MLB 11: The Show

I have started playing my latest video game acquisition MLB 11: The Show in earnest now as I work my way through spring training. I love this game. It is the most realistic baseball game I have ever played. The graphics, the features, the way it plays, the realism down to the last detail. Its all great!

The realism of the game is so good, it almost mirrors my playing days. The self-proclaimed "Bob Uecker of Little League Baseball" still can't hit a changeup, swings at pitches in the dirt and two or three feet outside of the strike zone, and is a sucker for an outside slider with two strikes. I have played about 20 games so far and I don't think I have drawn one base on balls, not even an intentional one. It is a classic case of life imitating art and this game is baseball art in its purest form.

I am a huge Los Angeles Dodgers fan and I love being able to manipulate the 40 man roster and to be able to control their farm teams. I have to be honest and admit that I have never played the most recognizable feauture "Road to the Show", where you create a player and take him from the minors to the majors, in this game. I can't seem to want to play anything other than the franchise mode. I have never played online either but I have plenty of time to get my butt kicked by some 12 year old in Butte, Montana.

Big Hair and Plastic Grass

every once in a while a sports book will come along that is not only stats and history but is entertaining as hell. dan epstein has achieved that in "Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging '70s". it chronologically covers baseball through the decade of the 1970's. i first started following baseball religiously in 1976. i learned how to read boxscores, calculate batting averages and e.r.a, and became a complete stats freak which i continue to be today. i was 10 years old in 1976 and was a devout los angesles dodgers fan mainly because my dad was a brooklyn dodgers fan and followed them to los angeles. i was always hearing stories about sandy koufax, don drysdale, and claude osteen. my favorie player was ron cey aka the "the penguin" of the la dodgers. i really started following baseball because of my taking up baseball card collecting. my hometown newspaper only came out three times a week at that time, so boxscores and other dodgers news was very slow in coming. espn was still several years away, broadcast news only had sports on for about five minutes, and there were only two games a week on tv-saturday afternoon baseball and monday night baseball. this week in baseball with mel allen was the only baseball magazine type of show and i watched it religiously every week. dan epstein's book brought back some great memories of my childhood, i got to read alot of stories i had never read before, it made me laugh (the don "pussyface" sutton story was my favorite), and ron cey even got a mention. it also made me realize that baseball in the '70s was more in tune with american society than i realized with the tales of alcohol and drug abuse as well as with the racial tension that was going on in baseball and american society. it is a great read and a must have for any baseball collection.