I pay anywhere from $100 to $150 every season for the ability to watch every Cubs and Rays game I can. In the olden days, I would have paid a cable company for that service. But I’m as up-to-date as Kansas City, so I haven’t paid for cable, actually, ever in my life.

I love both of these things: MLB.tv and the MLB At Bat app for my Nexus 5. The former allowed me to watch my precious Devil Rays get whollapped while I was an intern in Hong Kong back in 2007. I’d wake up every morning, take the thirty minute bus ride to work, finish my day’s worth of work in 15 minutes, and then watch the previous night’s Devil Rays (which, at 9:30 in the morning had just finished) on my Dell Inspiron laptop (peace be upon it).

Since then, MLB At Bat has allowed me to watch Cubs games on the bus or in a car trip (given I have enough signal). I watch until I get carsick, and then I watch a few more minutes. At Bat also lets me listen to games at work. No, curious officemates, I’m not actually listening to Hall and Oates as you suspect, but actually Vin Scully. Put that biz on repeat.

But there are some problems. Some fixable problems. And some questions. As a loyal, paying customer, I demand answers.

1. End the Blackouts. This one is obvious. Everyone hates the blackouts. They were designed back when stadiums were all built out of wood and the television was this snazzy and expensive device that was going to destroy radio and real life forever. Now that we’re blaming smart phones for destroying the television and real life forever, maybe we can lighten these blackout rules?
2. End the Radio Delay. This one is less obvious, but equally outside of the purview of the people who run the actual coding behind MLB.tv and MLB At Bat. Still, it’s dumb as all get out and primed for the garbage heap. Sometimes, I am forced to listen to, say, an ESPN broadcast or the White Sox play-by-play team because the Rays aren’t broadcasting the game. Instead of muting my TV and listening to the fine commentary from WDAE, I have to listen to what amounts to a chlorine gas for my brain. It becomes very difficult to watch the game when I have to scream into my pillow after every Hawk Harrelson comment.
3. AT BAT NEEDS A FAST FORWARD BUTTON. I am watching a Cubs game from last night. The Len Kasper gives a great intro, talks about the previous game, and then send it to commercial. Then my precious little phone has to stream five minutes of “COMMERCIAL BREAK IN PROGRESS”. How many hours have I wasted watching those shadows shift and move along that metallic backdrop? A “Back 30 Seconds” button is the easiest, most obvious feature for a mobile video streamer. Netflix has it. Hulu has it. And MLB.tv used to have it. And unlike Netflix or Hulu, MLB.tv has long empty spaces, so it needs a “Forward 30 Seconds” button too. Yeah, the condensed games are nice, but I want to hear Len’s insights; I want to see the graphics and get the reports on the opposing teams; I want to experience the whole game — preferably without the battery-draining wastelands that are the whitewashed commercial breaks.



4. Is MLB At Bat opening really slowly for anyone else? In the latest update, I find myself sitting in front of the little spinning loading icon for at least five minutes every time I open the app. I never had this issue with previous versions. If a game has just started, this can prove very frustrating. All I want is the PITCHf/x report on that last pitch. Please just finish loading!
5. Why is Classic Gameday still the only way to look at previous at bats? I am thankful the developers have left Classic Gameday available to those of who care about history or posterity or what happened five seconds ago, but it would be nice if MLB At Bat or the newest in-browser Gameday actually had that basic, essential feature of the old Gameday. How am I supposed to tweet about the ridiculous Sam Fuld triple if the zone is already showing the next hitter?



6. Random Disconnections. I know others have to be suffering from this. I have had this problem for about five years, spanning two states, three cities, eight different residences, and at least four different internet service providers. (I honestly don’t remember it happening in China, so go figure.) I’m watching a replay of a game on MLB.tv, and then everything freezes. I have to quickly look at the progress bar and memorize my place in it because I know what’s about to happen: The game is about to start over at the beginning. It’s like as soon as my bandwidth gets choppy, MLB.tv pisses its pants and forgets its middle name. I think the problem correlates with MLB NexDef (I don’t remember having this problem before NexDef, even they’re even still using it) and iffy internet speed, but since I stream Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go and Amazon Prime without the shadow of a problem, I have to believe something at MLB.tv is just playing stupid.



7. DON’T SHOW ME THE SCOR– too late :(. Ah, the tedious, beautiful art of opening MLB.tv and not seeing the score of the replay you’re about to watch. I’ve tried squinting until my vision was too blurry to detect anything but shapes and colors. I’ve tried covering part of the screen with my hand and carefully navigating to the replays, sometimes by muscle memory alone. I’ve even asked others to start the replay for me so that I don’t have to risk seeing even a headline related to the game. This is no longer an issue with MLB.tv. This is specifically an At Bat problem. Do I have to make the Miami Marlins my favorite team just to be sure I won’t see any meaningful scores?! Why can’t I set my landing page to a score-free mode or a day-delayed mode? Or, better yet, just make my landing page the video feed selection. I can then navigate back to my team’s news feed if I’m still operating in normal earth time.

This is all very whiny. And it’s pretty much a shimmering monument to First World Problems, but these are issues real enough to me. Partly because I write about baseball, and therefore have to consume a lot of baseball, and therefore use MLB.tv and MLB At Bat daily. But it’s partly because I’m a fan. So I’m hoping others out there will agree with me.

All told, I love MLB.tv and At Bat. They bring baseball into the 21st century and have enabled my fandom, starting way back in 2007 when I was just a punk college kid sad about leaving behind his 10-inch dorm room TV. And I fully expect MLB will continue to improve these products. But a little complaining here and there can sometimes help.

This journey begins with the Soylent Athlete, an article in which I muse about the possibilities of an athlete benefitting from a liquid-meal diet. Specifically, we ask: Can an athlete better meet his or her fitness goals by using powder meal replacements?

After months of waiting, my first shipment of Soylent finally arrived. I have already reviewed 100% Food, which proved rather tasty. In fact, I continued to purchase it well after my review published.

Will Soylent fare as well? I’m guessing you’re one of those “headline reader” types, so I doubt this is a spoiler, but the answer is probably no.

Grades

Taste: 5
Texture: 6
Nutrients: 10
Packaging: 5
Ego Depletion: 5
Price: 7 ($3.06 per meal)

Rating: 6.3

Taste

Woof. I did not like Soylent. Imagine that dusty box on your back porch, the one holding your fake Christmas tree. Imagine ripping that weirdly crispy, tired cardboard into little pieces, adding water, and then blending it into a smooth, pleasing-looking but oddly tacky liquid. Now eat it.

While I complained about 100% Food’s lack of spicy options, I realize now that having great sweet options is a huge accomplishment. In order to eat Soylent — not necessarily enjoy, but just simply eat it — I had to add cocoa powder and sweeteners. Sometimes I just poured a hearty dose of chocolate sauce into the blend. All of this, obviously, eats away at the nutritional value of Soylent — y’know, the core reason for wanting to go on Soylent.

I do think the neutral, cardboardy taste might lend itself to spicy creations, but I was so worried about making a nasty batch, that I never tempted fate and added hot sauce. Why was I worried? Because I already had to throw out one big batch.

I added some fruit as per a suggestion in the neat-looking instruction manual. I took a helping of frozen mixed berries, blended them with some water, and then used the water fruit mix as the base for the Soylent powder. They blended well — which is to say, they chemically combined well — but tasted so awful and turned so ominously gray after 12 hours in the fridge that I couldn’t stomach a second meal of the now-gritty and still-not-sweet-enough Soylent/fruit mix.

I cannot imagine many standard customers, much less food-craving college athletes, satisfying themselves on a batch of Soylent. And that’s just with regards to the taste.

NOTE: Someone on the Soylent reddit page suggested adding powdered fruits to Soylent to help with the flavoring. Because new flavoring ideas are constantly appearing, and because I certainly didn’t try all possibilities, I completely reserve the right to at any time change my opinion and pretend like I always held this new opinion.

Texture

So if 100% Food was like a milkshake in its thickness, Soylent is like chocolate milk. It’s not totally watery, but it’s smooth and thick. Problem is: It’s very tacky. And maybe I’m not using that word correctly, but it’s the closest description I can find for something that feels kind of like how I imagine paint would feel in my mouth.

It’s dry, yet somehow still a liquid. It’s sticks to my mouth, but not in a good way. It’s really not great, but it’s not horrible either.

Nutrients

Fellow redditor Alex Clifford has been on Soylent for some time now. I suggest reading through his Soylent experiences at his beautifully designed blog, Red Dog Tales. He shared some of his data with me, and the results — while much more comprehensive — mirror what I was seeing from my top-down analysis of 100% Food. Basically this: The liquid diet resulted in better health.

Here’s the gist of his changes:

So the only two categories that changed significantly for Alex while on Soylent were Alanine Aminotransferase and Triglyceride, both of which moved from unhealthy to healthy ranges. His Lipemia Index went from 11 to 4, but anything in the 0 to 50 range is okay.

I personally never had any GI issues with soylent, and I hear this latest edition has improved that kind of stuff. So I can’t but give Soylent perfect marks on the nutrition side of things.

Packaging

At first, I thought the big plastic pouring container doodad was pretty awesome. It warned me to not over-tighten it, and I did my best to gently turn it shut. But sure enough, Soylent is everywhere. I got Soylent on my car seats. I go Soylent on my clothes. There’s a Soylent ring on the fridge shelf. I got Soylent all over my hands. I tried tightening the lid more, and I got more Soylent everywhere. And that doesn’t even include the powder form.

Basically, this is how the Powder Problem works: You fill the canister half with water, then add the powder (and good lord, add something with flavor). Shake. Then add more water (to fill the canister), and then shake again. By then of this process, the raw Soylent powder should have arrived at every level location in your immediate area. And no matter how carefully I poured the powder into the canister … poof!, powder everywhere.

I’m betting I’m just super spoiled having started with 100% Food, with its neat, self-contained single meal packaging. By just the process of making Soylent — the whole five minutes necessary to make all three of my day’s meals — felt like a drag.

It’s also worth mentioning here that Soylent took almost a half year to reach me. I believe they are getting more staff and upping production paces, but basically it’s not feasible if you’re looking for an immediate, short-term order.

Ego Depletion

It was very hard to eat Soylent for every meal. But that is almost certainly because the texture was unpleasant and, more importantly, I couldn’t find a flavor (or flavors) that I really liked. Because of it’s neutral base, though, the possibility for more flavor combos exist than with, say, 100% Food. So I’m totally open to changing this section.

Price

Since 100% Food raised its price, Soylent remains among the cheapest tiers. It’s around $3. That’s pretty dang close to grocery prices. A nice midpoint, perhaps, between McDonald’s and homemade — but sans the time cost for either those two alternatives.

Conclusions

Here’s what I think I’ve decided:

1. It’s not bad enough for me to say no to Soylent forever. I’ll keep trying Soylent.
2. Generally, I don’t like Soylent.
3. And I cannot imagine this being the liquid meal that enables healthier, easier student-athlete diets.

Until the next one, eat well, my friends!

Check out the Soylent subreddit for some great resources on liquid meal-replacements.

“That video game looks like a spreadsheet,” some doubter once said to me.

“That doesn’t look fun,” another has said.

Well, those jerks can go play their laser games and their wizard sports because Out of the Park Baseball (OOTP) is just about the funnest a simulation game can be. And it looks like OOTP16 is going to be even better. Why?

Controlling owners. Manager personalities. More detailed team finance displays.

It almost sounds like satire, but I’m genuinely tickled the OOTP team announced a bevy of new complexities for their ever-impressive video game. The owners and managers are both getting more features, options, and quirks.

But first! A new finance screen!

This is nice because it will save me some time flipping back and forth from the Team Info to the Graphs to the Advanced sections. Now I can amalgamate the greatest hits into one screen.

Here’s a look at the new owners:

And they’re coming with a list of demands!

And now managers are going to have more discrete tendencies, and we can control how much they control even more!

I’m excited.

The PivotTable can be — in the right hands — one of the most powerful and useful tools available to an Excel Wizard. What does a PivotTable do? It reorganizes raw data into malleable tables. This allows us to look at the same data, but through a different lens.

It’s kind of like the difference between a cup of cold froyo in its original form — with a layer of peanuts, a layer of chocolate- and marshmallow-flavored froyo, and a layer of chocolate syrup — and a cup of froyo stirred and mixed up so that the sauce and nuts and yogurt are more integrated. It’s all the same components, the same flavor, but in one form, you can see them more clearly.

Before we can use a PivotTable, we need a question and a dataset that requires a PivotTable. (Throwing a PivotTable at a random problem will do you nothing.) The typical question I have that requires a PivotTable: Who performed best over the last three seasons?

And the question is more complicated than just “let’s add up data from 2012 through 2014.” I want to weight the years 5-4-3, meaning 2014 — being more recent — is 1.25 time more important than 2013, and 2013 is 1.3 times more important than 2012. This is a common weighting that Tom Tango uses a lot, most notably in his Marcel projections.

So let’s use a PivotTable with my Ottoneu fantasy team’s data so I can best predict my targets for the upcoming year. I’m going to head to my Ottoneu league’s home screen and then browse to the “Sortable Stats” section, but just about everything here can be replicated with the FanGraphs leaderboards and WAR instead of fantasy points.

I’m going to next choose to look at split season from 2012 through 2014:

Then we export the data to a CSV:

Opening that data, we get a bare bones spreadsheet somewhat like this:

Then in the Insert section on the top ribbon, choose PivotTable:

You will then receive a popup window titled “Create PivotTable.” I never use the first section, but will typically leave the second section alone too. Basically, if you want, you can keep the PivotTable in the same sheet/tab, or you can have it create its own new tab. Since PivotTables frequently change shape, I rarely want it anywhere near my raw data because it could accidentally overwrite key stuff.

So hit “OK.”

This will result in something this-ish:

My original question is: “Who performed the best over the last three years?” That means I want my rows to be each individual player. To do this — and avoid problems like having two players with the same name — I will drag the “playerid” field to the “Row Labels” section:

You should now have something unhelpful looking like this:

Now we need to add the column headings (“Season”) and the data we want displayed (“FPTS”). Again, this is just a simple drag and drop operation:

So we end up with something like this:

This is great! But let’s get those names in there now. Drag the “Name” field into the Row Labels sections, adding it just underneath the “playerid” field. This should result in a real messy display where the names appear under the numbers and have completely unnecessary subtotals.

Head to the “PivotTable Tools” and the tab “Design.” Here, we can rearrange the look and feel of the PivotTable. Under Subtotals, choose “Do Not Show Subtotals.” Under “Report Layout,” click “Show in Tabular Form.”

Now our data is in good shape. We’ve isolated the position player fantasy points by season, and now we just need to create a formula that will weight recent performances in favor of older stats.

So now, in order to jam in my own little formula, I will copy the data (CTRL+A then CTRL+C) and paste the values into a new tab or spreadsheet (so CTRL+V to paste it, then CTRL then V to paste just the values). Now that I’ve got raw numbers organized the way I want them, I will delete the top row (which does nothing for me) and then format the data as a table:

First, I’m going to use the filter buttons to get rid of any players who had blank years. Not only do these guys complicate the following math, but they also invariably do not qualify for my question concerning most fantasy points over the preceding three seasons.

After I filter out the “(Blank)” items in the each year column, I should have something like this:

Then I just create a formula that multiplies each year by the appropriate 5-4-3 weight, adds the results, and then divides that sum by the sum of the weights (12). That formula is specifically this:

=([@2014]*5+[@2013]*4+[@2012]*3)/12

NOTE: These previous two steps could go in either order, really.

Then, for fun, I’ll format the final column to look a little nicer, maybe throw in a conditional formatting here or there, and then I’ve got a nifty little tool for for my first year draft. Of course, if I were using this data for a draft in an old league, I would have filtered down to just Free Agents — either in the Sortable Stats page, or within the PivotTable:

So, after all that work, I finally get my sweet, delicious prize:

With a little bit of formula athletics, we can expand this data to look at everyone, even if they have missed a season. This would allow us to allow put rookies and sophomores into the table. But since this is a PivotTable article, I’ll save that for another time.

Happy spreadsheeting!

Previous How To’s:

How to Use Tableau for Baseball Data
How to Use Vlookup for Sports Data

Let me know if there’s something else you’d like a How To on!

A few weeks ago, I began to explore the idea of the Soylent Athlete. More specifically, I asked: Can an athlete better meet his or her fitness goals by using powder meal replacements?

The catalyst for this line of thinking, the unforgettably-named Soylent, just raised a whole mess of money in the venture capital world and looks to up their production levels as a result. Which is great. Because I ordered Soylent sometime in mid 2014, and I’m still waiting on my first batch.

But in the meantime, there are many Soylent alternatives available. The recipe for Soylent itself is open source, meaning there are a lot of similar and hopefully great product on the market. Today, I’m going to look at 100% Food from Space Nutrients Station.

Grades

Taste: 7
Texture: 6
Nutrients: 9
Packaging: 10
Ego Depletion: 6
Price: 8

Rating: 7.7

Taste

I have now tried four variants of 100% Food: The normal vanilla (or “raw”), the normal chocolate, the low carb vanilla, and the low carb chocolate. I have liked all four flavors, and — texture and consistency aside — my favorite flavor might be the Low Carb Raw variety. But the chocolate flavors are excellent, too, and contain Ghirardelli chocolate powder in them. For funsies, you can also add a little chocolate syrup, though that obviously eats away at the health benefits of the meal.

One thing I really wanted, though, was a spicy option. Or perhaps a savory option to which I can add any of my delicious hot sauces. My office neighbor is always dousing his food in Crystals, and it makes eating something mildly sweet almost like torture. I love hot sauces, and I can’t stand by as others eat hot sauces without me.

Overall, are the different flavors of 100% Food suited for everyone? Maybe, maybe not. It really smells better than most of my doubting coworkers expected, and has much more flavor than its gruelish appearance.

Texture

Let me start by saying the texture is difficult. For many people — my wife included — the texture and consistency is a non-starter. There are whole sesame and chia seeds in the mix, and with water, the meal thickens into a kind of paste. Sometimes, especially with the low carb varieties, the powder will clump into thick, tough balls inside the bottle or even leave whole gaps of powder untouched by water (this was never an issue in the normal varieties, just the low carb ones). The remaining combo of water and powder can then create a sort of snotty paste — not fun to look at.

I really don’t throw up much, but after my first 100% Food meal, I nearly did. I ate the majority of the bottle problem free, but then had just a little bit of powder left. I added some extra water and swirled the contents together. I learned from later experiments that the water/powder balance is best when it’s near milkshake consistency, but that first night, I glorged out a mouthful of watery meal as my body said, “Nope! That’s not the consistency we expected!”

That caveat delivered, when I can get the powder whipped into a milkshake or oatmeal consistency — which is about 90% of the time for the normal stuff, 75% of the time with the low carb variety — then the consistency is actually one that I rather like. Sometimes, I’ll make it with hot water and it’s like drinking down some vanilla or chocolate oatmeal of some sort.

Nutrients

This is the part where I’m most jazzed. Let’s compare my life before and during a wholly Space Nutrients diet:

Basically: I was getting way too much sodium, not enough fiber, too much fat, and probably an oversized dose of protein (coming specifically in the form of red meat, i.e. burgers). According to the nutrient standards set by the USDA and the NIH, I became a super-prudent eater after I began eating only 100% Food. I was having about 50% more than the recommended daily intake of fiber; I cut my fat intake to appropriate levels; I had sodium under control, probably for the first time in my life; and I consumed almost 0 cholesterol (which corresponds with a 200 Cholesterol-).

I hear it’s important to get some “good cholesterol,” but since the NIH or USDA did not suggest a minimum amount of ol’ cholesty, I guess it’s good I lost it completely from my diet.

How did this new diet affect my body? Well, first of all, let’s talk about the gap in the middle of my data. On October 30th, at almost precisely 6:00 a.m., my son burst into our lives. He’s a great little fella, but he does not fit neatly into the pocket of my jogging shorts or the nice jogging stroller we have. So the following data I consider very incomplete because I switched from jogging almost every day to jogging occasionally shortly after his birth.

But here is a sample for how my body reacted to 100% Food:

And here is a similar look that show how my runs still clustered with my pre-100% Food performances.

Did the liquid diet make me a better runner immediately? Did it give me an instant pep in my step? Maybe a bit psychologically, but not in a discernable physical way. Shortly after this period, I tweaked my ankle (not to mention had a kid) and found myself out of commission for a while. I hope to someday revisit this study, though, and track more physical performance data.

AWFUL AND DISGUSTING, BUT HONEST NOTE: Many people complain about the impact 100% Food’s fiber has on their puny digestive systems. But I’m a fiber fanatic. My body has been training for a spotlight like this, so I did not notice a discernable or at least negative difference in flatulence or bowel movements. If anything, I endured less straining and grunting and praying during BMs. Sorry, but I’m just reporting the facts. Back to the non-poo-related part of the article…

Packaging

Because they come in neat, self-contained bottles, I never spent more than 5 minutes preparing a meal. That’s pretty fantastic.

I understand that Soylent and Joylent and some of the other liquid meal groups require users to make a batch beforehand and parcel out bits of food throughout the day, perhaps in sports bottles or used water bottles. I’m not sure, but I do know this current method of delivery for 100% Food works and works well.

I should mention, though, that convenient doesn’t mean great things for the environment. This 10-star rating for the package has to do only with the user’s experience, not the overall impact of the item. That is a calculus the user must complete (as in, what’s worse: garbage dumps filled with plastic bottles, or gallons of water used on washing reusable bottles).

Ego Depletion

Here’s the biggest problem for me. I didn’t mind the texture, but by the end of the day, all I could think about was whatever delicious smells my wife was microwaving. Could I have maintained an all-soylent diet as a college athlete? Maybe if everyone in my apartment and on my team were doing the same. But in a house where real old-fashioned food is being made and consumed, I think it is near impossible.

I wanted to continue to test the different flavors of 100% Food (thus the gap between my data and publish date), and I found a good process that works for me: Eat 100% Food for breakfast and lunch, then share a traditional meal with the wife at dinner. That works pretty well for me, but I still struggle with matters of ego depletion: After eating really healthy throughout the work day, I find myself splurging on chocolate or popcorn at the end of the day. It’s not a great strategy, and I could very much see this as a problem for athletes who already have a lot of stress on the menu.

Price

At around $5 a bottle (even after shipping), it is certainly affordable, but it once was better. When I started in September, I was paying about $3 for bottle. And I believe Soylent wants to get down to $2 a bottle.

Conclusions

Here’s what I think I’ve discovered:

1. The product tastes good enough for me. I’m going to keep eating it so I can work through lunch and go home early. At least until a better product comes along.
2. Eventually, a whole bottle of 100% Food became too filling for me, so I would have half the bottle for breakfast (leaving some of the un-mixed powder at the bottom of the bottle) and then eat the rest for lunch. (This was not an issue when I was still running and needing far more calories.)
3. In order for this to be a viable meal for 90% of my life, instead of the 66% it occupies now, I need a spicy option. Or perhaps more flavors in general. The current flavors work well for me, but I still need just a touch more variety.

Eat well, my friends!

Check out the for some great resources on liquid meal-replacements.

Boston Dynamics, the now Google-owned robotics firm, released a video on Monday of it’s latest little terrifying robot, Spot:

The applications here are manifold: It could be a modern St. Bernard with a cask of whiskey for the stranded mountain traveler; it could be a vital supply delivery mechanism for war-torn or disaster-struck locales; and, most terrifyingly, it could be a deadly ground-based drone in the coming Future Wars.

But pertinent to us, they can replace the most-often-abused athletes: race animals. Or more specifically, greyhound dogs. Not only does the greyhound racing industry have a reputation — if not a history — of animal abuse (direct from owner to dog), it also has the unintended consequence of greyhound overbreeding. This can and has resulted in unacceptable euthanization rates among former race dogs.

So, is with most modern problems, the answer is probably robots. Let’s walk through the above video one more time and point out some of the pertinent details:

• 0:00
  Spot decides to go for a walk. Did he decide for himself, or was it a matter of programming culminating in this? Was it fate or free will? We’ll never know. Because they never show anybody controlling this robot.
• 0:22
  Craig from accounting, having no discernable soul, emulates the role of the typical greyhound goon, and Spot weathers it like a champ.

  

• 0:29
  “Maybe if you win more races, I won’t be able to kick you because my solid gold shoes will be too heavy.”
• 0:51
  All-terrain dog races! ALL-TERRAIN DOG RACES!
• 1:09
  Seeing Spot dressed in a gray, foam-based armor excites me at the possibility of combat robot races, which is where the sport would inevitably lead.

  

• 1:21
  Did anyone else just pee themselves a little? Seriously, where’d this second robot come from?
• 1:39
  The only thing more terrifying than two all-terrain robot dogs is the shadow they cast.
  

  

• 2:45
  No robots were harmed?! I THINK WE WANT TO KNOW IF THEY RAISED UP AND OVERTHREW THEIR CREATORS; NOT WHETHER OR NOT THEY BROKE A WIRE.

I hope you’re as excited as me about the future of robot racing! Will they drive themselves around a circular course, or be driven by a pilot a la drone racing? Will all-terrain mountain courses draw the yawning gaze of Vegas? Will the robots self-actualize, overbreed, and then rise to power through democratic and soft-power means?

The answers, of course, are: “Both,” “probably,” and “no, violent revolution.” And I personally can’t wait to see some robot dog racing!

Out of the Park Baseball (OOTP) announced they now have an official MLB license for the upcoming OOTP 16. I just want to say: I was on the ground floor of this thing. Well, maybe not the ground floor. But I got in before it got all fancy.

I heard about OOTP where most people hear about it — in a job interview, naturally. A guy from some department came hustling over — him being a fan of sabermetrics, him being vaguely aware of my writing — and he eagerly told me about OOTP and its superiority to Baseball Mogul (which I still love). I thank that man for introducing me to OOTP. Thanks, man.

So what does this MLB license mean to the average game player? Well first, it means a game that annually ranks as the best in all of everything is getting better. But more specifically, it means we don’t have to sift through a bunch of competing add-ons or wait for the big special All in One add-on in order to play a game that looks and feels like an MLB entity.

For those who haven’t played before, the old way was this:

• Download the game.
• If you downloaded the game on day one: Sift through the add-ons for realistic faces and accurate team logos.
• If you downloaded it maybe a week after the game’s release: Download the All in One mod.
• Install those mods.

Now, we should be able to:

• Download the game.

There may still be some mods that throw in international team logos and whatnot, but I expect the average user will be able to download and enjoy a full experience. Oh, also — see the top image — it appears they are making more steps for the in-game 3D stuff.

I am hyped. Everyone else, get hyped too.

Game Reviews:

98 A+ Out of the Park Baseball (OOTP) 2015 (PC)
98 A+ Out of the Park Baseball (OOTP) 2014 (PC)
97 A+ Out of the Park Baseball (OOTP) 2013 (PC)
96 A+ Baseball Mogul ’13 (PC)
96 A+ MLB ’12 The Show (PS3)
79 C+ MLB 2K12 (PS3, XBOX 360, Wii, PC, etc.)
74 C MLB Ballpark Empire (Facebook)

Retro Review:

82 B- MVP Baseball 2003 (PC)

The BBC had a drone article recently that surveyed both the history and potential uses for drones, as well as examined their rapidly decreasing cost and increasing quality. This furthers the idea Michael Tunney presented on these pages — the idea of Battle Bots 2.0. And what I’m saying is that the world is ready for drone sport. As costs decrease, there is increasingly fewer reasons to not jump into this exciting world of drones doing athletic things for us.

Behold, France has already turned the corner and is zipping down the next hedgerow:

First of all: What a much of mega nerds. Secondly: How awesome is that?! Recreating one of the better chase scenes in movie history as a drone race? The view these pilots get looks nothing less than an absolute thrill adventure.

What better way to combine the exciting new technologies of our era — virtual reality and drones? Well, here’s another way we could take it up a notch:

There are two things here: a) Those hoverbike drones plus that French drone course equals a world-changing racing event of unparalleled awesomeness. And then b) that same device, maybe made life-size, makes for an awesome actual recreation of the forest chase scene from Return of the Jedi.

Or maybe just hoverbike races on standard race course? Or all-terrain hoverbike races? THE POSSIBILITIES!

1. Games could be broadcast live on sites like Twitch or even YouTube.
2. As the sport grows, goggles that show the stationary view of the mounted camera can be replaced with integrated VR-camera technology, so that whenever a driver’s head moves, the camera moves with him.
3. Or better yet! Maybe the multi-camera technology involved in Google’s Street View cars becomes small enough that all views are broadcast simultaneously. The driver wants to keep his eyes forward? Fine. Joe Blurpington of Constance, Iowa, wants to watch the rear as drones chase the leading vehicle? He can do that too!

What I’m saying is: This will be awesome, or I will throw an earth-shattering tantrum.

Perhaps this is the robot device that will bring future generations to their knees in anguish and empathy for our generation, but alas it exists:

Yes, BeachBot is a little robot turtle that draws stuff in the sand. Using its little cold metal fingers, it tirelessly scrapes designs into a Swiss beach near you. Why does this matter? What does this project merit that it should pull, by my count, eight engineers away from the matters of world hunger and missing sock matches? Well here’s an obvious item to me: beach sports.
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The team behind the most stupidly addicting baseball video game in the world — Out of the Park Baseball or OOTP — is apparently looking for a new tagline:

As our stable of sports management games grows, we realized that we need a great tagline to pull them together. (Kind of like The Big Lebowski’s rug, only without the soiling part.)

We thought about it a lot, and we realized that “We Make the Best Sports Management Games on the Planet” didn’t have the right ring. Markus’ suggestion, “Bow Down Before Us,” wasn’t quite right either.

So we’re turning to you, our loyal fans. As explained in last Friday’s newsletter, we need you to send your suggestions to tagline@ootpdevelopments.com by midnight Eastern time on January 11, 2015. The winner will score some cool stuff.

The prize bundle is composed of blah-blah-blah and something-something never-see-your-wife-and-kids-again, but you don’t need to worry about that. Instead, offer me your best suggestions and I’ll go ahead and forward them on your behalf.

So far I’ve got:

3) “OOTP: Video games for thinkers. And addicts.”

2) “OOTP: Honey, stop crying. I’ll come to bed when I’m done.”

1) “OOTP: Because graduating or seeing your kids’ first steps are hella overrated.”

There’s gotta be a winner in there somewhere!