that.

Now hitting online is another story. For one, it is somewhat difficult to hit another player pitching even if you have a master eye at the plate. It's dynamic, often times you can't pick up patterns until the late innings and even then sometimes it's too late - nothing matures from it. Then you add in the fact that every ranked game played is only 5 innings long and played on the All-Star difficulty level, you seriously have yourself up Shit Creek without a paddle. If that isn't enough, my last 7 games have been vs Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, Rich Harden, Johnson, Curt Schilling, Tim Hudson & Jason Schmidt - so I'm also facing rip-roaring fastballs and devastating offspeed stuff. I'm hitting a measily .234 online, but I guess that isn't all that bad when your ERA is sitting pretty at 0.40 (link).

Well, what the Eff, I hate injuries

I hate injuries. You can plan and wait and anticipate your team kicking ass all offseason, envision the playoffs, the World Series and then, boom, f'n Cesar Izturis slides into Khalil Greene and the season goes down the tubes. Ok I'm being a bit dramatic but the picture of Geoff Blum and Danny Garcia replacing possibly the most dynamic Shortstop in the Majors just flat out frightens me. Did I mention I hate injuries? Khalil is no longer allowed to play outside when the Pads go to Dodger stadium, last year he dislocated his damn finger on the same hand I may add and missed the entire playoff push, which they probably would have won with him making more than 2 pinch running appearances.

Dammit, I'm pissed.

Madden back to a sim-game? Looks like it to me

Thanks to our boys at www.maddenmania.com we have some early breaking news about the new Madden 2006. The big thing is the addition of what they call a "vision-cone" (which will be from hereafter referred to as the VC, for sanity sake. The cone is based on attribute ratings, a novel concept considering the fact that random shoddy QB's kick my arse on a regular basis in my franchise mode (shameless plug, thank you). I still am reeling from giving up 4 TDS to Kelly Holcomb last year, just sad.
The VC (refer to pic, assuming I figure out how to get it up, errr, get it posted) is bigger/wider for QB's with higher accuracy/awareness ratings such as McNabb, Peyton and Brady. To focus in on a different section of the field, you're gonna be using the right analog stick, which I think is a potential disastor, or the face buttons, R2 and then pick the WR icon you wanna look at. Make sense? Good , I hope so.
The one thing I think this is going to effect are the dickheads that play so friggin much that they snap the ball and throw a pass virtually split seconds after the play begins resulting in easy yardage to Tight Ends or HB's in the flat, I f'n hate that shizzle. Maybe I'm a novice, maybe i'm simply stupid, but my Madden record speaks for itself, I'm downright terrible. Bringing the game back to a more realistic feel definitely gives me a chance to compete, as I'd rather not play at all than to play like a cheezdick (except for my NCAA battles with Biron, he's a sucker for a rollout bomb with Nebraska, just pure dominance).

NCAA 2006 revealed some new things too on the site, worth checking out if you're bored and are ready for list of retarded features only applicable for those with a identity crisis. Create yourself in the game? Get a chick to blow you in the school library? well, that would be cool, but I highly doubt u get to pick the sexual favors you get from your cyber girlfriends. Who knows, this may sell, never underestimate the lack of women most video athletes get, might be the closest most of you sniff nookie in your lives.

Peace out, off to score the Dayton/Ft Wayne game. www.minorleaguebaseball.com, live it. Here are the pics I promised:

My E-P

Well I sure as hell am glad that he did the intro to the blog, even if everything he said about me isn't true.

My articles here will likely amount to very little in ways of "beneficial reading", although I am a strongly convictive self-titled sports analyst who'll happily share his one-sided point of view of various topics whether I know what I'm saying or not at any time. I think over time you'll 1) Begin noticing my penchant for long-winded, grammatically incorrect run-on sentences, and 2) begin to agree with me on everything - so bear with me.

Like Teebee mentioned, this blog is somewhat inspired by The Blog for the Sports Gamer, as we're both very active in the video sports scene. I serve as an NCAA Online moderator at MaddenMania and still manage to have my hands in 800 other things as well - winning online leagues, being the best MVP pitcher on the planet (hitting's another story), hitting the links with my boy BDawg late at night on Tiger '05, stroking my elongated e-penis online - you know, the works. And, like any other blogger on the 'net, those self-imposed qualifications grants me the right to waste both of our times (that's me the pseudo author and you the bored-at-work reader).

I guess there's just not a lot of topics to start out writing about in the world of sports, and hell - no one wants to start anything remotely productive on the internet on Friday anyway. Well I mean, I got fantasy baseball to set for the weekend, Red Sox fans to criticize for slapping Sheff', and I absolutely HAVE to go tell someone about how awesome a manager Bobby Cox is for getting thrown out of a

game already this season. They say every year that balls and strikes are non-negotiable, yet Bobby finds time to bitch about when his pitchers are getting their repercussions from the Maddux/Glavine era of corner-strikes. And really, not since Billy Martin have I seen a guy go out to an umpire and get tossed within the first 3 words out of his mouth - I mean, as a high school baseball coach, just once could I meet this guy and discuss technique....

but yo, hopefully this blog gets contagious like Ron Mexico.

So what is this Franchise mode thing?

You may wonder, what the world is franchise mode and what kind of title is that for a blog/website/chatboard/whatever the heck you wanna call it (as you can see, i'll usually say heck, Biron will usually say hell, its the dynamic of this upcoming blog, get use to it)?

Well, Biron, or as I like to call him Chuck, had the idea that he was interested in starting a website other than his www.pigskin-gaming.com and I, being busy as heck (see, there I go again) working two jobs and trying to finish MVP 2005 PS2 rosters, am always interested in yet another venture to supplement my website www.geekrosters.com said "Yeah, lets do it".

For me, this blog is kinda inspired by the Blog for the sports gamer, I like to read that periodically while I slave away at work and pretend to book limos and other shoddy vehicles for the travel company I work for. I liked reading a unbiased opinion of sports, sports video games and virtually any subject one wants to address while still keeping personality and not losing yourself in the formatics that scream of "I need an A on this paper to graduate" mentality. Thusly, (a college word used by many to spruce up a shoddy paper) franchise mode is born. The name is derived from the ancient Roman past-time of simming or playing out any sports title in multiple season, arranging for the sale of foam fingers and ribs and indicates our interest in the most important things in life: Sports and video games. Screw mortgages 401k's and children (well, we don't have any but damn am I practicing make them).

In my side of the blog I'm mainly gonna focus on video games, sports video games and rosters and real-life sports, this time of year Major League Baseball. I work part-time for www.MLB.com and www.minorleaguebaseball.com , i'm a stats stringer for minor league games and hopefully can get in full-time eventually but i have to grind away at Toledo vs Charlotte at this point. I don't mind, its a fun way to make some cash and it keeps me sane.

Biron, may want to focus on other endeavors of interest to him, such as sliding on wet bananas, finally getting around to training his organ grinder monkey and organizing his Playgirl subscriptions. You'll get a good dose of hilarity and insanity I'm sure from this point on, I'll leave some hijinks for later.

For now, I'm fighting off a sore throat, i've taken about 200% of the recommended dosage of vitamin C today and haven't touched a PS2 controller in about 10 days. This needs to change and I 'll put some time in on MVP rosters later this weekend.

This thing on?

We need more Cowbell.

mic check

1-2 1-2