Sports Games Thread

[SirFozzie]

Just a crazy finish to my fictional 1950 season in Out of the Park 24:

Game 7 of the US Series (read: World Series), and I'm throwing my star player out there on the mound for Game 7:

Jeff Baird went 25-7 with a 2.86 ERA, averaging 8 and two thirds inning a start (remember, 1950, it was go until your arm falls off). That means 293 IP, 238 Hits allowed, and a jaw dropping 365 strikeouts for the season.

 

He goes out and pitches a great one in the most important game of the year. A little wild (6 walks), but he was throwing a no-no through 5, and ended up with 16k. Now, my modern manager sensibilities was like "pull him! pull him!" late in the game, as he was getting way up there in pitches (but again, 1950),  as we were up 2-0 entering the ninth, but when a pitcher is pitching like THAT in game 7 of the world series-equivalent, the romance of the thing stopped me. With two outs, he gives up a double, and I half-panic, realizing that there's no one up in the bullpen. I quickly put someone to throwing..

*CRACK!*

yep, you guessed it, 2 run homer in the top of the ninth to lose the shutout AND the lead. The reliever is still not ready, but Baird bears down and gets the final out, to send it to the bottom of the ninth..

where we get a leadoff double, an infield single and a baltimore chop over the drawn in infield to win the game, the series, and the championship. Baird is the winning pitcher

I'd like to think that there was a dramatic moment in the dugout where Baird is head down in the dugout after giving up the lead, and the team rallies around him and says "Don't worry, we'll get you over the line"

[SirFozzie]

Talk about an embarassment of riches: This is the rotation of DOOM I picked up in my fictional 1956 season in OOTP:

 

1. Jeff Baird (26-8, 2.27 ERA, 300.2 IP, 225 Hits allowed, 94 BB, 345 K, 10.6 WAR) I posted about him above (which was the last time we had won the title before this post). We drafted him in 1943 with the 17th pick in the first round He may be my sim's first unanimous Hall of Famer (the top vote getters have 99.6%). 7 Time Cy Young (not including this year), 4 Time MVP.  Approaching 4500 strikeouts for his career, and with two more god-tier seasons (he's near 36, so probable that he has at least 2-3 more good seasons), could hit 5000 (4484). 288-121 for his career, and a mindboggling Career WAR 122.1

2. Alfonso Soto (25-7, 2.86,  295.2 IP, 276 Hits Allowed, 90 BB, 254 K, 9.4 WAR)Another player picked up through the draft, the 2nd pick in round 2 in 1940 is 38, but he's also pretty much a guaranteed Hall of Famer, 4 Time Pitcher of the Year, 2 MVP's. 332 Wins in his career. Thank goodness he doesn't mind playing 2nd fiddle to Jeff, because that's a historic 1-2 punch. 119.9 WAR

3. Christian Morris (28-7. 2.27 ERA, 305 IP, 260 Hits allowed, 80 BB, 223 K, 8.8 WAR) Talk about a recovery. He has missed a ton of time over the last few years (9-10 months out in 1952 with a torn labrum, then a torn rotator cuff in late 1954 with a setback after surgery that made him go 18 months without even being able to throw a baseball. We got him for a very good but not great pitching prospect just before the season started (currently the #15 ranked prospect).

4. Chad Yenser (22-10, 2.90 ERA, 282.2 IP, 231 H, 109 BB, 254 K, 7.0 WAR) We got him via trade in the 1954-55 offseason, and he's been a great pitcher, just the fourth best on this roster. Fun fact, he would probably be the most annoying of the Big four to hit, as he has SIX pitches rated at 50+ (Fastball, Curveball, Changeup, Sinker, Splitter, Cutter). Good luck focusing on one pitch to hit.

 

Finished the regular season 115-47, was taken to seven games in the divisional series (as the top seeds they skipped the Qualification Series), but then won the Eagle League Championship Series in 5 games (over San Jose), and swept the Milwaukee Express in the US Series.

[Raziel]

So SI just dropped a blog post, that FM25 is going over to the Unity engine, which means I hope my PC will continue to play it (and I don't have to resort to GeForce Now).  The big thing starting with FM24 this fall, saves will actually be able to be carried across games (so your FM23 save can come forward to FM24), now, don't know how that's going to work with DB updates and other stuff, but that's neat at least (unless you're like me using a custom DB, so I'm probably boned).

[SirFozzie]

My super pitcher Jeff Baird has finally retired after the 1961 season ( I had to demote him to the pen, as he was dropping fast, and had a large contract for 1962 tied into a 22 games started clause). Thankfully we won the title, but this is the stats he ended his career with.

 

387 Wins, 172 Losses, 1 Save (final year), 2.72 ERA, 5125 1/3 IP, 4101 Hits Allowed, 1773 BB issued, 5,875 K. Career WAR: 157.5

9 Time Pitcher of the Year (really should be renamed the Jeff Baird award), 6 MVP, 4 Championships, 15-time All Star.

To go with that, his performance in 7 World Baseball Tournaments: (20-7, 2 SV, 2.07 ERA, 430 K)

 

He had over 6,300 K in competitive highest level play.

 

Pitcher of the year: 1946-1950 inclusive (5 in a row), 1953, 1955, 1956, 1958

MVP: 1947, 1949, 1953, 1955, 1956, 1958.

 

Enjoy your retirement. See you in Cooperstown.

[Pete]

14 hours ago, SirFozzie said:

My super pitcher Jeff Baird has finally retired after the 1961 season ( I had to demote him to the pen, as he was dropping fast, and had a large contract for 1962 tied into a 22 games started clause). Thankfully we won the title, but this is the stats he ended his career with.

 

387 Wins, 172 Losses, 1 Save (final year), 2.72 ERA, 5125 1/3 IP, 4101 Hits Allowed, 1773 BB issued, 5,875 K. Career WAR: 157.5

9 Time Pitcher of the Year (really should be renamed the Jeff Baird award), 6 MVP, 4 Championships, 15-time All Star.

To go with that, his performance in 7 World Baseball Tournaments: (20-7, 2 SV, 2.07 ERA, 430 K)

 

He had over 6,300 K in competitive highest level play.

 

Pitcher of the year: 1946-1950 inclusive (5 in a row), 1953, 1955, 1956, 1958

MVP: 1947, 1949, 1953, 1955, 1956, 1958.

 

Enjoy your retirement. See you in Cooperstown.

Does the game come with sportswriters? Because you know one of those douches will leave him off their HOF ballot because reasons.

[SirFozzie]

It does have hall of fame voting, and I've very rarely seen players get 100%. I'll report when I get that far

[Travis Sheldon]

6 hours ago, Pete said:

Does the game come with sportswriters? Because you know one of those douches will leave him off their HOF ballot because reasons.

It's obvious he played too long and padded his numbers.

Where's Skip?

[Chaos]

I've really only been touching Solo content on MUT (I don't know why I do this to myself. It's not like I have time to do any kind of grinding). However, I've enjoyed Madden this year. I still use classic passing, and I've had some funky stuff with defense and even some weird runs bounce my way through glitchy animations, but it's definitely helping me get fired up for my Saturdays and Sundays to be way too much football.

I also had a really nice touchdown run last night that's one of those pleasant, "I saw the field break a certain way" plays.

[SirFozzie]

Currently playing F1 Manager on GamePass, and Football Manager 24, because I'm a hopeless addict (FM24 will also be on gamepass if you don't want to buy it next week on full release)

[Raziel]

Happy Football Manager Release Day to those that celebrate.

[SirFozzie]

yup, that's me. Already thinking about how to do an American Premier League file.

[Raziel]

Yesterday was me getting my graphics moved over, and started up a United save just to get used to any changes and see how the engine changed.  I REALLY like the new set piece system.  Once the Competition Fix file is up for the non-beta and someone switches over the English Lower Leagues Database, I'll start up my real save.

I'll wait to see if the fixed the AI enough to make an MLS save viable past a season or if that's another "wait until next year" thing.

[NikoBaltimore]

I think Tape to Tape was mentioned here before but it just got a lot more interesting.  You can create players and teams and it's relatively easy to upload custom images.  If I was a big NHL fan I could go nuts with creating teams and having them go nuts in a wacky NHL '94 kind of way.  But so far I'm piecing together the Capitals roster and it's pretty neat.   If you're into NHL this might be worth considering on Steam.

Edited November 28, 2023 by NikoBaltimore

[Travis Sheldon]

2 hours ago, NikoBaltimore said:

I think Tape to Tape was mentioned here before but it just got a lot more interesting.  You can create players and teams and it's relatively easy to upload custom images.  If I was a big NHL fan I could go nuts with creating teams and having them go nuts in a wacky NHL '94 kind of way.  But so far I'm piecing together the Capitals roster and it's pretty neat.   If you're into NHL this might be worth considering on Steam.

Thanks for the heads up on that.

I could probably lose a lot of time with that game.

[NikoBaltimore]

Yeah, same here.  I did ask about the possibility of Steam Workshop to group up custom teams and players.  I don't think that'll happen anytime soon if ever but it would be nice.  Otherwise I'm just guessing stats for players I never heard of if I try other teams.

[Death From Above]

Career Mode releaseing for Undisputed has been pushed to "early 2024" whatever that ends up meaning.

[RIPPA]

There are "reports" that the EA College Football game will be releasing on July 12, 2024

[SirFozzie]

So, I got PLAAY.com's "Let's PLAAY Tennis" sports replay board/card game, and am currently running a massive tournament using the Stars of 2000's set.

 

From 108 cards, I managed to get it down to the round of 32, and then play half the round of 32, all in one night (I'm using the For The Set-No Rally mode, which allows me to roll out the details of a match in about 10-15 minutes. Tomorrow's Round of 32 matches include Danil Medvedev vs Andre Agassi and Alexander Zeverev-Andy Roddick.

The highlight of the night was Tim Henman (who sadly, didn't have Henman's Hill at this tournament), taking on "journeyman" Andrei Pavel (who is one of the worst cards in the set, and I was shocked when Pavel made the round of 32): Henman nearly bageled Pavel  winning the first set 6-2 after being up 5-0, but then lost both the second and third set due to Pavel taking Henman out of his serve and volley game, however, the savvy veteran Henman managed to win the fourth set in a tiebreak and then winning the match in the final set. One of those matches that would take 4-5 hours, and be thrown on whenever a Tennis channel needs to fill in hours and hours of space.

 

 

[Chaos]

9 hours ago, SirFozzie said:

So, I got PLAAY.com's "Let's PLAAY Tennis" sports replay board/card game, and am currently running a massive tournament using the Stars of 2000's set.

 

Speaking of Tennis, 2k Announced it's bringing back Top Spin as Top Spin 2k25 at some point this year. Add that to the list of things I'm super anticipating as I've debated buying the old ones and dusting off my 360 (which is buried deep in storage somewhere). 

[Death From Above]

On 11/30/2023 at 5:02 AM, Death From Above said:

Career Mode releaseing for Undisputed has been pushed to "early 2024" whatever that ends up meaning.

Career Mode and Create A Fighter launch on February 12th, and it's also been announced that will be the last major update of early access. Everything else will be small polish and then official full release 1.0.

As someone that's been on Undisputed since a very early time in early access, I won't claim there haven't been points in the ride that have been bumpy, but I still think there's plenty of reason for optimism that we're finally getting a proper high end boxing title again. At least unlike fucking EA and the UFC we're getting an honest effort out of these guys.

[RIPPA]

I wonder how quickly MLB the Show will piss me off this year

[Chaos]

On 2/4/2024 at 3:35 PM, RIPPA said:

I wonder how quickly MLB the Show will piss me off this year

I told a friend I'm not falling for buying it this year to only play it for a few hours. I really need to get away from sports games in general. Everything is tied to those pack systems, and if you want to do that with next to no additional money spent, you have to not have a life or other interests. 

[Raziel]

The one thing The Show has going for it, at least with RttS mode, is that you can carry it over every year, although I haven't seen if the equipment packs carry yet.  But I might skip The Show this year or wait til it goes on sale.  I'm more than content to just run different save types on Football Manager now anyway.  

[RIPPA]

I am assuming its on Game Pass again - that is the only way I will play it

But last year RttS crashed twice and both times lost all my progress so my patience with this year is real real short

[odessasteps]

Yes, you can preload it on Game Pass now for launching on March 19.