Stuff I found in Storage: Sammy Sosa’s Softball Slam

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This is something that could just as easily be a Bizarre Baseball Culture. It’s the Sammy Sosa-starring slow-pitch softball, uhm… “classic”:  Sammy Sosa Softball Slam.

SammySosaSlamSammySosaSlam2I would have reinstalled this game to do a review, but I decided not to… because I can remember how much it sucked. I have played many horrible games in my day: I flew through freaking hoops in Superman 64 (how can you make a Superman game where the main activity is FLYING THROUGH FREAKING HOOPS!?!?!), I played a horrible Pokemon knock-off masquerading as an adaptation of Animorphs, I think I even played ET The Extraterrestrial for the Atari 2600 once in a museum somewhere.

Sammy Sosa Softball Slam is in that category of horrible. It was, for one thing, hilariously bad an idea. Let’s make a softball game… BUT WITH SAMMY SOSA! Even admitting this was the year 2000, I have to think some type of hallucinogens were involved for such a bizarre idea to happen.

The game itself wasn’t that much better. It was easy no matter what mode you were doing, the players involved (with the exception of Sammy himself) were ridiculously nondescript (compare this to the colorful cast of the great Backyard Baseball series), the graphics were bad even for their day, the announcer was annoying (he’d call Sammy “the man, the myth, the legend” basically every other time he came to the plate) and, oh, right, it was still a softball game starring Sammy Sosa. By the way, I remember that Sammy’s statistics were maxed out in the game, and that there was also a button on the player editing screen that would allow you to transform any player into Sammy Sosa- even if the player was a woman! Yes, with just the tap of a button, you could change anyone, regardless of age, race, or gender, into Sammy Sosa circa-2000… to play slow-pitch softball.

Think about the horrible implications of that.

Yeah, scary.

Oh, and this was the “thrilling” opening to the game. Although this is from the Playstation version and not the PC version, I seem to recall it being very similar:

(Shivers)

Coming up in the next week….

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Okay, so, in the coming week or so, I’ll be setting up some stuff to go up automatically, as my internet will be a bit spotty. Here are some things to look forward to:

  • About two and one-tenths Bizarre Baseball Culture installments with the first one featuring Ozzie Smith.
  • A look back at some of 2013’s greatest Baseball Continuum posts
  • Another look or two at stuff I found in storage. Maybe three, if you’re lucky.
  • Perhaps the long-overdue return of Baseball Card Haiku Project.
  • Some good links.
  • And I’ll probably randomly post one or two things totally unrelated to baseball, just because late December is sometimes slow.

So… keep an eye out!

Agent Fight! Agent Fight!

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There was a fight between agents during the Winter Meetings today. One guy threatened to burn the other guy’s house down. Jeff Passan has the story over at Yahoo! Sports, and he makes a reference to Punch-Out! in it, which is awesome.

There’s going to be a Bull Durham musical. May the Baseball Gods have mercy on our souls.

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Exactly what the title of this post says: Bull Durham will become a musical. Yeah, seriously.

Now, I have zero experience in musical theater and only slightly more than zero in theater in general, but I guess I’ll give this a shot, so without further ado, my one-man performance of the Bull Durham musical:

….

No, wait, no, I won’t. Trust me, you wouldn’t want to see it. You’d stab your eyes out, rip your ears out and then skins yourself so that you wouldn’t have any chance of even feeling the vibrations created by my voice. So… yeah. Sorry. (No I’m not.)

 

Stuff I Found In Storage: Atlanta Braves 1993 Spring Training Program

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So, I found this in my family storage. It probably was gotten by my grandfather:

93BravesSTcoverYou see that? Well, yes, it’s an image of Pittsburgh’s hopes and dreams being extinguished, but it also is the cover of the Spring Training program for the Atlanta Braves in 1993, when they were in West Palm Beach.

Let’s go inside, shall we (after the jump):

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Bizarre Baseball Culture: Mariners Mojo, in which a baseball team fights a Sasquatch Invasion

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Robinson Cano is now a Mariner. I did NOT see that coming. And they paid a ridiculous 240 million dollars for him, which is absurd, especially given the long length of the deal and the fact Cano is already in his thirties.

However, that, along with the fact that the Mariners are apparently not going in hard to get David Price (amongst others), means there is perhaps no better time than now to be remembering how back in 2002 the Mariners saved humanity from a grand Sasquatch Invasion, which is easily one of the ten worst types of invasions to deal with. And they did it in TWO issues! Yeah, some teams would stop with just one issue, but the Mariners released TWO in 2002. That is true devotion to giving the fans what they…. want? And, what’s more, They were available outside of the stadium too, available at local McDonald’s! That way, you wouldn’t even have had to go to the park to get your hands on these comics!

Oh, and yes, it was done by Ultimate Sports Entertainment/Ultimate Sports Force, why do you ask?

Both comics were written by David B. Schwartz, who’s Twitter account calls him a “entertainment lawyer by day, comic book writer by night.” He’s recently been doing things for independent comic companies like Aspen, where he most recently wrote a title called Idolized, if my research is correct. Since he’s a lawyer, I’m going to be extra-careful not to say anything that might cause him to sue me. Thankfully, he does a pretty good job with these comics, given the circumstances that surround comics like this.

Doing the art for the first issue- and the covers of both issues- was Brian Kong. Kong has done a ton of stuff over the years, from comics to cards to recently illustrating a children’s book about how baseball teams got their names. In part two, the art was done by Dennis Calero, a prolific artist who co-created Cowboys and Aliens, which was later very-loosely adapted into a movie, as well as work with DC and Marvel. Like with Schwartz, they do okay given the circumstances.

Anyway….

Go below the jump and let’s get started on the stories themselves:

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Roy Halladay retires, the three great managers inducted, I feel old

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I swear I’m going to get up the latest Bizarre Baseball Culture soon, but today has brought two major news stories:

A) Joe Torre, Tony La Russa and Bobby Cox have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans’ Committee. Marvin Miller wasn’t, but that’s another story.

B) Roy Halladay, the Doctor, has announced his retirement, signing a one-day deal with Toronto to end his career as a Blue Jay.

So, for those keeping score, that means perhaps the three greatest managers of the past 30 years are now in the Hall of Fame, and perhaps the best pitcher of the last 10 or 11 years has retired.

It’s an interesting contrast when you look at it, because while almost everyone expected the three managers to get in the Hall of Fame, it’s unlikely many people expected Roy Halladay would have gone out with such a whimper. Injuries and the cruelty that comes with growing old led to his sharp decline in 2012 and 2013, while the Phillies lack of hitting and the sheer randomness of October left him without a World Series ring.

It’s a stretch to compare Halladay to Sandy Koufax, but there are some similarities, as both came to the big leagues young, with their first few years being rocky as their raw talent was often unable to make up for inexperience. But then, something clicked, and for a span (five or so years for Koufax, ten or so years for Halladay, albeit with a blip in 2004 when he was hurt) they became the best pitchers of their generations. Then, however, injuries forced them into premature retirements (Koufax at only 30, while Halladay at 36 after two years of decline that Koufax never had).

Another thing they will have in common? The Hall of Fame. Matthew Pouliot over at HardballTalk has a good summing up of why, but it essentially comes down to how good he was over that 10-year span, as well as the fact that, for his era, he was an exceptional pitcher, for example throwing almost double the amount of complete games as the next pitcher who remains active.

“Mariners Mojo” delayed until tomorrow, sorry

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Due to the time it’ll take me to scan the needed images for the Bizarre Baseball Culture feature on “Mariners Mojo”, it won’t be up until tomorrow.

Sorry.

Tomorrow: The Mariners Fight Bigfoot

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Due to the shocking Robinson Cano signing, I’m going to be sending in a pinch-hitter tomorrow, replacing the would-be Bizarre Baseball Culture installment I was planning that featured Ozzie Smith and Tony the Tiger (seriously) with a very special installment that features two comics from 2002 in which the Mariners fight a Sasquatch invasion.

You have been warned.

Off-Topic Quote of the Day

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“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”

-Nelson Mandela, 1918-2013