The Kids are Insane

Hola. It's brain-meltingly hot here in Massachusetts today. I'm sweating just thinking about it.

My Blue Jays have been fighting to stay in the AL East race so far this season, most recently giving the Red Sox fits before getting swept by the Rangers over the weekend to head into the All-Star break. Of course, as luck would have it, they lost their best pitcher (and arguably, the best pitcher in the AL) in Roy Halladay when a line drive hit him in the shin Friday and broke a bone in his leg. D'oh! He was going to start the All-Star Game and now he's out for at least a month. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

MLB announced plans for its World Baseball Classic tournament, which will take place next March with 16 teams from around the world. It's a variation on the World Cups of soccer and hockey, although unlike those tourneys, I don't know how good the other teams besides the U.S. and some of the Latin American clubs will be.

Still no NHL deal, after 81 meetings and countless hours of negotiations. But they're close. This is an interesting story about how the lockout has affected video game developers, who have no idea what teams are going to look like next season because of the new free agency rules. Looks like they'll have to make the new rosters downloadable once the dust settles. Ah, I remember when I used to have time to play video games on my PlayStation Uno. I mainly played the EA NHL titles; the last one I have is 2001, I think. I still have a season I've only partially completed. Maybe I'll go finish it one of these days. Right after I relearn my guitar and write my novel. It's good to have goals.

One name that jumped out at me in the video game story is that of EA hockey lead developer David Littman, who I remember tending the goal for Boston College when I was at UNH. BC was dominant back then, UNH not so much, and Littman ended up playing for many years in the minors, getting in a grand total of three games in the NHL with the Sabres and Lightning. Nice to see he got a cool job after retirement.