My Top Five Online Purchases of 2014

While Facebook does their “year in review” with everyone’s respective timelines, I’d like to take a look at the my past year’s purchases and orders in either the sports or nerdy fields, sometimes both. Given my personal interests, there should be no surprise to find soccer and baseball dominate the list. In reverse order, this is my very subjective list of my favorite online purchases from the year.

Honorable mentions:
Thrustmaster T-Flight Stick
In what is inarguably my nerdiest purchase of the year, I went out and bought a joystick controller for my computer upon learning was Star Wars: TIE Fighter was available again. I’m not sure how 9-year-old me managed to beat the game, as 27-year-old me has struggled to make it past the third battle.

NCAA Football 2006 for the Xbox/Xbox 360 I’ve ran the dynasty in this game almost since release day. No surprise to say I’ve worn through several discs, but this year’s replacement will probably have at least another year or two in it. When I stumbled across this game for less than six bucks via Amazon, I had to buy it.

5. An Alberto Callaspo Oakland A’s shirsey
It was the top of the 12th inning and at this point the combination of frustration and craft beer had taken its toll on me. In possibly the cruelest turn of playoff events, I made a promise to the Twitter world that if the pinch-hitting Callaspo delivered an RBI hit, I would instantly purchase his shirsey. Well, he did. I ran around my apartment excited, ordered the shirsey, and my A’s lost anyway. Que sera, sera. On an unrelated note, I may be the only man in the world to own the triple threat of shirseys with Daric Barton, Brett Anderson and Alberto Callaspo.

4. FOX Soccer 2Go
Probably a top-five streaming service — excluding Netflix and Amazon Prime — FOX Soccer 2Go is a very clean interface, though not particularly cheap at $119.99 for the year. The quality of the UEFA Champions league matches makes up for the price tag, however top league plays such as the Premier League and La Liga cannot be streamed. I’ll continue to support this, as top flight football fixtures are worth it me, though this may not be for everyone.

3. Two tickets to the 100th anniversary of Wrigley Field

Was it cold? Absolutely. Did I run late and miss out on the Federal jersey? Of course I did. All that aside, it was still a pretty incredible game, plus the view made it worth it.

At the time my iPhone’s Passbook worked  very well, though Apple Pay wasn’t available for in-stadium purchases just yet.

The game itself was entertaining, even in the ninth inning as the Cubs blew a three run lead. The WPA chart is a sad story. At one point the Cubs held a 97.5% chance of winning. Oof.

2. A South Korea Home Jersey + Scarf

I guess I should give props to Amazon for packaging these two options together with their creepily-accurate targeted ads. I was only after the jersey, but they sucked me with a great deal on the scarf. While my home nation flamed out in the group stage — in awful fashion, too as they couldn’t score against a 10-man Belgium side and even conceded a goal up a man — this combination of team pride is something I’ll wear long into the future.

1. MLS Live
As the full version of the review states, the video-on-demand system MLS Live brings to table is the best I’ve come across. The interface is clean, the mobile app is strong on its own and best of all, the price tag for a full season is barely half of MLB.tv’s cost. As a league, MLS is on rise in terms of quality, plus seeing USMNT players at the club level is always grand. This is certainly an annual purchase for myself from now on.

(Header image via Forbes.com)