Yesterday, The Wife and I were debating where to seek out a certain piece of electronic equipment for the house (if you must know, we want to get one of those jacuzzi tanning beds--we work hard, we deserve it!). I jokingly said she should look for it at Consumers, which I thought would be a sure-fire laugh getter, but I was only greeted with silence. It dawned on me that there must be some people out there unfamiliar with the infuriating world of Consumers.

In case you are one of those blighted few, I'll fill you in. Consumers was a big, boxy store that inexplicably sprang up all over the northeast corridor in the 1980s, despite having one of the counterintuitive business models ever.

The idea behind Consumers: the store could save overhead by not having a big showroom for all its wares, and pass those savings along to you. The stores were extremely minimalist, with only a few items on display, and sometimes a jewelry counter.



But if they had no showroom, how did you get your stuff? I'm glad you asked! Consumers had huge catalogs full of all the items they sold. It was sort of a Sears Wish Book, except it contained more than kids stuff. VCRs, jewelry, lawnmowers, you name it.

The catalog was enormous, and enticing. I remember being very impressed by them as a kid, especially the toy/video game section. They even had a teaser for Super Mario Brother 2 several months before it was released. Of course, it was just a screenshot of Super Mario Brothers 1 blown up really big, a ruse even eight-year-old me was able to suss out. But I appreciated the effort they went through to trick me.

If you wanted something at Consumers, you filled out a slip with the item's info, then got on a Space Mountain-sized line that snaked through rows of metal corrals. Eventually, you came face to face with an actual clerk manning one of the many counter stations that lined the length of the store. You handed your slip to a clerk and waited for them to retrieve your item from the warehouse. And waited. And waited. And waited. And also waited.

And after all of this waiting, there was no guarantee the store would actually have the item in question. Consumers lacked either the ability or the willingness to implement a computerized database to track such things (even though this technology existed by the mid-80s), so the only way to determine if the store had something in stock was to actually go in the back and check.

Disappointment can happen to you at any store, of course. You go to the mall, hoping to find a certain thing, and it turns out no one has it. But there is something especially exasperating about jumping through all these bureaucratic steps, and waiting on line, and waiting for a clerk to emerge from the back, and then finding out you're screwed. Kafka himself could not have designed a more Kafka-esque shopping experience.

This was torturous when I was a kid. We didn't get toys too often, but when we did, it was often at Consumers, because it was cheap and we didn't have a Toys R Us nearby. Children have no patience to begin with, but asking them to endure this rigamarole is impossible. I would hear other kids cry and scream and throw fits as they found out the toys they wanted were out of stock, and just pray they didn't want the same thing I wanted.

This shows just how far things have advanced in the last 25 years. The modern shopping experience is all pitched toward empowering the consumer, giving them as many choices as possible and extensive previews of the product they're considering buying. Can you imagine a store that not only required such waiting, but didn't guarantee they'd have what you wanted? There'd be riots in the streets.

What's even more amazing is that Consumers was simply the most austere of the catalog stores of the 80s. There were a few others, like Service Merchandise, but these other stores also had a lot of goods on display. You could actually buy things off the rack at Service Merchandise. You could not do that at Consumers.

In a weird way, Consumers was a predecessor of sites like Amazon, which also have no physical displays, which cuts down on costs. And you can think of a catalog as a low-tech site showcasing a store's wares. The big difference, of course, is that you don't have to leave your house to window-shop at Amazon. And if what they have is out of stock, you go to another site, or shrug your shoulders, rather than leave a store completely defeated and hating life.

Though no pitches have been thrown in anger just yet, players are in spring training camps, and that excites me. Jose Reyes is running the bases, Johan Santana is throwing bullpen sessions, and Ollie Perez has managed to eat lunch every day without hurting himself. I haven't seen footage of any of these things, but I know they are happening, and that knowledge soothes me.

But I got genuinely excited over something I saw yesterday. Matthew Cerrone at Metsblog posted this pic snapped at Port St. Lucie.

What is that? Why it's a stadium giveaway duffel bag, clearly sponsored by RC Cola, dating to the late 80s-early 90s. The sight of this thing was nigh Proustian in the memories it dredged up. But not of actually using the bag. Just of seeing ads for BAG NIGHT! at Shea, then seeing said bag used by classmates and townfolk for the next few years. It gave me the same feeling I get when I watch old commercials, and have phrases I haven't thought of in years ring tiny little bells in my brain.

I wanted this to be a springboard for a post on other Shea Stadium giveaways from the same era, but sadly, the interweb information on such things is rather poor. You'd think some maniac out there would have compiled a site dedicated just to this, but you'd think wrong.

But there is some web-based evidence of RC Cola's role in Mets history. The soda had a long, intermittent association with the team dating back to its earliest days. This was back when Shea had more small-time sponsors like Rheingold Beer and local Plymouth dealerships.

Oddly enough, they seem to have returned to this route at CitiField, where you now see ads for things like Arpielle Equipment, cash-for-gold web sites, and other second-tier businesses. Which seems kind of creepy and shady, now that I think about it.

It was a fitting partnership. RC Cola was always the shameful bronze to the gold and silver of Coke and Pepsi, while the Mets were the brand new "upstart" team in town. RC even tried to play up this connection, as you'll see in this ad from the 1960s. A shapely young lady poses with an RC Cola in front of Shea Stadium, though the facility can barely be discerned behind her, or the giant fountain which must have once been somewhere near it (or the Worlds Fairgrounds, or the designer's imagination). I get the destinct impression that baseball was not the focus of this ad.

Other than the duffel bag, the RC Cola promo I remember the most were these commemorative cans following the Mets' 1986 World Series victory. Decorated in a gloriously 80s design scheme, these cans declared to the world, "I know how to jump on a bandwagon as I drink."

RC Cola's association with the Mets continued into the 2000s, but ended by the time the last days of Shea rolled around (hence the Pepsi Porch at their new ballpark). I would lament this fact, but considering RC Cola is now owned by Cadbury Schweppes, they're not exactly a mom and pop outfit, either.

Plus, I don't wanna be one of those people who complains about the merits of essentially interchangeable junk food brands. The Wife and I once snagged fantastic seats for a Mets game, and sat next to a guy who wouldn't shut up all night about how he hated it when Shea stopped serving Kahn's hot dogs. I was too nice to tell the guy to leave me alone, plus he seemed like he might be borderline autistic.But my point is, if you can help it, don't be that guy. Nostalgia's great, being trapped in the past isn't.

We welcome back Skitch Hanson to the Scratchbomb pages. You may know him from his nationally syndicated sports column, "Up the Middle". You may have also seen him on the ESPN roundtable discussion show, Mouth-Talkers! Or you may have read one of his 79 books, such as Playing Catch with My Father, and Other Things I Wish Happened in My Childhood. Without further ado, here's Skitch to talk about Olympic Hockey.

Last night's Olympic hockey match between the US and Canada was quite the rough-and-tumble contest. A real battle of wills. A hard-nosed, no-holds-barred exhibition of old time hockey.

Or so I've heard. I'd forgotten the game was on last night, and when it dawned on me that I was missing it, I couldn't figure out what channel it was on. My cable system's supposed to have some sort of an onscreen guide, but you have to be a robot to figure those things out! Plus, the box hasn't worked too well since my wife accidentally spilled three whole bottles of pinot grigio on it.

By the time I found the game, it was already over and the American players were congratulating one another. Of course, it reminded me of the Miracle on Ice some 20-something years ago. Fittingly enough, I believe last night was actually the anniversary of the USA's historic victory over the Soviet Union at Mount Placid. I would look up the date, but I seem to have misplaced my Reader's Digest almanac for that year.

I'll always remember that game, because it happened during the first Olympics I covered. The day of the game, you could just feel something in the air. Even though nobody in their right mind thought the US could win, you could just feel that something special was about to happen.

Unfortunately, that feeling wasn't enough to wake me up from a mid-afternoon nap and catch the shuttle bus to the arena. But I was a young go-getter back then, and a few pounds lighter, too--this was back when I could still see my feet. So I briskly walked the 7 miles from my hotel to the hockey game. Security wouldn't let me into the press booth, because I was late, and because I had sweat so much my body odor was deemed offensive.

So I watched most of the game on the TVs hanging over the concession stands. The energy in the building was unbelievable. This one vendor named Antonio seemed really into it, even though I had to describe the action to him, since he couldn't see what was going on from his station next to that cube with the heat lamps in it that they use to heat up soft pretzels.

Sure, there are some differences between the miraculous victory at Fort Placid and the one in Vancouver. The Miracle on Ice was a semi-final, and this one was just for a first round bye. And the older team was made up of college kids, while this one is entirely comprised of well-paid professionals. And in 1980, the game was both a Cold War metaphor and a boost to the sagging morale of Carter-era America. Today's kids probably couldn't find Russia on a map! I know my son Brad can't! The doctors think there might be something seriously wrong with him!

My point is, last night, Americans came together to cheer on their country. In this day and age, how many times can we say that? Apart from the Olympics every other year and the occasional dance competition show. Yes, this game brought us together, made us briefly care about hockey, and got us to root against a country that cares about the sport far more than we could ever possibly imagine.

I think that has to count for something. Will it mean much if the US winds up only winning a bronze medal, or no medal at all? I don't know. But hopefully by then, March Madness will have started.

I promise/hope this will be my last serious post on baseball for the season. Because funny ha-ha pieces are much better for this site, I think. And my soul.

Earlier today, I saw a fellow Mets fan tweet that the Vegas over/under for Mets wins this year is 89. The only NL team with a higher line is the Phillies, who are set at 89.5, and the next highest is the Diamondbacks, with 85.5.

Upon reading this, my first reaction was excitement. I'd sign up for 89 wins right now (as Mad Dog Russo often said; he may still say it, but nobody listens to him anymore). Of course, when Vegas sets lines, they do so to stir up action. That's why they release MLB over/under lines the week when spring training begins, hoping to capitalize on fan excitement.

Setting the Mets at 89 means Vegas believes one of two things: (1) they hope the team isn't that good, but the surprisingly high number of 89 will excite gullible, optimistic fans to bet the over; or (2) they think the team might win even more games, but hope enough people will remember the stumbling, bumbling Mets from last year and bet the under.

My own experience, plus the events of recent seasons, told me that Mets fans are a pessimistic bunch. Ironically, this led me to believe that option (2) was more likely than (1), which in turn got me excited like the dumb, dumb man that I am.

And then I thought to myself, Do I even want the Mets to have a good year? Could that be the worst thing possible for them, in the long term?

Thank you for coming today, selected members of the media. I called you here because I trust you, and I know you can speak and act on behalf of your fellow journalists. So without further ado, I want to announce to you and the rest of the world that I'm ready for my apology. Yes, I am ready for all of you to apologize to me.

You know how Babe Ruth used to go drinking and whoring all the time? Yeah, you know that now, but you didn't know that when he was playing. Imagine if you found that out in 1930-whatever. That shit woulda ruined your world.

That's what you guys did with me, to children worldwide. So, thanks for that.

And while you're at it, apologize to the sport of golf, 'cause you guys ruined that, too. Before me, you know who the biggest star in golf was? No, you don't, because NOBODY FUCKING WATCHED GOLF BEFORE ME. Except the oldest and richest douchebags. Nice demographic to have, huh? Golf really nailed it with people that everyone else on Earth hopes gets hit by a bus.

Here's a history lesson: biggest star in golf before I showed up was John Daly. John Fuckin' Daly. Have you seen that guy? Jesus. It's like if Rex Ryan and Billy Carter had love child born without an essential chromosome. If that guy died in a bar fight or a meth lab explosion, would you be the least surprised?

How many women did I fuck? As many as you would if you were the most popular athlete in the world. Did I cheat on my wife? That's between me and my wife. Oh wait, no it isn't, because YOU ASSHOLES THREW MY DIRTY LAUNDRY OUT IN THE STREET.

I will accept an apology from one appointed representative of the press, in either written or oral form. You may lay any tributes or offerings on the altar to my right.

Those of you on my shit list--and you know who you are--if you wanna get back on my good side, you're in luck! Today's the first day of Ass Kissing Season! Line forms at my rear, boys.

TAMPA--Pitchers and catchers have reported to the Yankees' spring training facility, an annual tradition known affectionately as Hell Week. Prospects and new acquisitions alike report bright and early to endure the humiliation necessary to join America's most storied franchise.

"Drop and gimme 50, pussy!" growled manager Joe Girardi as he caught sight of new Yankee Curtis Granderson. The outfielder did as he was told, while also downing a Jagermeister shot after each rep.

"This team isn't just about partying, okay?" Girardi told reporters as he popped the collar to his brand new Ed Hardy-designed uniform. "It's about leadership, brotherhood, dedication. And I won't have a buncha homos messing all that shit up."

Girardi then instructed young catcher Jesus Montero to finish off a bottle of Goldschlager, followed by three laps around the diamond while balancing a rake on his head.

"That's what makes the Yankees so great, traditions like this," said team captain Derek Jeter. "I remember when I came up in 1996, Cecil Fielder told me I had to eat an entire package of hot dog rolls and chug a six-pack of Bud in five minutes or else clean his toilet with my tongue. I, um, I could only get down seven rolls."

"Winning is a habit, losing is a disease," said Girardi, as he gave a wedgie to beat reporter Tyler Kepner. "How do you vaccinate yourself against losing? By WINNING. That's why I changed my number. It used to be 27, but we won our 27th championship last year. So now I'm number 347. Because that's how many World Series trophies we're gonna win. This year.

"And anyone who says that's impossible, I say you better shut yer dick-suckin fairy holes and MAKE IT HAPPEN. Because I create winners here, not gay-queers."

The Hell Week tradition has been in place since spring training of 1956, when Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, and Billy Martin forced all newcomers to drink their weight in Old Smuggler. But it has come under fire in recent years, particularly in 2004, when a hazing ritual rendered new Yankee Alex Rodriguez blind for much of the season and subsequent playoffs.

Is somebody honking outside? Jesus, it's 7 in the morning. Oh, that's right, I gotta go to Florida today. That must be the cab to the airport. Well, better quick throw some stuff in the suitcase. T-shirts, undies, a couple button downs to hit the clubs in. What the hell, guess I'll bring my glove in case anyone wants to play catch...

FUCK! I FORGOT TO GET A PITCHER! FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!

God, I got this assignment before winter break even started, and now it's already over! Where the hell did all the time go? There was Thanksgiving and Christmas and then I went on the ski trip to Canada to pick up Jason Bay, and then I got Bioshock 2, and the next thing I know, it's springtime and JESUS H. FUCK, WHAT THE HELL AM I GONNA DO?!

Hey, ma? Do we have any pitchers left over in the garage?

Are you sure?

Ma, Steve Trachsel doesn't count! Fine, maybe I WILL look for one myself!

Fuck, it's too late to find a pitcher now. WHAT DO I DO?!! I'M SUPER CRAZY FUCKED! I'M TOTALLY GONNA FAIL MY GENERAL MANAGER CLASS!

Alright, Omar, calm down. Just think this through. Maybe you don't need another pitcher. You have Santana, and he's money in the bank. John Maine looked good when he came back from injury last year; maybe he'll finally be healthy. Yeah, and maybe Mike Pelfrey will bounce back. And maybe Oliver Perez will...fuck...maybe he won't fall into an open manhole. And we have some decent options for fifth starter. Yeah, we could make this [pitching staff work, with a solid infield behind it...

FUCK! I FORGOT TO GET A RIGHT SIDE OF THE INFIELD! FUCK BALLS ASS COCK FUCK!

Chill, Omar, chill! Catch your breath! Luis Castillo had a good year last year. Sure, he can barely hit the ball out of the infield, but he could be a good #2 hitter behind Reyes. And Dan Murphy...well, it's too soon to write off a guy like that, right? Dude definitely works hard. And who knows? If he doesn't work out, maybe Mike Jacobs or Chris Carter does. Or maybe Ike Davis forces his way onto the major league roster. Weirder things have happened.

Okay, it's not the prettiest looking team, but if pick up some oaktag and scotch tape at the airport, I might be able to slap the whole thing together in time for spring training. Yeah, we can score some runs, and field the ball, and if we can get the ball to K-Rod...

OH, FUCK MY COCK!!

A few years back, when I revealed I was getting hitched, my cousin insisted on organizing my bachelor trip. He kept the destination a secret for as long as humanly possible, but since we've know each other literally our whole lives, I trusted his judgment.

The day we left, he revealed that we (meaning he, my two brothers and I) were going on a trip much like the ones we took when we were kids. Every few years, my grandparents would herd all of us and our parents upstate, either to Cooperstown or Niagara Falls. This trip would combine the two. Maybe that's not your idea of bachelor trip craziness, but it was exactly what I wanted. Nostalgic, silly, and awesome.

The first night of the trip, we stayed in a small town a few miles outside of Cooperstown, in the same strip motel we stayed in as kids (which we did some serious damage to the first time around; I'm surprised we didn't check in under aliases). If you've never been to the area, know that Cooperstown itself is pretty small, in both size and temperament. Being a suburb of Cooperstown is like being a suburb of Hooterville.

For most of video game history, any ol' company could make a baseball game. (The same was true for most sports, but we'll concentrate on America's pastime here.) At first, these games rarely attempted to use real players or even real teams, except for those cases in which one player lent his face to said game.

(This is where I would link to the (in)famous Sammy Sosa High Heat baseball ad, but the video has been removed from the interwebs. Killjoys.)

This was perfectly acceptable by the standards of the day. Technology did not yet allow video games to remotely resemble The Real Thing, so it was okay to play as teams like the Los Angeles Swervers and the Chicago Bear-Children. Verisimilitude was not even a desired trait in sports video games--NBA Jam was a smash hit in the early 90s, but it's llikely the young'uns of today would not accept a hoops game where basketballs burst into flames.

Then, two things happened: Graphics improved, and the post-strike collective bargaining agreement allowed for all teams and players to share in formerly nebulous revenue streams like video games. In football, the Madden franchise emerged, set the standard for realism in sports games, and raised it with each subsequent edition. Baseball tried to follow suit, but by the late 90s/early 00s, when there were a plethora of baseball games for every platform, of varying degrees of quality.

Eventually, one titan emerged: EA Sports' MVP Baseball series. I own several incarnations of this game, and remember thoroughly enjoying the realistic gameplay and graphics, and all the extras. The 2005 edition allowed you to accumulate MVP "points", which you could cash in to "buy" retro uniforms, old ballparks, and legendary players. I used to love playing games at the Polo Grounds or Forbes Field, which were either shown in sepiatone or at dusk, because I'm a dork like that.

It had a fun Owner's Mode, which allowed you to create your own stadium and even control the minutiae of a franchise like setting concession prices and scheduling promotion dates. It was also one of the first (if not the first) game to allow you to not only call up players from the minors (many of whom were real prospects), but actually play games for your minor league franchise.

Unfortunately, the 2005 edition was the last one EA Sports produced. Beginning in 2006, MLB awarded the exclusive cross-platform rights to 2K Sports. The hardware companies themselves (Sony, Nintendo, etc.) could make their own games for their own systems, but only 2K could make a game for all consoles. It was neither the first nor last time MLB made a dumb, shortsighted decision.

So while every other sport gets an annual game from EA, the top sports game producer by far, baseball gets a rarely-well-received treatment from 2K. Scour gaming sites, and reviews are rarely more enthusiastic than "it's decent". By all accounts, last year's edition was full of problems.

I say "by all accounts" because I haven't played too many of these games. I have a Playstation, and they produced a pretty good alternative of their own, MLB:The Show. I bought these for a couple of years until the rigors of fatherhood left a lot less time to waste in getting good at video games (because the modern video game involves an enormous time investment to attain competence).

The Show was pretty good, and the newer versions for Playstation 3 border on amazing. The 2009 edition allowed you record your own cheers and taunts and customize them on a player-by-player basis, an option that has a world of mean-spirited possibilities. But I always felt like baseball games hadn't advanced beyond the last installment of MVP. I was not alone in this opinion, if interweb grumbling is any indication (for instance, see the shout out MVP receives in this sneak peek of the impending release of MLB 2K10 at IGN).

So this past weekend, I blew the dust off my copy of MVP Baseball 2005 and gave it a spin. I expected to be blown away, or at least get the same twinge of nostalgia I receive when I play old Nintendo games. Sadly, I was disappointed on both fronts.

It turns out, video games had progressed in the 5 years since (weird, I know). Load screen times that were once acceptable seemed painfully drawn out to me. The game had only about 9 songs on it, only a few of which were any good, and repeated themselves with annoying frequency. Once upon a time, a game with 9 real songs would have been mind blowing, but the rules have changed.

"Annoying frequency" could also describe the broadcast announcements, voiced by Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow. They call games for the San Francisco Giants, and not every well. But even a great broadcast team would be affected by the limited number of announcements they could actually make in this game. Again, the mere fact that such announcements were sort-of customized for game situation was once a wonder. No longer.

I also found the gameplay a bit clunky, particularly throwing and fielding. Catching a routine fly ball in the outfield was far too risky. The batting and pitching interactions were decent, but that was about as much as I could say about it.

I looked forward to enjoying the retro uniforms and stadiums, but since I had deleted my profile from on overloaded memory card a long time ago, I couldn't access any of them. And the thought of putting in all the time to acquire them, just so I could play the Nationals in powder-blue Expos uniforms, was too frightening to contemplate.

Granted, I think what most people really lamented (at least initially) was that EA Sports was no longer allowed to make a baseball game. Obviously, if they'd been allowed to do so, they would have progressed just as the other video game firms did. But over time, I think the wish for EA Sports to reenter the field devolved into a fetishization for the last game they did make.

Ironically, it is this relatively new desire for a REAL sports video game that dates MVP 2005 so much. That was as real as it got back then, but now it's aged in dog years. If the game was more fantastical or wacky (a la the aforementioned NBA Jam), it would probably have aged better. But it didn't.

The moral of this story? Sometimes, the passing of time, and less than ideal modern conditions, can lead you to romanticize the past. But chances are, either things are not as good as you remember, or the present isn't as hideous as you think, either.

Today, we celebrate the birthday of a great American: Joe Don Baker! No, it's not a holiday yet. But it should be! (Though my friend Shaun told me that you do get the day off if you're a hooker or a brewer.)

As you should already know, Joe Don Baker is the star of Mitchell, the greatest 70s cop/detective movie ever made. Don't believe me? Peep this collection of clips from the films MST3K treatment, and thou shalt believe.



Still not convinced? Infidel! Then check out the hot merging action in this quote-unquote car chase scene.



Please also consider this sampling from the latter-day Joe Don Baker oeuvre, Final Justice, in which our hero roams the island of Malta dressed in a 5-year-old's idea of a sheriff's outfit.