Yankee4Life

Last week was a very good week for total classics fans here because Dennis James and Jim825 released another gem in their long line of season mod hits, this time taking us back to the 1934 season where the Gas House Gang was king and the Sultan of Swat was just about on his way out. Although there are many total classics mods already to choose from this mod here is a unique one because it is the first mod from the 1930's. There is a lot of history associated with the 1934 season and in my opinion it starts with two people. First, Dizzy Dean of the St. Louis Cardinals. He may have given his manager Frankie Frisch a lot of grey hairs when he played for him but as Dean always said "it isn't boasting when you can back it up." And in 1934 that's exactly what he did when he went 30 -7 with a 2.66 ERA. Dean may have loved to laugh and have a good time but when he was on the mound he was all business. But even while Dean was winning all those games the Cardinals were still in second place behind the New York Giants and this is where the second person comes into the picture. Bill Terry was the manager of the World Champion New York Giants of 1933 and he was feeling pretty good about the chances of his team repeating in 1934. During the off season he was giving an interview about the chances of each team in the National League winning the pennant and he analyzed each roster for the reporters, giving them what he thought were their strengths and weaknesses. Finally a reporter from Brooklyn asked Terry what he thought the Dodgers' chances were and his reply struck a cord in the entire borough of Brooklyn that Terry paid for dearly at the end of the season at the Polo Grounds. "Brooklyn?" Terry asked, "is Brooklyn still in the league?" With two games left in the season their was a tie for first place between the Giants and Cardinals. St. Louis won their final two games at home against the Reds while the Giants were hosting the Dodgers -and hundreds and hundreds of their loyal fans to end the season. The Giants were razzed as bad as they were when they played in Brooklyn and they never had a chance. The Dodgers won both games to eliminate their hated rivals and the Cardinals won the 1934 pennant. You have to wonder if Bill Terry had not made that off the cuff statement in the off season if things would have been different. Well, that's a little background for this year in baseball and you can download the mod right here so you can try it out yourself. Again, and this is for the new people only, you need a clean copy of Mvp 2005 on your hard drive where you can install the mod. Jim has once again made the installer and as always it is very user friendly. Once you get into the game the first thing that I notice is the jukebox music in the background. If you say to yourself that this music sounds kind of melancholy and downhearted then you're right. 1934 was right in the middle of the Great Depression and there was no money or jobs to be had. Lou Gehrig hit .363 with 49 home runs and 166 runs batted in in 1934 and he lead the American League in each of these categories but he was still forced to take a two thousand dollar pay cut in 1935. I'd be melancholy if something like that happened to me too. The uniforms in this mod are exquisitely created and tailored by the master himself, Dennis James. He has a way of giving each classic uniform a modern but at the same time throwback look. I don't ask how he does it. I'm just appreciative and grateful of his work. The two team I picked were the New York Giants visiting the Cardinals at Sportsman's Park. I saw why the Giants had such a good team with Mel Ott and Bill Terry in their lineup and Carl Hubbell on the mound. And every member of the Cardinals were a tough out. They were not champions for nothing. I give this mod the highest rating I can give it and I highly recommend spending some time in it. Thank you very much Jim and Dennis! Screenshots Welcome to Total Classics 1934! In-game overlay of TC '34. I like how the baseball in the overlay is not too big or too small but manages to stand out on its own just the same. It's between innings and it is a close one between the Cardinals and the New York Giants.

Did you add any new mods recently?

What the heck do you mean by "cracks"?

Updated to 2-12 ...Ok, let me get this one out of the way before I get on to the fun stuff. Last week's Super Bowl was probably the best one I've seen in years and that includes the one nine years ago when the New York Giants ruined the Patriots perfect season. If you look back on the fourth quarter of last week's game you could see it coming. Everything Atlanta did right in the first half they couldn't do then and visa versa. It did look like a comfortable lead when it was 28 - 3 but then all of a sudden I thought of the Bills - Oilers playoff game in 1993 when Houston had a 35 - 3 lead over Buffalo and they saw the Bills come roaring back as they lost the game in overtime to them. So, in the back of my mind I knew it was possible but at the same time did not want to see history repeating itself. But it did and New England earned it and their fourth quarter showed why they have been champions for so long. And that's where I end this. That will be the last time I praise or congratulate a New England team for the rest of the decade and probably the next one too. I feel so dirty. ...Thank you Tom Brady, Dept: While no motivation was needed for me to continue hating New England after my rare public praise of one of their teams, Tom Brady was kind enough to provide me with one anyway. Next month he is going to be at a autograph session and if you plan on going and want to get the John Hancock of the five-time Super Bowl winner you are going to have to have a lot of cash. In fact, you better dip into your savings. Here are the rock-bottom sale prices for each item: Footballs....$1,000 each. Autographed photo....$850. Patriots mini-helmet....$900 Brady "game day" style jersey....$1,200 (add another $400 and he will add "5X SB CHAMP" to the jersey. And (this gets even better) for another $500 he will add a twenty character personalization to it, bringing the total to $2,100.) The sad part is that people will pay and not think twice when they do it. The guy is a multi-millionaire and he's going to make his fans pay this much for this stuff? What about those little kids who think this guy walks on water? How are they going to pay for any of this? Thanks Tom. Thanks for getting me back on the right path back to hating everything your city is about. What a guy! ...Besides the Patriots the biggest winner in the Super Bowl was a company named GNC. GNC (General Nutrition Store) purchased air time to have one of their ads played during a break in the action at the big game. Four days after FOX approved their advertisement it was rejected by the NFL. The reason why was that a few of the products that GNC sells are banned by the league. That decision by the NFL was the best thing to happen to this company because instead of paying five million dollars (or more) for a Super Bowl ad they are now getting five million dollars worth of free advertising. While trying to suppress a smile the CEO of GNC expressed disappointment that the ad could not be aired but he said that it will still be aired on television and other platforms. I'm trying to understand this. The NFL won't let them air their ad because some of their players abused GNC's products? They come down hard on them for that but game after game and year after year it's ok to push beer onto their fans because everyone knows that beer is completely harmless. ...Welcome back baseball, we missed you, Dept: The last time we saw a baseball game was back in November when the Cubs somehow managed to win the entire thing. It's been over three months now and I still can't believe it. Well, we are going to find out if they are good enough to defend their title or sink down to fourth place where they belong because Spring Training opens this week with all teams reporting to their respective camps. Sixteen of the teams have their pitchers and catchers report tomorrow and one team, the American League Champion Indians, open up today in Goodyear, Arizona. They sure had one of those last year and Tribe fans are hoping for one more victory this year so they can really go nuts. I'll be cheering them on as soon as the Yankees eliminate themselves on Labor Day. ...I'm not defending the St. Louis Cardinals here and I even think they got off lucky by only losing a couple of draft choices and some money to the Astros but don't you think that if they hired a better hacker they would have got away with it? ...High-fives to the Baltimore Orioles, who refused to sign selfish and moody Jose Bautista over the off-season because their fans did not want that guy wearing an Oriole uniform. Even though they knew his right handed bat would have helped in their lineup their fans would have stayed away by the thousands in protest or would have used Bautista's head as target practice for anything they could find to throw at him. Let him stay in Toronto. He fits right in there so well it's like he was born there. ...I don't know how the spring is going to work out for the Yankees and I admit they have a lot of questions. Will Luis Severino bounce back? How about Greg Bird from his surgery? Who will strike out more, Aaron Judge or Chris Carter? How well will Gary Sanchez do for an entire year up in the majors? I can play the what-if game about this team until the sun comes up tomorrow because that's how many questions I think they have but there are at least five positive things I can come up with right now. 1. Mark Teixeira is gone and he is not coming back. Just looking at first base on opening day and not seeing him there will bring tears to my eyes. I'll miss his glove but not his strikeouts, pop ups and double play balls. I hope he doesn't show up for spring training because he might jinx someone. 2. Brian McCann is gone. He was another one of the superstar free agents that the Yankees seem to be always drawn. Even though they didn't need him he was there and what the hell, may as well get him. It's only money. They're like women who can not resist going into a shoe store when a sale is going on. Even though they may not need anything they got to go in and you know once they are in there they won't leave empty handed. Good riddance to this guy. 3. This is C.C. Sabathia's final year with the Yankees as his contract runs out as soon as the 2017 season is completed. I only have two words for him. Get out. 4. Welcome back Adrolis Chapman. Now I am going to sit back and wait until he drills Jackie Bradley, Jr. and Mookie Betts, Boston's two biggest hot dogs and show offs now that David Ortiz has retired and moved into a Dairy Queen in a Boston suburb. 5. The World Baseball Classic is this year. While indirectly this has nothing to do with the Yankees, I can't wait to see what country shows up these overpaid millionaires on the American team this year. There's been three already and the red, white and blue have not come close yet. ...Last week a rattlesnake slithered out of the toilet in a West Texas home and the family had to call a snake removal company to remove it. Luckily the snake was discovered before anyone sat down. When the company arrived they captured the bathroom intruder and after an inspection of the house the guy found thirteen adult rattlesnakes inside the cellar and ten underneath the house. That's enough to supply you with a few years worth of nightmares. I'll tell you one thing, if I lived there and had to go to the bathroom I'd go to the nearest gas station before I sat on that toilet. ...Just an observation here but if the new administration would worry about the country as much as they care about what happens on Saturday Night Live we may start to make some progress. Never mind. I'm talking nonsense. I need to lay down. ...I am not in full agreement with a lot of things coming out of Washington these days and that includes the people surrounding the President. This Sean Spicer guy has a pretty bad attitude along with a face that looks like it is there waiting to be punched. And where the hell did Trump dig up this Kellyanne Conway woman? I'm trying to figure out how many face lifts she's had. I'm going with five. But what I am in agreement with is the travel ban on those seven Muslim countries. It is amazing how much these people are treated like victims here. It seems to me that for some people what happened on that September day sixteen years ago is forgiven and forgotten and there's no hard feelings. These people are the worst of the worst and if you don't believe me go ask France. At the same time I know there have been a lot of good people being screwed by this travel ban. People who have lived here for years can not get back into the country and some who have not left the United States at all are being deported. These are the same people who are being hurt by this more than anybody else and who have no say when they see their families torn apart. So, I understand the frustration here and it all can be traced back to 2001 and what these people have been doing since then. They have been killing people all over the world in unspeakable ways all in the name of their religion and people are getting tired of it. Life was a lot better and much easier before these people took out the towers, part of the Pentagon and crashed another plane in Pennsylvania. Why isn't this drilled into the public's heads? I'm kind of curious as to how schools teach what went on back in 2001. In this politically correct world I am sure that the kids are taught that only a small number of Muslims did this. That's true. There would have been more but some of them didn't have money for the plane ticket so they had to do their cheering on the ground. But not all Muslims are bad!!! Oh, do I hear that a lot. And believe it or not I have to agree with this and I am not saying it reluctantly. I am sure that there are a lot of good people that want to come here that are tired of what's going on there and there are already good people here right now that are no threat to anyone. But how do we know which ones coming in are just playing possum until they are let loose in society? We still have a lot of tall buildings here and everyone knows how much those people like blowing up things. The problem with this ban or at least when the ban is put back into place is that we don't know which refugee wants to come here and live and which ones want to come here and die. ...Major League Baseball has come up with another ingenious way to screw up the National Pastime and all I can say is I wonder what they are going to come up with next? Starting in the low minor leagues this year a runner will be placed on second base at the start of extra innings. If you think this is a lousy idea just imagine what the pitcher must be thinking when he walks out to the mound in the tenth inning and before he throws one pitch he's already given up a double. The purpose of this rule is to increase the action in the game once extra innings begin. I think it is a horrible idea but Joe Torre, the former Yankee manager who is now MLB’s Chief Baseball Officer thinks it is a good idea and is a strong proponent of the new rule. Of course he is. Baseball picked the right guy for this job because he goes along with whatever they say without objection. I am an old-fashioned baseball traditionalist and these new rules designed to speed up the game or tinker with it are getting worse and worse. If they really want to speed up the game they'll tell FOX not to air so many commercials between innings because a quarter of them are promoting shows on their network. That will speed it up right there. But this?? A bunt and a fly ball can win the game and when that happens I bet the losing manager will be fit to be tied. You know what? I got an idea. If you don't want to sit through extra innings then just leave. Or change your channel.

DAMN!!!!!!! This guy is something else!