Yankee4Life

By now some of you may have noticed that the season mods that Jim825 has made over the years are some very important years in the history of the game although each for very different reasons. Take for example these random three. The 1919 season mod with the famous Black Sox scandal looming in the background. It was also Babe Ruth’s last year in Boston before being sold to New York where he lit the baseball world on fire. Or 1939, Lou Gehrig’s last year and the fourth straight championship season for the Yankees and a tall skinny rookie from San Diego named Ted Williams who began his career in Boston. Or finally 1955, the year the Brooklyn Dodgers finally found out how the Yankees had been feeling all those years. Each season completely different and each season a Total Classics mod. And now the 1968 season is the newest member of this impressive collection of mods. When you think of 1968 you may think that it was the year of the Tiger and you’d be right up to a point. It’s also the year of Bob Gibson when he went 22 - 9 with a 1.12 earned run average. It was Mickey Mantle’s final season for a rebuilding Yankee team, the Kansas City Athletics moved to Oakland and it was the last year before baseball was broken up into divisions because four new teams (the Padres, Expos, Royals and Pilots) were added. The preparation for the installation of this mod for veterans of these superb mods has not changed one bit. You must have an out-of-the-box (or as I put it a “clean” copy) with absolutely no mods already installed. This is where Jim’s installer will do the work. Just point to where this version of Mvp 2005 is and the installer will turn it into the 1968 version before you know it. After this is completed the next thing is to get into the game and look around. Immediately on the click-to-start screen you’ll see some history of that year’s World Series. Lou Brock is trying to score and Tiger catcher Bill Freehan is awaiting the throw. More on that in a moment. The background sounds of 1968 are well represented here with music from The Doors, Stones, Steppenwolf and Simon and Garfunkel, just to name a few. I also learned that the Otis Redding song "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" was a hit in 1968. I never knew this. I had it set that I was going to use the Detroit Tigers in my exhibition game and since there was no inter league play back then thankfully I had nine teams to choose from and I randomly chose the California Angels to take on World Series hero Mickey Lolich and his Tiger teammates. California kept the game close thanks to three unlucky at-bats by catcher Bill Freehan. Each time up the Tigers had runners on base but Freehan hit the ball hard directly at an Angel infielder who promptly started a double play to end the inning. If it was not for that the Tigers may have pushed across more runs. Unfazed, Lolich kept the Angels guessing before finally tiring after eight innings and John Hiller picked up the save with a perfect ninth. Of the twenty-four outs he recorded five were on fly balls, five were strikeouts and fourteen were grounders. This mod uses OTBJoel’s Legends of the Booth mod and when Harwell was announcing he sounded at home in Tiger Stadium, which he was. It is a wonderful mod and every so often I say a thanks to Joel that he did not include Harry Carey in this. The uniforms, portraits and faces are very well done and the overlay never gets in the way of the gameplay as I’ve seen other ones do. To sum it up this mod represents the Total Classics series perfectly and will be a welcome addition to your series of mods. Screenshots Welcome to Total Classics 1968! Now the story behind this photo. It was taken in game five at Detroit and Lou Brock is attempting to score on a hit to left field. He did not choose to slide for some reason and instead tried to score standing up. When he did that he could not move Bill Freehan and he was easily tagged out. Detroit won the game and the final two in St. Louis. The Tigers said later this was the play that turned the series around for them. Between innings at Tiger Stadium. Here is shortstop Ray Oyler. Oyler was in the major leagues for one reason and that was for his glove. In a six year career he hit 15 home run and had 86 runs batted in for a career average of .175. In 1968 he had 215 at-bats, 29 hits, one home run and 12 runs batted in and he hit .135. This is why Mickey Stanley played shortstop in the World Series. As Casey Stengel always said, you could look it up. Game over, Tigers win! Thank you Jim!

6 out of 10, 63 seconds. Baseball card questions have me at a loss mainly because I refuse to buy them for the past thirty years.

I think I know what happened. You were doing so good that just for a second you may have been distracted by the question. I've done that many, many times.

10 out of 10, 30 seconds. I have a tough time getting under thirty seconds unlike you guys but this is as close as I can hope to get for now.

8 out of 10, 83 seconds. Every question was a real test for me except one baseball one. I made lucky guesses today and that was obvious.

Thank you.

10 out of 10, 70 seconds. Forget it. No comebacks for me this month. I'm still feeling the effects of the food poisoning. That's why I sleep a lot in the morning. Hurry up April.

4 out of 10, 70 seconds. It's Tuesday. Say no more.

8 out of 10, 65 seconds. Not bad for a Monday but I should of had one more right than I had.

Come on you guys, why didn't we think of that? 😄

10 out of 10, 39 seconds. No excuses for me to go as slow as I did but that's what happened.

Long legs that would have caused traffic accidents if she was wearing shorts. The whitest teeth I've ever seen and brown eyes that seemed to see right through you. A genuine beauty that did not need any plastic surgery.

Mickey Lolich's three Series wins...Detroit coming back to beat the Cardinals after being down 3 - 1 in games. It's here and more in Total Classics 1968. Thank you Jim!

Not at all. She was as tall as me with flawless skin and a smile that lit up the room.