Dear NBC...

Another relic of my youth:



My dad played complete seasons on it for years, and I had to erase all the pen marks and notes in the margins in order to play my own.

 

I kept breaking mine.
2 or 3 kicks, off the leg would fly.

 

Count me in. I was in seventh grade when that came out, and it was the only thing I asked for when my birthday rolled around.

In fact, I might still have it around here somewhere...

 

Mattel's baseball game was even better. When you'd hit a home run, the whole game would light up.

 

How about some old-school football, bitches?

 

I wasted countless hours at school playing that.

 

We used to play it in the cafeteria at lunch in middle school. One time we apparently played it after the allotted time in the Gulag from which I attended. The Vice Principle came up and whapped me upside my noggin with the big-ass ring on his finger.

I don't think vice-principals are allowed to do that anymore.

 

It ate a hot dog at the ND press box.

 

When I was 13 (way back in '76), I suffered a bad back injury during an eighth-grade football game. I had no feeling below my waist for almost 90 minutes. During my stay in the hospital, my teammate took up a collection totaling $40. I used that money to buy these great Sports Illustrated football games.

 

Lance Mehl and Mickey Shuler are crossing guards.

 

On a road trip when I was 12, I made up a baseball game where what a player did in each at-bat was determined by a roll of the dice. For that entire summer, me and a friend would make up different lineups each day (by "drafting" current MLB payers we liked) and play as many games as possible. I kept track of our records for a while, but eventually lost interest.