Reflecting
on a time when sports games required looking your opponent in the eye
BY ED WRIGHT
Dec. 22, 2009, 4 p.m.
I was startled out of a decent (rare) nap the other day by the sound of
my
8-year-old son yelling, "CATCH THE
BALL WELKER!" at the top of his lungs.
My son's wrath for the New England Patriots' receiver was
warranted: Wes Welker had dropped an easy 8-yard pass in the Madden
'09 video game that would have given the Patriots a first down in the
Kansas City Chiefs' Red Zone.
To his credit, Welker felt badly. He put his cyber arms on his
cyber hips and slowly shook his cyber head inside our 27-inch TV
screen. Thankfully, Welker's cyber mouth was
covered
by his cyber face mask or else my son probably could have been able to
lip-read a few inflammatory cyber words.
Can you believe how far these action-sports games have come in
the past 10 years?
I'm not positive, but I believe there's a button you can
press that determines whether the Madden '09 Tom Brady performs his
pre-game shave with an electric razor or straight edge.
And if you press the 'X' button prior to assorted Patriots'
offensive plays, Randy Moss will take the play off.
The best feature in the down-to-the-slightest-detail sports game
is during the Detroit Lions' '09 Madden games. If you look close enough
at the Lions' owner's suite, you can actually see Matt Millen chugging
down a couple of Tylenol after every Lions' turnover. (That's a lot of Tylenol!)
GOOD
OLD DAYS
To tell you the truth, the new high-tech games are a little
too real for my tastes. I mean, I don't need to know that the cyber
Daunte Culpepper is off his game today because he had an argument with
his cyber wife before he left for the cyber game.
The games of my youth in the 70s were a little more simplistic
. . . and a lot more fun. There was actually some opponent-vs.-opponent
strategy involved and the best part was this: You actually had to talk
to the friend that you sat across the electric-football field
from and
look him in the eye as big plays evolved.
Nowadays, kids text their trash talk back and forth without
exchanging two sentences, let alone a look.
When our star electric-football player broke a scintillating
70-yard run, but then for some bizarre reason -- maybe the
gravitational forces of the sun -- decided to execute a perfect U-turn
10 yards from paydirt, my friends and I agreed we could give him one
nudge to
set him back on his scoring ways.
And you think Kyle Brindza has a rocket for a leg? These
electric football kickers can launch the ball from the 30-yard line all
the way into the family room if the hold is good. Granted, they kick
felt balls, but the feat is still impressive. (Although it does make
you wonder if there are some steroid implications we need to deal with
when it comes to these bionic-legged electric football players. Have
you seen the size of those dudes calves?)
When my friends and I switched our indoor sports to basketball,
we pulled "BAS-KET" out of the closet. The game features a series of
strategically placed holes on a 12-inch by 24-inch cardboard basketball
court that
was dotted with moon-crater-like holes and flanked at each end by a
board holding up a basket.
BAS-KET WAS THE BOMB
Someone would drop the opening tip, a ping pong ball would
navigate across the court before settling into a hole, which hovered
over a catapult-like spring.
Based on how hard you pulled
the lever back, the ball would either rainbow into the crudely
made plastic net for two points, or sail two feet over the target and
roll under a couch or into the fireplace, which inspired the term
"Hot Shot."
The cool thing about it, though, was with practice, and decent
hand-eye coordination, your free-throw shooting accuracy could
elevate from Shaquille O'Neal range (56 percent) into the Rick
Barryesque neighborhood of 95 percent.
Following 20 minutes of BAS-KET, we'd hang the Nerf hoop on my
bedroom door and hold some full-contact, banging-into-the-walls
basketball
games that would as sure as the sun sets in the west draw a few "What's
going on in there?" questions from your parents.
For a few minutes, at least, we all knew what it was like to be
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
We kept track of players stats, who made the most free throws
and other stuff like that.
In the spring, we grabbed our mitts and a superball and headed
to
Mike Ridge's garage, which was angled just enough so that we could
heave the superball high onto the garage's roof. The ball would hit the
angled roof
and fly back toward us. It we caught the long fly ball, it was an out;
if we dropped it, an error; if it went all the way over the Ridge
home's
roof, it was not only a home run -- it agitated Mrs. Ridge, who
demanded us
to give her the ball and play something less-damaging to her roof.
It was fun while it lasted, just like all the pre-tech games
that filled our youth with joy, accomplishment and memories.
Although we couldn't pick which shaving cream Willie Horton
could use
prior to the game, or tell Larry Walton to take a play off, we
couldn't have been happier.
When it comes to sports games, times have definitely changed.
I mean, when Wes Welker's Madden '09 image looks more like Wes
Welker than Wes Welker, and he still can't pull in the crucial catch
inside the Red Zone, something's wrong.
I'm getting back to my nap.
Happy Holidays!
Ed Wright
Ed Wright
can be reached at (734) 453-1980 or info@plymouthcantonsports.com.
ED WRIGHT COLUMN
ARCHIVES
Annual poem saluting athletes who
excelled in 2009
Danny Cassidy will be remembered as
a
humble, happy young man who had the jump shot to be envied.
Steelers-Lions
rivalry brings out the best in junior gridiron heroes
Let's bury that crazy John
Glenn-Plymouth play
On
crazy finishes, sharp cornerbacks
and unheralded mid-fielders
Let's hear it
for the band, high school volleyball and 88-cent Corn Flakes
This
All-Star Football team has true
character(s)
The story
behind the creation of
PlymouthCantonSports.com
If you would like to advertise on
PlymouthCantonSports.com or if you have ideas for the site, please send
an e-mail to Ed Wright at info@plymouthcantonsports.com.
