Yankees! Dodgers! Game 1 Tonight

When I started this blog it was 2009, and the last time my Yankees made the World Series. So that's eh, 15 fifteen seasons. That's as long a drought as for the Yankees as the 1981 to 1996 drought, or the years when I was a kid and my dad was a young father.

It's like, you have a two year old and a new born, and the next time your team makes the world series is when your oldest kid is a senior in high school. For me, I went from living in Brooklyn and shilling dairy and writing to living on an opposite coast, being a veteran in my gig, and with two kids of my own, both at the same elementary school.

But Cass gets to see his team (yay Yankee fandom!) in the World Series at an impressionable age. Cool.

Also, I like the Dodgers. I grew up rooting for them in the National League (thanks mom!) and I'd claim them as my favorite NL team. 

So this year, either Ohtani wins the chip is his first year as a Dodger (hell yes to that narrative) or MY team wins the chip! Hell yes to that narrative, too! I'm comfortable with whatever outcome because I've seen so much success in the recent past with my sports teams: from 1996 until 2022 with the Yankees, the NY Giants, and the Golden State Warriors (representing Nor Cal, but I like the Kings, too), it's been a wild time.

Superstar time, though, for sure: Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Giancarlo Stanton for the pinstriped goons from the Bronx; Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman for the boys in blue form Chavez Ravine. Gerrit Cole, Clayton Kershaw...There haven't been this many future Hall of Famers and MVPs in the same World Series since probably 1996 (Jeter, Rivera, Time Raines, Wade Boggs for the Yanks and Maddux, Smoltz, Glavine, and Chipper Jones for the Braves).

Way to go baseball, for grabbing the collective consciousness. As much as D-Backs/Rangers was a good matchup of sound teams, c'mon! Dodgers/Yankees! Pennant number 41 for the Yanks! 15th meeting between these times, most ever! The narratives write themselves.

Go Yanks!

(Sigh) My Game's Finally Ending

The message I've been readying myself for a few years now came:

This is the message that Electronic Arts supplied us players of their phone game, The Simpsons: Tapped Out. It essentially says that on January 25th, the servers will be turned off and the game will cease to function. After all these years...

Here's an in-game image of the literal sunsetting of our Springfields:

TSTO, as we degenerate players called it, was a sims game. A "sims" game is a game in which you simulate things: you have characters who can assign quests for various lengths of time and be rewarded with types of currency that helps you build your town. All of us TSTO players were little civic planners, civil engineers, mayors, and lords of electronic fiefdoms. I played this game a lot.

It was a few things to me. One: it was a way to feel more connected to The Simpsons, arguably the greatest show ever made. Two: it was the most involved I'd been in any video game since the N64's Ocarina of Time. Three: it was a connection for me and my good buddy Tony, something we would regularly update each other about over the years. And years is the right framework, as I played this game a lot.

When I started playing, it was March 2012, and the game was a few months old. The maximum level a player could reach was 21. You started with Homer and Lisa, and would quickly unlock Cletus and Flanders, and as each of their quests or tasks would get done, you'd be rewarded with game cash and experience points (XP). Enough XP and you'd level up. By the time I reached the game's max level, that level was 35, and it was the Halloween event in 2012, after about six or seven months of playing. Now the max level is 939, which incidentally is the same as Puerto Rico's area code. Like I've said, I've played this game a lot.

Leveling up was just another way to keep engaged with the game play. That changed over the years, the engagement factor. While I did play a lot---I jumped awake when we were deep in the "Keep Cassius Alive" phase of his life and asked Corrie if my game updated (her response was "How tf should I know?"); I'd jones for Wi-fi codes in Laos and Cambodia to log in an keep my Christmas event going while traveling abroad in 2013/14---I was emotionally ready to quit the game a few years ago.

I had over 600 characters, thousands of "skins" (outfits for existing characters), I reached the edges of my space and, because of my city-planning decisions, I had most of my town full. I had maxed out the in-game currency (over 4.2 billion game-bucks), and by farming the premium currency, I had over 15 thousand donuts, which meant I could purchase any item in the game they offered, unless they sold a character for real money (which they did from time to time).

When I first put down the Simpson's house, I tried to place it strategically (for me). I thought it would look cool at the end of tree-lined esplanade. It wasn't what I was looking for, and after placing the Flanders house next door, I questioned my reason for even playing it. It wasn't until I separated their homes by water that I realized what I was really trying to do: I would recreate my Springfield as Venice. And I would essentially place everything in a spot that wouldn't change over the years of playing. I made a forest, and eventually had to fill most of it in. I once had a large bay gashing my town, but it needed to be filled in as well. If only...

And I mostly kept to that over the ensuing years. When looked at in it's totality, my game is an artifact of updates and releases, including when I started farming donuts and buying all the premium items. 

And I made my town into a veritable Venice, with waterways everywhere.

EA did a few things to keep engagement up in recent times. They made it possible to spend large chunks of game currency, which made clearing everyone have a purpose beyond just staring at your phone. And they made it possible to take photos of your entire town and save them. Here's an early one from my town:

It's hard to make out what's happening, but with zooming while looking at it on your phone, it the resolution gets down to playing the game size. That picture above is the first one I took, and I'll post the last one I'll take, the one I'm going to print out large like a poster. We should have guessed something was up when EA essentially doubled the available space in the game, opening up an enormous block to the "west" of the mountain range. Then they made the announcement of the sunsetting of the game by January and started to release many items that hadn't been released in years, and started selling the one-time cash-dependent characters for donut currency.

It's the last flailing about of our little pocket civilizations. We were, each of us, as players, mayors or despots, lords of our realms, civic planners and town designers. Some hasty, some petulant, some loved water everywhere.

I'm really only playing still so I can finalize my town for my poster-sized picture. That final picture will be coming in a few weeks or months, but here is one of the later ones showing off how much area is open. I finally got my ocean and will be getting my forests as well:

It was a good long run. I loved playing it, and having four months (we were told on September 25th that January 25th was the last day) to finish up and process losing it has been helpful. I was nearly done a few years back, so I've mostly made peace with it.

Viva Tapped Out! Thank you EA for all the years, and I don't regret not ever paying for anything. I know y'all as a company may disagree with that stance, but that's how it was. Halloween events; Christmas events; the terrible bickering between players on the fan sites (thanks tstoaddicts.com!) during the pagan winter event right after the election of 2016; the glitches and broken panes and integrity issues with the game elements...all of it, the warts and issues, I'd say were all worth it. The Stonecutters event still probably reigns as the best event...maybe the Monorail (I'm biased against the Monorail event because it broke my game for a few months). I don't regret playing, and while I'll miss it, I'm comfortable with moving on.

"You know my son's name, right?"

On the weekends when we make our weekly trip to the comic shop, we'll pick up the freebies that both DC and Marvel give out, essentially catalogs for what'll be out in two months time, as a way to drum up excitement and anticipation.

I usually peruse them and then toss them, but not until after the kids have had a huge fight about who gets which freebie. The trash ultimately claims them.

Anyway, DC recently re-released one of their most famous collaborations from the late '70s:

When I was telling the comic shop owner dude that I wanted it, he was like, "You, uh, know it's fifteen-bucks, right?" "Well," I told him, "my son's name is Cassius." He nodded and smiled, "Fair enough."

I remember the cover, front and back together, had celebrities drawn in there. I remember thinking oh, hey, that's Jimmy Carter and Lucy right there on the front. They even leave a message down on the back cover to check the legend inside to see how many you could name:

Only, the legend shows just how many actual people are depicted...

...so freaking many! And I love that many of them are staffers at DC Comics and Warner Bros.

Anyway, the only way it's possible to make everyone out is the fact that the product is SO BIG. The comic shop guy was like, "Well, that;s how big it was originally." Like, eh, okay...check it out laid up next to a regular magazine, which is already bigger than a regular comic book:

And then the story...is definitely from the late '70s, but is exciting.

I was trying to tell Cass about this...like, this is Ali, man! Superman isn't some comic character, he is the superhero: he can fly, he can shoot lasers from his eyes, bullets bounce off his body, he can punch someone's face clean off their body. He's older than everyone, including Batman. He's handsome and humble and is an invulnerable Boy Scout. He's almost too powerful for proper storytelling.

And people were like, "Eh...Superman vs Ali? Sound about right." Because you KNOW that somehow Ali was gonna win. Ali may lose to Frazier, and the unjust governing bodies of American boxing, but NOT to Superman. He wasn't gonna go kill brown people in Vietnam, and he wasn't gonna lose to Superman. 

Not only does he win, but Ali kicks his ass. He even protects him as they leave the ring:

It's definitely an artifact from a different time. It's big and beautiful, and Ali and Superman, however contrived their boxing match, are fun are to see working together. Also, it's always great to see Ali kick the asses of all comers, Superman and the extra-large Scrubb, Hun-ya.

Opening the Box?!

My wife doesn't like clutter. Hates it. Her feelings stem from growing up in a big chaotic family and household where the homes for the random household items were rarely, if ever, found by those items. "Everything has a home," she tells our kids.

But our kids are also my kids, and while not quite being a hoarder, I do exhibit mild hoarding tendencies. I am a packrat when it comes to paper waste--I'm perpetually collecting artifacts for some artistic display later, and my kids share this tendency with me.

Over the years I've gotten better at tossing stuff and clearing out my loads of crap. Sometimes the things aren't crap, but clunky yet. Sometimes they may be able to be sold. And sometimes my kids want to play with them.

Lately, I've said, "Aw, the hell with it..." One thing I had in a box labeled "Pat's Collectibles" was the following toy:

It turns out Carles Barkley was the only non-MJ player to get a figurine. My son said, "Can we open it and play with it? I know you love the coyote..." He does know me well. I told him once I checked the value of selling it eBay, if it wasn't crazy high, he could definitely open it and play with it.

It's now being played with by my son while I regale him of stories of Chuck's game. 

I figured it made it easier to be one step closer to the trash, which would make Corrie happy.

Other items were duplicate bobble-heads---one set are being played with and broken in my house while one set stays in the "Collectibles" box---of, get this, Lance Berkman and the fictional Rojo Johnson, a character played by Will Ferrell, when he came to the Round Rock stadium one random night in 2010. 

One step closer to the trashcan...

Little League is Upon Us

When I was a youngster, I played two years of little league baseball. Technically it was not Little League, with the capital letters, and any team I was on would never make it to the Little League World Series. I played in the Pony League, which was an organization that was big in Sacramento in the '80s.

I played one year of "Coach Pitch," and one year of "kid pitch." I don't remember too much from Coach Pitch, but I do remember walking a whole lot in Kid Pitch...and getting hit a lot, too. I remember only getting a single hit, and making contact twice in the same at bat, fouling a pitch off before lining a single to right-center. I think my OBP (on-base percentage) was in the upper .800s. I remember just wanting to swing for a change...

Anywho, Cass has joined a fall-ball league, and around here (Long Beach), fall ball is a short season with kid pitch until ball four, then coach pitch, and they switch turns in the field after the fifth batter no matter what. These are a couple of good rules. This way no one get's too zoned out out in the field and there's not an avalanche of walks.

This is also not technically the Little League, this is the Long Beach Cal Ripken League. But both Little League and Pony Baseball have a presence here, too.

I love that Cass and I can talk about baseball, and watch baseball, and have meaningful conversations about my baseball cards that he's claimed. Check him out above: rockin' the high socks and Don Mattingly's number.

The other day, Saturday, he found a collection of DVDs I bought years ago, my Yankee dynasty collection, a series of sports programs and year-in-reviews for 1996, 1998, '99, '00, and '01. There's also pivotal games from each year as well. Last Saturday we watched Game 4 of the 1996 World Series. There were no commercials, but it wasn't a series of highlights. It took a few hours. I showed Cass how to read the box score, so he knew which innings had the action, like Leyritz's homer in the 8th. 

I've been showing him Jeter highlights, too, like the flip play against the A's (RIP A's, pour some out for the homies) or his many tumbles into the stands.

Cass even caught the first pop-fly of the season for his team while manning 3rd base. So glad we spent all that time talking Mike Schmidt and George Brett.

Anyway, funny enough, all this baseball talk on my dad's birthday...so, happy birthday dad! Playoff's start today, too, with the Yanks getting a bye in this first round.