Close, Colonel, but no cigar

I picked up MLB 10: The Show this afternoon, badly jonesing for some video baseball action. I had the PS2 version of MLB 08 before being Christ-like in giving away my console to someone who needed it more than I, and it was high time I dove into the next generation of baseballery. This brings us to a few months ago, when I learned of the existence of a UConn basketball player named Shabazz Napier. Seriously. He's not my nephew either.

Anyway, this excited me because it meant that the name "Napier" would now be in the announcer database for this season's college basketball video games. For the first time in my sixteen year history of playing sports games featuring commentary, I would be able to hear my name called as I performed various feats of daring-do on the hardwood. I excitedly looked up where I could procure the 2011 edition of either the March Madness or College Hoops series, only to find that they had both been discontinued due to low sales. I think a blood vessel burst. Not in my brain or anything. It wasn't that dire. Probably my leg.

The sad fact is, I had resigned myself to never hearing those six letters strung together in a video game. N-A-P-I-E-R. Until today, when I created my character in MLB 10's "Road to the Show" mode. A decade and a half of hopes, dreams, and controller callouses had built up to this moment as I typed in my last name and the game informed me that it had an audio match.

A match! For MY name. There was no one to high five, and I daren't tell any of my friends because having fresh material for my blog is more important to me than human interaction. So I kept my celebration brief and subdued, anxious to get to the business of making Andy Napier the greatest first baseman on dirt.

Here it was, batting third, the first baseman, Andy... Nap-ier? That's right. Nap-ier. As in "his hair is nappier than mine."

I HATE YOU, BOB. But at least that spelling would reasonably produce the corresponding sound. Unlike Tantalus, I reached and tasted the grapes that had always been just out of my grasp. AND THEY WERE SOUR.

Game's great though. Peace.

Oh, almost forgot. Episode Seven of So We Were Told - Wrestling Radio is up. Click the link over on the left side.