Yankee4Life

Updated to 12-14 ...Today is the second anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. Life has moved on for everyone and the same can be said for the people in that small town although for them the adjustments have progressed a lot more slowly than the rest of the world. Not even the media thinks about what happened much anymore until December rolls around because for them this is old news. They're having more fun chasing women around who are saying they were once in the same building as Bill Cosby and now that they look back on it had he been on the same floor as they were he may have made a move on them. This sells but not the lobbying these grieving families are doing to try to curb gun control. Just hearing about this two years ago was a shock and I can't imagine how it has been for the people who have lived through this. But there is one thing about this that I don't understand and this has just surfaced recently. Some of the parents of the children that were killed have filed court documents indicating they plan to file wrongful death lawsuits. These people have gone through a living hell but really when you stop and think about it who exactly are they going to sue? The shooter's gone. So is his mother. The woman that ignored the fact that she had a son with severe emotional problems living in her house. The father lives in another state. They're divorced. Again, who are they suing? The guy across the street? Who? Some lawyer must have talked to all of them and convinced them of this. These people have been through too much. Let the memories of their children rest. ...I have always wondered how good the Athletic organization would be if only they could have held on to their players. Around one hundred years ago Connie Mack held the first garage sale that the team went through and then he did it again at the start of the Great Depression. After he did it the second time he never had another pennant winner. The Athletics floundered in the fifties and sixties but just when they started fielding another good team Charlie Finley cleaned house and when he was done all that was left was a bucket of balls and a few broken bats. The A's once again fielded good teams during the late eighties under Tony Larussa and at the beginning part of this century. Each time the quality players were lost to other teams and they were forced to rebuild. If there is one thing this organization knows how to do is start over. And with the loss of Josh Donaldson, Brandon Moss. Jeff Samardzija and Jon Lester (these four so far) Oakland is forced to do it again. The only thing I've learned as an outsider watching this team all these years is to never count them out. ...At a Beverly Hills auction a piece of fruit cake from the Royal wedding of Prince William and Duchess Catherine in 2011 sold for the unheard of price of $7,500. Granted, the buyer did get some added bonuses like the tin that the cake was in as well as a blank invitation to the wedding presented on the Queen's stationery but for that price they should have provided the silverware too. It's ironic because $7,500 is the going price that someone would have to pay me to eat a bite of fruit cake. ...The people over at MLB: The Show announced that they will be putting Yasiel Puig of the Dodgers on the cover of next year's game. And if you haven't had a chance to see it yet it is a picture of Puig from the back with his arms raised and index fingers pointed to the sky. They could not have taken a better picture to show how self-centered this guy really is although I am sure that was not their intention. Why Puig? There is no doubt he gets a lot of attention but it's the wrong kind of it. He's a hot dog who does not seem to take any instruction from Dodger management, who seem to be slowly losing patience with him. He's the west coast's answer to Bryce Harper. Young, selfish and unteachable. Puig makes one wish that Cuba would step up their security so it would be even harder to get off that island. And this is the guy who gets the nod to be on the cover of this game. What a great choice. Couldn't someone like Madison Bumgarner have been a better choice? All he did was have a good year and lead the Giants to another World Series championship. His exceptional performance in game seven should have sealed this for him but he had one major flaw. He wasn't all about himself. With an attitude like that he'll be lucky to get on a magazine cover. ...Yesterday the Washington Nationals hosted their annual NatsFest, an event where fans can come and interact with the Nationals players. Bryce Harper, arguably the most popular player on the team decided not to show up because of a grievance over -what else?- money and ended up disappointing the Nationals fans who were in attendance waiting to meet him. I'll say it again, if there is one guy who was meant to play for the Boston Red Sox it's Harper. He's egotistical, childish and selfish and those are his good points. He's the kind of player the Red Sox gravitate to and the kind of player the masses around Yawkey Way end up worshipping. A future Sawx player? Maybe. But right now he's perfecting the Boston way down in D.C. ...If I remember correctly the last time we saw Jon Lester it was in the wild card game in Kansas City and he left that game after 7 1/3 innings after giving up eight hits and six runs, all earned. And now Lester is a Chicago Cub after accepting a six-year 155 million dollar offer from them. The Giants - the same Giants who have won three of the last five World Series' offered Lester around 150 million for the same six year deal. Putting myself in that position what is the difference of a few million when he is going to be getting that much? And wouldn't you think you would have a better opportunity to celebrate in October bye playing in San Francisco instead of having your home games in Wrigley Field? To the Cubs the World Series is something that other teams do each October. Theo Epstein must have some kind of hold over Lester. Maybe he lets him sleep with his sister or something. Years ago you'd want to play for the best team in baseball. Now players don't mind playing for the worst. ...At least he didn't go back to those entitled SOB's in you-know-where. They practically had Lester penciled into their rotation for next year. ...Scott Boras thinks the best place for Max Scherzer to play next year is in New York for the Yankees even though the Yankees have not got involved in the Scherzer sweepstakes (as of yet). But Boras says so and for the Yankees to prove him right all they have do is come up with with more money than the Cubs gave Jon Lester last week and because of that reason alone I am hoping that when the Yankees spoke of financial restraint this off season I really hope they mean it. ...A young couple in Utah "canceled" Christmas for their children because as the mother explained on her blog that her three young boys were continually acting up and their behavior had become disrespectful and entitled. After ignoring many warnings the children were told that they would not be receiving any Christmas presents this year and all the money that was to be spent on the gifts were instead going to be used to buy goods for the needy. After that bomb was dropped two things happened. First the kids threw a fit. They did that because that's what kids do best so why stop now? Secondly the mother went under immediate attack on her blog from people who accused her and her husband of being mean and lazy parents, comments that did not go appreciated by the blog's owner. I'm with the parents if they felt they had no other choice but to do this but I have no sympathy for the mother who did not like some of the comments that were written about her. If she didn't have the need to write about her business on the internet in the first place the family still could have done what they needed to do to teach their boys a lesson and no one would have known about it. But she did this for attention and she got it. It was just attention she didn't want. ...And come Christmas morning when those three kids come downstairs how much do you want to be there will be a room full of presents waiting for them? ...Yoenis Cespedes drives a $367,500 Lamborghini that shoots flames out of its exhaust. In case you were wondering what for it's because he's an idiot. ...Kim Kardashian said in a magazine interview that she blamed the weight she gained when she was pregnant on God because God was doing it for a reason just to show what he can do to her. She did not explain what God she was talking about, the fire-and-brimstone miracle working God or her husband Kanye West, who just thinks he is one. ...A Des Moines, Iowa man broke his wife's nose after she woke him to give him a McDonald's McChicken sandwich. The problem wasn't that she woke him up but rather what she gave him. He told her he hated those sandwiches and he then let her her know how much he hated them when he picked it up and threw it at her. To make sure he got his point across he grabbed the bun and smashed it in her face and at some point when his wife was getting up close and personal with the bread he ended up breaking her nose at the same time. All this because of a sandwich. When Ray Rice heard about this incident the first thing he asked was if there were any cameras around. ...Travel + Leisure magazine's readers recently voted Detroit as the least attractive city in the United States and it wasn't even close. It was like having a beauty contest between Kate Upton and Sarah Jessica Parker and finding out Upton won in a landslide. Some things just don't need to be said. ...Starbucks has introduced a new pre-order app for customers that do not want to wait in long lines. It gives them a pickup time for their order and it insures that their beverage will be there waiting for them when they get there. In addition, when you get there to pick up your order and you find that your coffee is not hot enough they will gladly remake it for you. Not bad if you are a fan of Starbucks and don't mind paying five dollars for a cup of coffee that you can get for a dollar any place else. So people don't like to wait in line, what else is new? Part of the fun of dropping in at Starbucks is seeing all the snobs who think they are drinking elite coffee because they get it from there. The rare times I do go into a Starbucks I never want to miss this. ...We got hit with fourteen inches of snow last Wednesday. What a joy that was. ...Even the people who win the lottery down in Florida make that state look bad, or at least worse than it really is. A convicted sex offender won three million dollars in the Florida lottery and since there are no laws that prevent anyone convicted of committing a crime from winning the lottery he gets to keep his winnings. This is what you call turning your life around in style.

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Front end images and loading screens have been collected and uploaded. There were 260 of them.

Good luck! I hope this job turns out to be 100% better than the previous one. Funny you should bring this up. I plan on bringing this up in next week's version here. Naturally I am not in favor of it. I hate that son of a *&$^# Hey, you're not going to come up to Upstate New York are you? There's only room for one cool guy up here. In all seriousness if I was getting ready to enter my thirties in a few years I would want to relocate to a warmer climate. You may be able to move somewhere else but in the winter time the snow will look exactly the same as in New York. The hell with that.

Kraw, I have just finished collecting hi-res photos to be used for the loading screen images. I know the game only uses about sixty images so I grabbed 260 images to give you guys a lot of choices. Now I see you have me for LOC text work. I've never done that before but I would be willing to give it a go. I just don't want to mess anything up for you all.

Updated to 12-7 ...Today is a special day in the history of this country. It is the seventy-third anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. This date is so embedded in our minds that every time you hear the date December 7th mentioned you either say out loud or to yourself 'Pearl Harbor Day.' It is more personal to me because I worked directly across the street from the Arizona Memorial for over two years and out of habit I made sure to just to take a glance at it every day out of respect. I used to walk to work every day but I never got too far and I have the Memorial to thank for that. Tourists would invariably drive down Kamehameha Highway and not be able to find it and they'd stop me because I was in uniform and they figured I knew. I did and then they offered to drive me down to where it was so I could point it out for them. I did this in the eighties and I probably would not recommend doing it now. All I really had to do was tell them to keep driving straight and they would see it but why walk when you can ride and nine times out of ten the tourists were hot so I did my best to give them a little of the island hospitality. I'm all heart. But every year when I was there in Hawaii I made sure to go to the Memorial on this day in my dress whites to pay respect for the men who served here long before I was born. R.I.P. members of the U.S.S. Arizona and all the members of the other ships that were sunk or damaged on that day. ...I have to admit that I have never heard of Didi Gregorius until a few days ago. I was going to ask some Diamondbacks fans on the website about him but then I remembered we don't have any here. What I have learned about him is that he can field his position and that alone will be something Yankee fans will enjoy seeing. He needs a chance. You just don't step into this position following someone like Derek Jeter because he was treated by the press like he never did anything wrong. I just hope he gets the shot he deserves. The worst part about all this was losing Shane Greene. Detroit got a good one. He may not be in the Max Scherzer class if the Tigers end up losing him over the winter but this guy can hold his own and I am sure he will. ...Maybe Next Year, Dept: Thanksgiving is about food, fun and family but for one guy in Pennsylvania his did not go as well as he hoped it to be and it was all because he got hungry. He went for dinner at his girlfriend's house but earlier in the day she had a little bit too much to drink and she went to go sleep it off. One hour turned into two, two turned into four and the guy was getting hungrier by the minute and the turkey that they had was looking more and more inviting. Checking on her one more time and still seeing that she was out for the count he decided to fix himself a plate and dig in. When he went back for seconds his girlfriend finally woke up and once she saw him eating she became furious because he decided to eat and did not wait for her. She then picked up a knife and stabbed him and then threw the knife at him, striking him just below the left eye. At least he didn't drink the last beer because then he would have been in real trouble. Instead of kicking back and relaxing that day he was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries and the woman was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and simple assault. My Thanksgiving wasn't as exciting. ...From a report released last week, a group of terrorists were going to bomb Oprah Winfrey's Chicago studio five years ago because they viewed her as everything that is wrong with America. They managed to gather enough explosives for the job but were caught before they even made it close to Chicago. We should consider ourselves fortunate that had these people viewed the Kardashians in the same way they would have been even more motivated that they could have actually succeeded. ...A man who was convicted of molesting an eighteen-year-old girl on a flight from Casablanca, Morocco, to New York apologized in court to her and at the same time avoided jail time that could have kept him from home a very long time. This all started when he was going to a conference in Las Vegas for his work to receive an award for being an outstanding employee but he never made it there. After consuming two small bottles of white wine on the plane to New York that is where his troubles began. Either that wine packed a pretty mean punch or his alcohol resistance was next to nothing because the next thing he realized he was sitting next to a young girl who was sleeping in the seat right next to him. Since he did not want to watch the in-flight movie and opted to read instead, he tried waking the girl because she was making noises and stirring around while she was asleep. Instead of shaking her lightly or giving her a nudge on the shoulder or at the very least "accidentally" kicking her to wake her up he unbuttoned a few buttons on her blouse and put his hand under there, figuring if nothing else that will wake her up. His luck ran out when he tried to put his hand down the front of her pants because that was the same time that sleeping beauty decided to wake up and imagine her surprise to see the guy sitting next to her have his hand there. She became very upset and did not accept his excuse of being cold and wanting someplace to keep his hand warm. All this took place back in August and he had been staying in New York City since then until his sentencing last week. The judge was convinced that he acted completely out of character and instead of having him serve a jail term from six months to a year he sent him home and at the same time was deported from the United States immediately, never to return. One would hope on his return flight home he was not served the same small bottles of white wine. ...The new Star Wars movie trailer has been on the internet for over a week and while most of the comments have been positive and excitement for the film is building even though the scheduled release will not be until next December there are some people who are complaining that one of the Stormtroopers happens to be black. Incredible. It's nice to know that people have enough time in their busy day to take exception to the really important things in life like a science fiction movie. ...I can only take so much science fiction. That is, I go to the movie and see it and then I go home. I think both Star Trek and Star Wars fans who dress up and stand in line to see these movies are people that belong in the nut house but they just haven't been caught yet. At some point in time they have forgotten that these movies are the product of someone's imagination and believe they are real life or as real as anything. I'll never forget riding on a bus from school one afternoon and sitting behind two kids who were in an animated conversation about Spock's ears because one of them said they had read "a paper" on it and the other one had not as of yet. I think it was because of that why I never got too involved with these movies. I don't know who those two scholars were on the bus that day but I want to thank them. ...Usually when you leave the scene of an accident is does not hold well for you but for one guy in New Jersey there was a good reason. After striking a utility pole the night before the owner of the vehicle came into the police station the next day to report what he did and explained that the reason why he left the scene of the crash was that he did not want to deal with his girlfriend yelling at him any longer. Police thanked him for coming in to report the incident but the guy was still charged with leaving the scene of an accident and reckless driving. Fortunately for him his girlfriend decided to accompany him to the police station when he reported what happened and after he was officially charged she started yelling at him again and would not stop even when the police asked her to. Finally after failing again to quiet her the police chief turned to the guy and told him that he was sorry that he had to be charged but if he were in his shoes he would have taken off too. The woman was arrested for disturbing the peace. Consider that a minor victory. ...I'm sure that you've heard someone say when after a crazy product or an invention has been introduced that people would by anything out there even sh** on a stick. After all these years they probably did not realize how close to the truth they were because on Black Friday a game called Cards Against Humanity pulled all their products from their website for that day and instead offered boxes of bullsh** that literally was actual bullsh**. What is more incredible is that they had 30,000 boxes of this for sale and they sold out of every single one. Pay attention to those old sayings. You have no idea how true they actually are. ...Wow. Hurray. A major league umpire came out last week and had to tell the entire world he was gay. It's not that I don't care but, no, wait. That's just it. I don't care. All this proves is that this guy can mess up calling balls and strikes and calls on the base paths just as well as an umpire who has a wife. ...I am more concerned about how the upcoming winter months are going to be around here then I am wondering about if the Yankees are going to sign this guy or that guy. The former directly affects me while the latter I couldn't give a damn about since they'll end up being laughing stocks anyway. ...Professional golfer John Daly announced last week that he was getting married for the fifth time. This just goes to show there are some people in this world that will never learn. ...I was not on the website yesterday and considering where I was I would have been happier being just about any place else. I signed up for a defensive driving course and it took six and one half hours to complete yesterday and the hardest thing about it was keeping my eyes open so I wouldn't fall asleep. This only cost me twenty dollars to sign up and once you complete it you get money off your car insurance bill. Now you know why I signed up. I'd like to say that when it was all done I learned something that would help me on the road in the future but I didn't and all I really took out of it was that defensive driving means common sense and since I don't go around driving like I am in a Fast and the Furious movie I was doing this already. This course could have ended a few hours before it did but the woman who was in charge of it kept on telling personal stories of when she drove in the snow or how she backs in her driveway or the time her next door neighbor yelled at her. That's probably what started knocking me out because as soon as I got home I let the dogs out and took a two hour nap. We had to sit on uncomfortable metal folding chairs for the entire course. Those chairs are not too comfortable to start out with and when two hours turns into three they become even worse. Finally I got to the point where I had to stand up for awhile and when I glanced around the room I noticed that I was not the only one this woman was putting to sleep. The things you do to get money off of your car insurance. ...Happy Birthday to Hector over at the Mvp Caribe website. Most people know him as HFLR and he runs the place over there and does a great job doing it. Have a wonderful birthday!

1977 Mod Continued At the end of seven innings the Yankees are holding on to a slim lead. The last thing you would expect in a game between these two teams during this particular year would have been a pitcher's duel but that's what happened when Ferguson Jenkins of Boston and Mike Torrez of the Yankees did this afternoon at Yankee Stadium.

This week has been a very good week for fans of Total Classics here on this website because the 1977 mod was released by Jim and Dennis James, two modders that I consider the Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig of Total Classics mods. This mods makes the fourth collaboration between Jim and Dennis as they previously made the 1958, 1941 and 1984 season mods which are featured on the main page of our website. The installer is the same one made by Jim that has been used in previous mods. All you need to do is be sure you have a clean (unmodded) version of Mvp on your hard drive and after you have that just point the installer to where it is and you will be all set. And because I have noticed this problem pop up more times than often in the past I have to stress to novice users that if you want to use this mod (or any other) be sure to install it over a clean copy of Mvp and not OVER a current copy of Mvp you already have. For example, don't install this mod over the Mvp 13 mod. Keep that in mind and you'll save some headaches. Usually it is the music that first grabs my attention when I get into a new mod but this time it was the images that they chose to put in the game.It's not an easy job getting quality photos from this time period even though it was only thirty-seven years ago. Pictures were grainy and not that clear. Newspaper quality as compared to photographic quality that we are used to today. But by adding the Topps 1977 baseball cards in the photos and the touch-ups that had to be done in some of them I was really impressed with the final product because this is not an easy thing to do. The music chosen for the mod gives it a perfect 1977 feel and it should prove to people and remind some others (including myself) that there was good music made in the 1970's. My personal favorite was the Electric Light Orchestra song Turn to Stone. It was a perfect way to go into a game. Other choices in the Jukebox are Fleetwood Mac, Meatloaf, Bob Seger and Billy Joel. The uniforms made by Dennis are first class once again. What can be said about his work here that has not been stated one thousand times before? The man is simply a master at his craft. The exhibition game I decided to play was Boston at New York because those two teams along with Baltimore fought all season for the 1977 A.L. East title and any one of them could have easily won it. The Yankees won this game but they had their hands full with Ferguson Jenkins who pitched seven innings, gave up eight hits and struck out two but still lost because Mike Torrez of New York was just a little bit better. A great mod. A lot of fun. Thank you Jim and Dennis. On to 1977. Welcome to the 1977 Total Classics mod! A modified version of the good-looking ABC Sports logo overlay made for the 1977 mod.

You can't find it because it is not here on the website. It's not hosted anywhere on the internet any longer.

Man, forget the MVP stuff for now and just worry about your health. The game is always going to be there for you. I wonder how you get low sodium? Were you not eating right? And I am glad someone found you so you could get the proper care you needed. Get well and take it easy.

It certainly was for me. This was the first time I saw the Yankees win a World Series and I will never forget that thrill. I feel the same way. It was no easy road for the Yankees that year as they had to battle themselves, the Orioles, the Red Sox and a good Kansas City team to get to the series and the Dodgers had to get by a very talented Phillies team. What a great year. What??? I thought everyone had this installed. By the way, where have you been? I hope you have been doing well. Enjoy this mod. Jim and Dennis did a great job. I played a game late last night and it's all that you would expect it to be!

Oh my God, another total classics season for Mvp!! And the 1977 season too! What a wonderful year if you were a Yankee fan! Thank you so much Jim and Dennis! Pardon me, I'm going to...

Greg Maddux At times, Greg Maddux’s mastery of the strike zone truly seemed effortless. Fastball down-and-away – on the black – for strike one. Fastball in on the hands for strike two. Change-up away for strike three. Pitch after pitch, strike after strike for the average-looking right-hander who elevated “control” to a new definition in the 1990s. Now, the winningest pitcher of his generation is heading to Cooperstown. Gregory Alan Maddux was born April 14, 1966 in San Angelo, Texas. He spent some of his childhood in Madrid, Spain – following his father on his Air Force assignment – before graduating from high school in Las Vegas. Maddux’s father, Dave, taught Greg and his older brother Mike the fundamentals of the game – and Mike was drafted by the Phillies in the second round of the 1982 MLB Draft. Two years later, Greg – who had not yet reached his full size of 6-foot, 170 pounds – was taken in the second round by the Cubs. After winning a combined 27 minor league games during the 1985-86 seasons while demonstrating a pitching intelligence beyond his years, Maddux struggled as a 21-year-old in 1987 with the Cubs – going 6-14 with a 5.61 earned-run average. It would be more almost two decades later before Maddux posted another losing record. In 1988, Maddux improved to 18-8 – the first of his 17 straight seasons with at least 15 victories, the longest streak by any pitcher in big league history. Maddux also earned the first of his eight All-Star Game selections that year. In 1989, Maddux went 19-12 with a 2.95 ERA, leading the Cubs to the National League East title while finishing third in the NL Cy Young Award vote. He won 15 games in 1990 along with the first of his record 18 Gold Glove Awards, and led the NL in innings pitched in 1991 with 263 – the first of five straight seasons in which he led the league in that category. Then in 1992, Maddux went 20-11 with a 2.18 ERA, earning the first of four straight Cy Young Awards – a record that went unchallenged until Randy Johnson tied it from 1999-2002. After the season, Maddux became a free agent and eventually agreed with the Braves on a 5-year, $28 million contract. It would become one of the best bargains in big league history. Maddux went 20-10 in 1993, leading the Braves to their third straight NL West title and topping theleague with a 2.36 ERA – the first of four ERA crowns he would capture. During the next two strike-shortened seasons, Maddux was practically untouchable – going 16-6 with a 1.56 ERA in 1994 and then following that with a 19-2 mark in 1995 that included a 1.63 ERA. In 1995, Maddux and the Braves won the World Series – topping Cleveland in six games. Maddux was 3-1 in the postseason. During his four-year stretch of Cy Young Award dominance, Maddux was 75-29 with a 1.98 ERA. And his control improved almost every year. In 889.1 innings from 1994-1997, Maddux walked just 102 batters – including 23 intentional passes. Maddux used every edge he had and continued to dominate the batters as the Braves continued to amass NL West titles. From 1993-2003 – his 11 years in a Braves uniform – Atlanta won the division crown in each completed season, advancing to the World Series three times and winning the 1995 Fall Classic. In that time, Maddux went 198-88 with a 2.63 ERA. Maddux returned to the Cubs via free agency in 2004, winning his 300th game in 2004 and leading the NL in starts in 2005 with 35 at the age of 39. In 23 big league seasons, Maddux spent only 15 days on the disabled list – a two-week stint in 2002 with an inflamed nerve in his lower back. He retired following the 2008 season with 355 wins and only 227 losses – a .610 winning percentage. His victory total is the eighth-best of all-time, and his innings pitched total of 5,008.1 ranks 13th.

Bill Wambsganss William Adolph Wambsganss was a Cleveland native--born in the area that has since 1930 been known as the city of Garfield Heights--and lived to be 91 years old (March 19, 1894--December 8, 1985). He was right-handed with a playing height of 5-feet-11 and a listed weight of 175 pounds. During his years in baseball, he was more typically known as Wamby. Bill spent his first year in the pros, 1913, with the Cedar Rapid Rabbits of the class D Central Association, playing shortstop and batting .244 in 67 games. His second year with Cedar Rapids, he played in 84 games and started hitting distinctly better, at .317. He was almost part of baseball history on July 10 as Rabbits pitcher Lefty Mellinger threw a no-hitter against Burlington, marred only by an error when his first baseman unaccountably dropped a "perfect throw." The man who reached base was promptly retired on a double play. As the season progressed, the Cleveland Naps wanted the hometown hitter. Owner Charles Somers bought him from Cedar Rapids on August 1, for a reported $1,250. Manager Joe Birmingham first put him in a game against the Washington Nationals on August 4, replacing Ray Chapman at shortstop late in the game. Batting in the bottom of the ninth, after Cleveland had come within two runs of Washington, Wambsganss grounded a ball to Wally Smith, the second baseman, and a run scored when Smith misplayed it. With two outs and the bases loaded, Joe Wood smoked one to second and this time Smith held onto the liner. Wamby's first start, on August 10, 1914, resulted in an 0-for-2 at the plate. He picked up his first hit, a single, on the 11th. His first big game was on August 16; he went 2-for-5 with a double, and helped execute two double plays. On September 30, he tripled in the bottom of the 12th (he had doubled earlier) and scored the winning run on Nemo Leibold's single, beating the White Sox, 6-5. That first year, as an understudy for Chapman, he appeared in 43 games, batting .217 and driving in 12 runs. He also filled in during four games for his childhood hero, Nap Lajoie, the baseball legend after whom the team was known. The Naps finished in last place, and even right fielder Shoeless Joe Jackson had a down year -- hitting only .338. Bill had one of the best days of his career on May 18, 1919, going 4-for-4 against the visiting New York Yankees, three singles and an inside-the-park home run off George Mogridge which escaped the clutches of Ping Bodie and brought in the final three runs of the 4-3 win. It was his first career home run. He added a second homer on August 15, off Washington's Jim Shaw, but in a losing cause. May was a good month overall, with Wamby batting .407 as of May 24, well ahead of Joe Jackson's .386, but the season ended with Wamby hitting .278 (and driving in a career-high 60 runs) while Jackson hit .351 for the champion White Sox--a year later to become known as the Black Sox. Once again Wambsganss led the league in errors, with 30. One of them he was glad to take. It came at the Polo Grounds in the seventh inning of Ray Caldwell's September 10 no-hitter against the Yankees. The New York Times account called it an "easy roller," in fact "such an easy affair that Wamby should have got it by one hand with his eyes closed. He ran in on the ball and then let it trickle through his mitts." That 1920 season was the year in which "Wambsganss" eventually became, if not a household name, well-known in the world of people who've learned unusual facts about baseball. It's not always players themselves who know the game. In 1949, Philadelphia A's pitcher Joe Coleman was speaking at a community event in Northampton, Massachusetts, and was asked whether or not anyone had ever made an unassisted triple play in the World Series. He had to admit he didn't know--but Grace Coolidge, the former First Lady of the United States, quietly replied, "Yes, Bill Wambsganss, Cleveland infielder, in the 1920 Series." Of course, to get to the World Series the Indians first had to win the pennant. It was a three-team battle, with Cleveland on top, two games above the White Sox and three ahead of the New York Yankees, still pennant-less in the history of the franchise. For Cleveland, it was their first pennant. The Indians clinched it with a 10-1 win on October 2, a quickly-played (1:28) game that saw Wambsganss go 3-for-6 with two runs scored. He helped execute two double plays and might have had another hit except that he was struck by his own batted ball in the fourth and therefore ruled out. The 1920 World Series Cleveland played the Brooklyn Robins, who had taken the National League with ease. Among other things, the Series would pit Brooklyn third baseman Jimmy Johnston against his two-year-older brother, Cleveland first baseman Doc Johnston. Jimmy hit .291 during the regular season; Doc hit .292. Neither played any significant role on offense in the Series. Game Five, on October 10, was a day for headlines. The public awoke that Sunday morning to read that Brooklyn pitcher Rube Marquard had been arrested, charged with scalping tickets before Saturday's game. Turned loose so he could make the game (the Cleveland chief of police said it would "hardly be sportsmanlike" to hold him), Rube threw three innings in relief, giving up two hits but no runs. His manager, Wilbert Robinson, "was so provoked when he heard of Marquard's arrest he is alleged to have said he would not give five cents to get him out of hock." After Marquard was found guilty on October 12, Brooklyn severed all ties with him. So did his wife, who divorced him within the week. In Game Five, Wambsganss singled in the first and was the second of four runners to score on right-fielder Elmer Smith's grand slam. One might have expected Smith to grab all the headlines; it was the first grand slam in World Series history. Then pitcher Jim Bagby homered, a three-run shot in the fourth inning, perhaps pushing for his own headline--it was the first home run by a pitcher in a World Series. The score was 7-0 Tribe after four innings, and things were looking good for Bagby, who'd lost Game Two but was 31-12 (2.89 ERA) in the 1920 regular season. Bagby got himself in trouble in the top of the fifth, though, allowing back-to-back singles to second baseman Pete Kilduff and the catcher, Otto Miller. Kilduff held up at second. Two on, nobody out, and Mitchell was up--Clarence Mitchell, the left-handed reliever who had taken over for Brooklyn starter Burleigh Grimes. The Indians had two men warming up in the bullpen. Mitchell was a decent hitter and Robinson had used him occasionally to pinch-hit. Wambsganss deliberately played back on the outfield grass, as Mitch often hit to right and Wamby wanted to keep the ball from getting through and perhaps scoring a run. When the count reached 1-1, the hit-and-run play was put on, and it had everything to do with the execution of the play that followed. Mitchell hit the ball hard, and it was heading toward center field several feet to the right of second base. Wambsganss had broken toward the bag, or he wouldn't have been able to make the play. Make it he barely did, catching the ball in mid-flight with his outstretched glove. Kilduff was almost to third base and Miller rapidly approaching second. Momentum carried Wamby in the direction he was going and two or three strides took him to second base. The minute his foot hit the bag, Kilduff was out. And Miller's own momentum brought him right to Wamby. He pulled up short and didn't have time to turn back and try to retreat. He was just five feet away. "He stopped running and stood there, so I just tagged him. That was all there was to it," Wambsganss explained. "Just before I tagged him, he said, 'Where'd you get that ball?' I said, 'Well, I've got it and you're out number three.'" It was all over in a flash. Three outs. There was dead silence in the park as everyone took in what they'd witnessed, and then an explosion of celebration. On the day that Wamby pulled off the triple play, crowds gathered in front of newspaper offices around the country. These were the days before radio broadcasts of games, and the notion of television was pure science fiction. Play-by-play results were telegraphed to newspapers and conveyed to those gathered in front of the newspaper offices, sometimes by way of elaborate scoreboards erected for the occasion. In Fort Wayne, the Journal Gazette had set up a magnetic board that was being operated by sports editor Bob Reed. He knew that Rev. Wambsganss was in the crowd of several thousand people on the streets out front. When Reed received word of Wamby's triple play, he said, he was stunned, then nervous. "Finally, I grabbed a megaphone and shouted the news. The roar which followed was the loudest I had ever heard. What a thrill that was--home town boy making a play like that!" Wambsganss played in the major leagues until 1926 and then played another seven more seasons of minor-league ball. Wambsganss was active in senior citizen activities right up until November 1985, when he was hospitalized for heart failure, of which he died on December 8. The record books show him as playing in 1,491 major-league games with a .259 batting average. He had a .958 fielding percentage, except in World Series play, when it was 1.000.

KC I want you to know that I read every word of what lead to your dismissal at "Lorem Ipsum" and it was clear to me that no matter what you did or tried to do to help remedy the server failure at that company and the steps you tried to make to insure it did not happen again. By reading your explanation of these events it was obvious to me that the bosses at your ex-company did not care to listen to anything that you had to say about the problem at hand no matter how many times you tried to address it. I don't blame you for being bitter over this. The only thing you should take away from all of this is that you know your stuff and you are someone that has a talent that people need. I am pulling for you to find a better job that will give you the opportunity to do your job and listen to you at the same time and I can not wait until the day that you come back in this website and announce that you got a new job. Good luck to you.

Updated to 11-30 ...I did not go Black Friday shopping last week mainly because I have a brain and every so often I have been known to use it and that's why I avoided all the pushing and shoving that people were doing to buy the low priced tablets Walmart was dangling in front of people like carrots in front of a mule. But I did go to the supermarket the very next day and that is as close as I got to holiday shopping over the weekend. Even my wife, who never met a sale that she was not a part of avoids this day too. She probably doesn't like dealing with professionals like herself. ...'Tis the Season, Dept: Since this is the first season of open-to-all-adults marijuana sales in the state of Colorado, pot shops there are offering similar deals to their customers that are used by traditional retailers to attract holiday shoppers. For example, one enterprising business in Denver is selling an ounce of marijuana for fifty dollars (about a fifth of the normal cost) to their first sixteen customers that were in line on Black Friday and over the weekend. There's other things like pot-and-pumpkin pies which must have been a hit in some homes last Thursday and special holiday-spiced teas that were packed with a punch. Can you imagine if they were allowed to accept orders from all over the country? Amazon wouldn't be able to keep up. ...The Red Sox made their fans very happy over the Thanksgiving week last week by signing Hanley Ramirez from the Dodgers and Pablo Sandoval from the World Champion Giants for more money and more years than they are actually worth. But that's ok. They now play in Boston and that makes everything fine. Sandoval only hit .279 for the season but had a terrific post season and that could have been a factor in how much money the Red Sox threw at him. Sandoval said that he signed with Boston because he "needed a new challenge." I'm sorry but I am having a hard time understanding this. The guy's been on three World Series winning teams. Isn't that the biggest challenge of all, trying to defend your title? Apparently not for this guy. He'd rather go and play his home games 3,000 miles away for a team that finished in last place. Between him and Ortiz their won't be any scraps for a mouse to grab after they get done with the post-game meals. And Ramirez? He plays when he wants to play and is injury prone. He'll end up being good friends with Jose Reyes if he isn't already. Every time I think of Ramirez I remember four years back when he jogged after a ball while playing for the Marlins. Let him try something like that in Fenway Park. They'll boo him straight back to Los Angeles. ...The problem I had with this is not that the Red Sox signed these guys but that no one complained when they did it. This team spends in crazy amounts like the Yankees do but no one ever gets mad at Boston when they do it. When the Yankees spend this amount of money ($183 million on two players) everyone gets mad and points fingers at them saying that they are ruining the game. Smart Yankee fans know that the free agents their team signed did not ruin the game. It just ruined their team. I hope Boston makes that same mistake. ...Call it a pet peeve of mine but I can not stand it when a read about some ballplayer telling the media that he is still deciding on what team he is going to be playing for next like it's a decision that we are dying to know and before we find out we won't be able to get through the day properly. Pablo Sandoval did this recently when he let everyone know that he needed "just a few more days" to come to his decision. I was so anxious that I couldn't leave my house because I just had to be there when the MLB Network broke the news. Now Andrew Miller is doing the same thing. Looks like I won't be going out again any time soon. ...The search for a new shortstop for the Yankees is thankfully not going to be found in Philadelphia. They contacted the Phillies about Jimmy Rollins and offered them a utility player for him but they said no. The Phils must still see Rollins as he was in his prime a few years back because they wanted much more than what the Yankees offered and thank God for that. Rollins would have made the perfect Yankee. At thirty-six he is just the right age for them. Combined the fact that he is overrated and his best years are behind him it is no wonder the Yankees tried to get him. ...Ray Rice won his appeal from his lifetime suspension by the NFL for violating its domestic violence policy, a policy that was most likely written up on the fly by the league during the past few months. He is now free to sign with any team that wants him and even though there are no takers yet (he only won this appeal on Friday) that doesn't mean there won't be. Just wait for the first team that needs help in their backfield because of an injury. They'll sign him and they'll forget all about what caused him to be suspended in the first place and if he can help them get into the playoffs, even better. ...Every few years when Charles Manson's name came up in the news it was when he getting set to go to a parole hearing to determine his possible releaser from his lifetime sentence in prison and each time this happens he is denied parole and he goes back into obscurity until his next parole hearing when the same thing happens again. Not this time. Manson, now eighty, has been issued a marriage license in California so he can marry a twenty-six-year-old woman who left her home in Missouri nine years ago because she says she loves him and wants to exonerate him. For those of you who are not that familiar with the name, Manson is responsible for one of the most senseless and brutal murders that took place over the span of two nights in Los Angeles in August of 1969. He had a cult following - in fact he had an actual cult and they still are behind bars to this day along with him. I was too young to remember when this all took place but I saw photos of the people responsible and the girl that he is marrying almost looks like the girls that were with Manson all those years ago. Tall, thin, long-haired brunette, a vacant look in her eyes that gives her that empty-headed look. And considering what she's doing this observation is probably not far off the mark. Just the type of woman to devote herself to Manson. But because he is a life prisoner with no parole date, Manson is not entitled to any conjugal visits once he and his blushing bride tie the knot. This is probably a huge relief to the girl's family back in Missouri. ...This should be an example to every guy who wants to get married but thinks that it will never happen for him. If Manson, who has been behind bars for over forty-four years can find someone to want to marry him, then it should be a piece of cake for everyone else that wants it. ...Postal inspectors arrested a twenty-year veteran mail carrier for selling drugs out of his mail truck and out of his home. The carrier is now facing felony charges after $17,000 worth of meth was seized when they raided his house. Customers on his route stated later that every so often the carrier would deliver a letter or a package to someone else's house by mistake but he never messed up once on the meth ones. ...Thanks for Nothing, Dept: Last Wednesday I went to Verizon to buy out my service contract because what I am paying each month for my phone is a lot more than the use I get out of it. Without any exaggeration I use my phone less than ten minutes a month which is something most people find unbelievable. But it's true. I'm paying forty-three dollars and some change a month to them and my contract does not expire until September of 2016. Almost two seasons of baseball will have to be completed until my time was up and had I stayed with them with this current plan I would have spent over nine hundred dollars on something I get no use out of. I told them I wanted to stay with them but I wanted a pay-as-you-go plan that they offer that is similar to what a TracPhone does but they would not let me switch over to that. So, after saying goodbye to three hundred and thirty dollars (that hurt) I am no longer a member of Verizon. It was a huge hit on the wallet but I'll be saving over six hundred dollars in the long run. That will be the last time I ever have a phone that is under contract with a major carrier. ...I have to wonder if Billy Beane out in Oakland knows what he is doing when he traded away Josh Donaldson because getting Brett Lawrie in return is no prize. But this guy has surprised a lot of people in the past with his moves so that has me thinking he knows something we don't. ...I think I have seen the catch by Odell Beckham, Jr of the Giants in just about every angle that they had and I still can not believe how he managed to catch the ball and then hold on to it. No doubt about it, it was a fantastic catch but then when people started calling this the greatest catch in NFL history that is when they lost me. As good as it was I wouldn't call it that because I was spoiled by watching Fred Biletnikoff make these kind of catches for Oakland for a long time. That guy had the best hands I ever saw. ...There's a story about Biletnikoff that I would love to tell him if I ever had the honor to meet him. Because of Fred Biletnikoff my mother almost killed me. He used to use something called Stickum when he played. If he was playing today he wouldn't be able to use it because the NFL banned the use of it in 1981 after another Raider, Lester Hayes, used the sticky stuff a little too much on his arms, hands and uniform. Anyway, Biletnikoff was one of my favorite Raiders and we used to play football at a nearby school almost every day in the fall and winter and we all wore the gear from our favorite teams. One day I got the idea of using stickum the next time we played but the problem was I didn't know where to buy the stuff. I even called up a sporting goods store and asked the guy if he had any stickum for sale but he was no help since he didn't know what the hell I was talking about. I called a few more stores and I got no where with them too. After a couple of days I was just about to give up and it was my sister who indirectly helped me out. She had to go to the store to get some school supplies and I went with her since I had nothing else to do. While she was getting the pens and notebooks she needed I walked down the aisle just looking around and then I saw it. Puzzle Glue!! This is the stuff for when you are putting a puzzle together and you decide you want to keep it in its completed form instead of taking it all apart again. That's what puzzle glue is used for but I had other plans for it. I opened one up and put a little dab of it on my fingers and as soon as I did that I said to myself that I found my stickum. I bought three jars of the stuff and couldn't wait until our next game. Well, I showed up for our game with my puzzle jars and they wouldn't let me play until I went home and got a towel so the football could be wiped off. Fair enough. After I came back with one of our best bath towels I proceeded to put my puzzle glue on me. Pardon me - stickum. And I put it all over me Biletnikoff style. Legs, arms and hands. I loaded it up. Every time I got tackled or I tackled someone they'd get mad because I got the stuff on them. At one point the football stuck to my arm. The towel was getting ruined. I was a Raider! Then they stopped the game and wouldn't let me play anymore if I continued to use the glue. So after watching the rest of the game from the side I went home and before I walked in my house my mother was walking out the door at the same time. She took one look at me and wouldn't let me in the house. She finally relented to let me go in the cellar because my pants and shirt were covered in glue and the towel was dead on arrival. It took her three tries in the wash to get all the glue out but she did. Even the towel got a second life. And the last thing she did was take my remaining jars of puzzle glue and throw them in the trash. The woman obviously did not know her football. I never used puzzle glue again after that game and that made the kids I played football with very happy along with my mother who for years after this took place would always ask me if I had any of "that stuff" with me after I came home.

There is no grey area. When you manipulate the EXE file it is a crack. I remember a discussion we had here years ago when someone wanted the Mvp EXE file manipulated for something and Kraw said that the software companies look down on it and it is a form of piracy. I never forgot that. The reason why those two files were here so long is my unfamiliarity with the 2k mods. Since I don't have the game I didn't know about this. Had this been an Mvp mod it would not have lasted here this long.

I never knew this. Both of these mods are now unapproved.

Me too. Those are some good uniform requests.

I know you've done it in the past and I never said anything. I didn't want you to think I was coming down on you and you haven't done this in a while so I decided to wait until it happened again. You're right, some people have requested donations for their mods in the past but that is not the way it is done around here and that is something that has not changed since the first day this site opened in 2004. The first guy that did this was a guy who comes back here every so often and posts progress on a mod he is making and then disappears for six months at at time. The guy has never uploaded one mod yet but he always fools new people into thinking that he will. He was the first one who requested donations to make mods many years ago and that was the beginning as to why this is discouraged. Mods are made here for free and requests should always be just that alone - requests.

You can play multiple seasons with any mod we have here on the site. Look around a little and have fun.

Try Mvp because there are more season mods and classic season mods made for it.

Just request your uniforms Padres67. We don't do the pay for service thing around here.

Heck no. I don't blame you one bit.