Jaxen

Bless you Fly for creating Miguel Gonzalez. I was going to work on him, Alexander Guerrero (Dodgers 2B) and Masahiro Tanaka today but my neighbor's shed collapsed and I had to help get the stuff out, was exhausted when we got done. I'll have time Wednesday to work these so I hope to have something to share then.

Position: Corner infield, Mike Schmidt was my favorite player growing up so I assumed I could be a 3B. I needed the foul line as a security blanket. Put me up the middle and I was lost. Power hitter? Hell no, strictly gap power and my high school coach (in my 1 year of JV) bunted me A LOT. I was the #2 hitter in a small-ball program. Contact hitter? Barely. Don't know what I hit in my one Little League season but I was 4-for-22 (me < Mendoza) for the JV team with a lot of bunts. But one of the hits was a 2-out, 2-run double in a game we led 1-0 to that point that we would win 3-2. Home runs? Yep, 2 of them. Both in company-league softball. One was an inside the park job that I victimized a poor SOB in RF. The other ... to this day I don't know how it got over the fence. I think it got on a bus. Decent glove? Lots of range. The throw? Well I used to short-arm it to first on a line. Fundamentally un-sound but the coach didn't care, it got to the 1B and I had no future so screw it. Did you make the All-Star team? This is a joke, right? Claim to fame: Guy from my school went on to be a replacement player in the '95 strike 4 years later for the Royals. I was a JR on the JV. He was a SOPH on the varsity. To start the year we'd have an in-school scrimmage, varsity vs. JV, during 6th & 7th period the rest of the school could come see. He comes up and I know he's a pull hitter. I'm at 3B and shade toward the line. Sure enough he hits a hot grounder where I thought so figure "I'll make this look pretty." I set the feet .... I pop the glove ... ... the ball's in left field ...

I actually started coming here before I owned the game. In 2008 a guy at a poker forum site I frequent (not as much now as I did then) offered to sell me an extra copy of MVP05 ... for $30. "$30 for a 3-year-old game? Nah," I said. He reminded me it was the last PC version made and, "Oh yeah, there's this modding site that has files to keep the game updated." So I checked out what was then EAMods.com to make sure I wasn't getting sales pitched. I was impressed enough to buy the game, pretty much on the strength of the mods. Been here ever since. How do I know it was '08? I got it during the playoffs and played while watching the Phillies games so I wouldn't go stir crazy. It helped. Brad Lidge struck out Eric Hinske to win the World Series, and 62 hours later my daughter was born, It's a wonder I remember any of this. Been here just over half of the site's life span, but it's felt longer. Here's to 10 more years, Trues and Co.

Thought the same thing too ... gee, they're naming all lefties ... and the funny thing is when you mention a silky swing I tell people "Don Mattingly has the lefty swing I've ever seen." Chase Utley also has that effortless look, esp. when he goes down to get one low in the zone.

Thank you so much Dylan for this annual piece of hard work!

Jonny Gomes was on Tampa Bay's AA team in Orlando when I scored for them in 2002 and parts of '03. Used to shoot the breeze with some of those guys in the clubhouse after making the rounds of dropping off box scores. Nice to see ol' Hole in the Swing hasn't changed a bit.

I played Hardball on my old Apple IIc, the only camera angle was behind the pitcher. I played 2 whole seasons with the All-Stars without the DH, so I knew the nuances of the double-switch by the time I was 14. Louie Laws was always clutch with RISP. The closer, Estrada, was adept at blowing saves but the offense would often bail him out while he was pitcher of record, so one of the seasons he had like an 18-10 record.

Where is Hardball?

CLE -- Released 3B Mark Reynolds. OAK -- Agreed to terms with RHP Drew Carpenter on a minor league contract PIT -- Agreed to terms with C Kelly Shoppach on a minor league contract and assigned him to Indianapolis (AAA) TB -- Claimed LHP Wesley Wright off waivers from Houston TEX -- Claimed INF Adam Rosales off waivers from Oakland (for the 3rd time this week) PHI -- Released waste of space Laynce Nix (I'm a Phillies fan, I can editorialize here)

Some that may have been missed (but don't affect the price of tea in China) 08/04/13 Miami Marlins released LHP Duane Below. 08/05/13 Los Angeles Angels signed free agent 3B Andy Marte. 08/07/13 Los Angeles Angels signed free agent LHP Dontrelle Willis. 08/08/13 Kansas City Royals released C Adam Moore.

This is right in my wheelhouse. Would love to pitch in. Since MLBDepthcharts merged with Baseball Prospectus I've switched to Roto myself to monitor transactions.

I fixed my problem by reinstalling directly to the C: drive rather than into C:Program FilesEA Sports .... my game is now located at C:EA SportsMVP Baseball 2005. Everything works now like is should. Granted I'm still running MVP 12 until I finish the season and I'll switch to MVP 13. I'm hearing you have to run that from a folder directly on the desktop to work. Can any modders/contributors confirm that?

Downloaded but haven't installed yet (crazy weekend, family emergency and the wife had to get a small procedure done) ... after reading the comments I'm going to make a copy of everything from the MVP2005 folder in My Documents to the 2008 folder. Will I still be able to continue my season after I "upgrade" from MVP12 to '13? Also, have you made any changes in the .mbe roster file since you released it about a week ago?

Since I'm not employed by them, I have no desire to watch the Phillies every night of the season anyway. I could if I still lived up there, but the few nights they're on ESPN plus when they play the Marlins on Fox Florida is plenty for me. It's a long damn year. I end up watching 6 or 7 Eagles games and that's way too much. Last 2-3 years once has been enough anyway. I will say MLB Network does a nice job mixing up the matchups. That network's one of the few things the league has gotten right in years.

"...During the latest Red Sox-Yankees series that was held in the Bronx, viewers nationwide got to see them play on Saturday night on FOX and the very next night on ESPN, proving once again that these two networks have no idea that there are twenty-eight additional teams in Major League Baseball." You forgot that MLB Network had their Friday game, meaning every game of the series was nationally televised. If Buddy Boy could arrange it, he'd have those 2 teams play each other 162 times a year.

I added the Reynolds line into attrib.dat, and the batting game still didn't work when I tried to pick a uniform. It does work now, but only with the uniform that first comes up. Odd. I can avoid the batting game if it crashes, the only real useful purpose is if you make it all the way thru a season (I rarely do anymore) and use during the following spring training.

Daflyboys, I downloaded the 1B version, made some tweaks here and there and fixed the Pirates lineup issue in MVPEdit. Is there any way you can just upload the Shane Reynolds .mep file so the mini games work and all the changes I made don't get undone?

As to you first point, I heard someone say not long after the Boston Marathon massacre that the Muslim world views the jihadists the same way the Christians in this country view the Westboro Baptist Church. Sounds about right.

Years ago I found Bill Lee's autobiography "The Wrong Stuff" and I laughed my way through the whole damn thing.

I told my wife if Windows 8 ever appeared on the desktop I run MVP on, I'd beat it with my bat and fix it for good. Gotta love M$'s continuing motto of "If it ain't broke, break it."

Hey Fly, let me know if there's anything I can help you with for this roster. I work in a Grapefruit League spring training town and the last few years I've picked up the visiting roster each day and that evening checked it against the game rosters. Oh, and disregard a post I sent in the old roster thread just a bit ago, I sent that before I saw this.