Yankee4Life

Back in November of 2006 stecropper released the 1967 Total Classics mod here and while I knew without any doubt at all in my mind that it was a well made mod and because of that it deserved to be part of the Total Classics family I still refused to download it for six months. That’s because when you think of 1967 you don’t think of the champion Cardinals (unless you live in St. Louis) but instead the Impossible Dream Red Sox and Carl Yastrzemski come to mind. And that is why I stayed clear of that mod for all that time. I was not about to let the same thing happen nineteen years later with the release of Total Classics 1957 which you can download right here. Although I was not alive in 1957 all that I read about this World Series was that it was frustrating for the Yankees because of how Lew Burdette handled them as he won three games in series. Even though there have been other mods like the fabulous 1955 season or some of stecropper’s other 1960’s mods he made that were just as tough based on how that season ended I downloaded them immediately. There were others but you see what I mean. I’m grateful for this mod because I can replay the 1957 Series in a set of exhibition games and see if I can get it right this time but mostly because it is the last time the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers faced each other. To me, that is the focal point of this mod and the reason why I used those two teams in my exhibition game. So, let’s get into the mod and the first thing we need to do is install it. Jim’s installer is the best I have ever seen and it is extremely user friendly. Just copy a new out-of-the-box (or as I like to say a “clean” copy) and have the installer install the 1957 season in there. Once you are done with that you are ready to go. Now you are all set and the first thing you see is Milwaukee manager Fred Haney with two of his best players, Red Schoendienst and Henry Aaron. You will also hear a sample of the 1957 jukebox that fits in perfectly here. There’s two Elvis Presley songs, one from Fats Domino and Chuck Berry, among others. Now it’s time to pick out the teams you want to use. Back then there were only sixteen teams, which was perfect before all this expansion. No matter because I knew exactly where I was going. The Giants and Dodgers at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. Ruben Gomez for the Giants (15 - 13 in 1957) against Don Drysdale (17 - 9 in 1957) for Brooklyn. No matter what team you choose you will experience how baseball looked in 1957 on your PC. The uniforms look wonderful as does the player portraits and cyberfaces. As an added bonus the Legends from the Booth audio mod from OTBJoel has been incuded here so you get Vin Scully, Mel Allen and Ernie Harwell calling the game instead of the sub-par announcing from the default Mvp team. The game I played was not bad until Duke Snider put it out of reach in the 7th to make the Dodger fans happy as they went home. Snider, Carl Furillo and Roy Campanella all went 3 for 4. It was an enjoyable game to play and I want to thank Jim for making this mod. Screenshots: Welcome to Total Classics 1957! Today's lineup at Ebbets Field. In game overlay for Total Classics 1957. And that wraps it up. Thank you Jim for this enjoyable mod.

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5 out of 10, 77 seconds. These were harder questions than usual for a Saturday.

October 12, 1929: A’s stage historic World Series comeback with 10-run inning The Chicago Cubs’ Hack Wilson jogged out to his position in center field to start the home half of the seventh inning. Turning toward the diamond, he again took note of the late afternoon sun, which had descended to a point almost directly above Shibe Park’s double-decked grandstand behind home plate. The dazzling orb’s slanting rays were now aimed straight into his eyes. It had already made trouble for Wilson. Two innings earlier, in this fourth game of the 1929 World Series against the Philadelphia Athletics, he had dropped a fly ball after losing it in the October brightness. But he made a spectacular running, leaping grab of a deep fly off the bat of Joe Boley, the next batter. To many observers, it was one of the finest catches they’d ever seen in a World Series. Then, in the sixth, he had trouble with another ball because of the sun, but was able to corral it. Luckily for the Cubs, Wilson’s struggles had not resulted in any damage. Their starting pitcher, Charlie Root, winner of 19 games in 1929, was cruising, having allowed only three hits. Chicago’s vaunted offense, meanwhile, had taken an 8-0 lead. It simply was not the Athletics’ day. Nine more outs was all Root needed. Nine more outs, and the Series would be tied at two games apiece. Just two days ago, the Series had seemed all but over, the Athletics having won the first two contests at Wrigley Field, including a 13-strikeout gem by seldom-used journeyman Howard Ehmke. Chicago took Game Three, however, in a hostile Shibe Park, behind Guy Bush’s tough pitching. Now, the momentum seemingly had shifted back to manager Joe McCarthy’s Cubs. They had 22-game-winner Pat Malone ready for Game Five, and the final two would be back at Wrigley, where Chicago had been nearly unbeatable that summer, at 52-25. Only the Athletics, at 57-16, had had a better home record in the majors in 1929. Al Simmons, Philadelphia’s slugging left fielder, led off the seventh. On Root’s third offering, “Bucketfoot Al” hit a home run to left that cleared the roof. The shutout was lost, and the home crowd finally had something to cheer about. Root took a new ball from home plate umpire Roy Van Graflan. Jimmie Foxx singled, and Bing Miller hit a fly ball to center. The staggering Wilson lost it in the sun, and it fell in for a single, with Foxx taking second. Singles by Jimmy Dykes and Boley scored Foxx and Miller to make it 8-3. With runners on first and third and nobody out, George Burns pinch hit for pitcher Eddie Rommel. He was quickly dispatched on a pop fly to shortstop Woody English, the runners holding. Max Bishop, who had hit only .232 during the regular season but had also led the league with 128 walks, singled to left, scoring Dykes, sending Boley to third. Suddenly, the Cubs lead had been cut in half. McCarthy headed to the mound, took the ball from a frustrated Root, and waved in lefty Art Nehf from the bullpen to face the left-handed-hitting Mule Haas. In center field, Wilson adjusted his cap and dark sunglasses, the better to peer in against the blinding beams of the sun. At 29, Wilson had led the National League in home runs three of the previous four seasons. Born in the steel mill town of Ellwood City, Pennsylvania, he was the illegitimate son of an alcoholic steelworker and a teenage mother who died when he was seven. Wilson didn’t appear athletic at 5 feet 6 inches tall, 190 pounds, with an 18-inch neck, spindly lower legs, and size 5 1/2 feet that only a ballerina could love. Yet he could hit a baseball a mile. He began his big-league career with the New York Giants. But manager John McGraw, the dinosaur disciple of small ball, wasn’t won over by the top-heavy Wilson, despite his .295 average in a limited role in his rookie year of 1924. The Giants traded him to the Toledo Mud Hens in August of 1925. Following that season, the Cubs, in an unnoticed transaction, acquired Wilson in the Rule 5 draft. Wilson and Jazz-Age Chicago were partners in perfect pitch. In awe of his clouts onto Waveland Avenue, Wrigley Field’s denizens cheered him in the afternoon, and then toasted him late into the night as he made the rounds of the Windy City’s numerous speakeasies. In 1930, his annus mirabilis, Wilson whacked 56 home runs, and established a major-league single-season record with 191 RBIs, one of baseball’s most enduring numbers. 1931 was Wilson’s annus horribilis, with only 13 home runs and 61 RBIs; within three years his career was finished, the fall precipitated by alcohol and riotous living. He gained induction into Cooperstown in 1979, 31 years after his death. But on the late afternoon of October 2, 1929, at the corner of 21st and Lehigh in the City of Brotherly Love, Hack Wilson was about to engage in combat one too many times with Hyperion the sun-god, and end up getting burned. One out, runners on first and third, 8-4 in favor of Chicago. Mule Haas, who had hit 16 home runs in 1929, sent Nehf’s first fastball on a line toward center field. Wilson drifted back. Despite his sunglasses, he again lost the ball in the glare. It soared over his head and rolled to the fence. The desperate outfielder ran the ball down, Boley and Bishop scoring. Haas, defying his nickname, sprinted like lightning around the bases. Wilson heaved a late throw in, and Haas slid into the home dish in a cloud of dust. Safe, declared Van Graflan. The Cubs had blinked, and the score was suddenly Chicago 8, Philadelphia 7, with only one out. The 36-year-old Nehf, winner of 184 games over 15 seasons, walked Mickey Cochrane. McCarthy, for the second time in the inning, marched out to the mound, and Nehf, for the final time in his big-league career, marched off of it. Enter pitcher John Frederick “Sheriff” Blake, who failed to lay down the law. Al Simmons, back in the saddle for the second time that inning, singled to left. Foxx did the same, scoring Cochrane to tie it. McCarthy yanked the badge off Blake and tried his luck with Pat Malone, who plunked Bing Miller with his first pitch. Jimmy Dykes doubled, driving in two more to put the Athletics up by a deuce. The Shibe Park crowd was delirious with delight. Strikeouts by Boley and Burns brought the frame to an end, but the book had already been written. Athletics manager Connie Mack brought in Lefty Grove, winner of 20 in 1929, to start the eighth. He fanned four of the six batters he faced. At 3:42 pm, Rogers Hornsby flied to left for the final out of the game. Wilson was left on one knee in the on-deck circle. What had looked like a 2-2 Series tie had suddenly become a three-games-to-one Athletics lead. Chicago never recovered. They lost the Series the following day in equally heartbreaking fashion, when Philadelphia scored three runs in the bottom of the ninth to wipe out a 2-0 Cubs lead. Declared Mack to his men after Game Four, “I’d just like to be able to express to you the things I feel. But I can’t. I’ll have to let it go at that.” To reporters he gushed, “I’ve never seen anything like that rally. There is nothing in baseball history to compare it with. It was the greatest display of punch and fighting ability I’ve ever seen on a field.” In the dejected Cubs clubhouse, McCarthy mumbled, “You can’t beat the sun, can you?” Then, in an effort to deflect blame from his star center fielder, he pointed out, “The poor kid simply lost the ball in the sun, and he didn’t put the sun there.” Ed Burns of the Chicago Tribune wrote, “The greatest debacle, the most terrific flop in the history of the World Series. We’ve been looking at our score book for an hour now, thinking there must have been some horrible mistake, but ten she is folks.” “Couldn’t see the balls,” Wilson clarified. “I’m a big chump, and nobody’s going to tell me different.” Wilson and his four-year-old son Bobby departed the park together in a taxi. “The devil with them, Daddy,” he remarked. “We’ll get them next year.” Game four hero Mule Haas of the Philadelphia Athletics Hack Wilson lost it in the sun for the Chicago Cubs.

10 out of 10, 46 seconds. My &^&*%%$ finger locked up!! 😡

7 out of 10, 71 seconds. Two questions really got me and if you know the answers ahead of time I give you credit. Sri Lanka scored a massive 398 for 5 in 50 overs in an ODI. Who was their opponent? Answer: Kenya. What the hell is an ODI? Who sponsored the NPC competition in 2005? Answer: Air New Zealand. What the hell is NPC? Friday's coming!

Thank you Jim. Thank you and thank you again!

8 out of 10, 90 seconds. What the hell, ninety seconds. You guys could have went to make a sandwich and I'd still be playing.

Jim, I was wondering what happened here. Look at it this way. This happened at the beginning of the month and not the end.

9 out of 10, 49 seconds. I missed a WNBA question and I really don't care if I did. I don't pay attention to that.

9 out of 10, 66 seconds. Very fortunate today. I guessed on two of them and hit the bullseye twice.

9 out of 10, 29 seconds. Now don't say "good job Y4L" because I really, really messed up. The question I missed I never even answered. I thought I did but I overlooked it.

Yeah, it was ready last year.

Why would anyone want to do that?

8 out of 10, 67 seconds. A mediocre way to start off February. We only have twenty-eight days this month and the last day is a Friday so that means we will be ending the month on a high note. Here are the final results for January.

10 out of 10, 30 seconds. That's my best score in a long time. Like the rest of you we have to take advantage of Fridays and Sundays. This was like the exact opposite of last month. Now that we have one more player it will be tougher next month. Thank you!

And what is your point?

5 out of 10, 67 seconds. As usual, Thursdays get me every week.

9 out of 10, 77 seconds. For those difficult Wednesday questions this was all I could ask for.

7 out of 10, 50 seconds. Thank you for no rugby questions!

6 out of 10, 67 seconds. I had two questions from baseball in the 1800's. I am not too good on that era.

I am sorry KC, I was not feeling well this morning so I could not come in here. Your response here was head and shoulders above mine so obviously the right person responded. Thank you.

I understand. 1959 was just a pennant winner for them.

Do you remember the question Jim? And this has happened to me a lot.

10 out of 10, 35 seconds. You have to take advantage of Fridays and Sundays. What position did Goose Gossage play? That is one that they hand you on a silver platter and I took it. 😉