Cursed?

As you might have guessed by now, I enjoy a good superstition. The Curse of the Bambino, which has since fallen, and The Curse of the Billy Goat are two of my favorites. I don't particularly believe in these curses; however, I like looking at the lengths people will go to avoid falling victim to a "curse." I'm sure many of you have heard of the Madden cover curse that plagues any athlete who graces the cover of this amazingly popular game (if you are not familiar, check out the Wikipedia entry for the Madden curse). However, I discovered a new curse today that was brought to my attention through the recent injury to potential Olympian Lindsay Vonn. For details on how this curse has come through history, check out this article on the Sports Illustrated website. It's amazing how consistent this has been throughout the history of the magazine. Even from the original cover boy Eddie Mathews who suffered a hand injury one week after he appeared on the cover of SI that caused him to miss seven games, the curse has progressed to nip even the most talented athletes. In 1993, Barry Bonds was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated as he was having an amazing year. Within two weeks of this accomplishment, Bonds' batting average dropped 40 points! 40 points on a batting average can be the difference between an All-Star and a second rate starter. For example, think about the difference between Yadier Molina who was the All-Star starter last year and ended the year with a batting average of .293 and fellow National League backstop Jason Kendall who batted .241. Granted, Kendall is a fine player who makes other contributions to his team through his above-average speed for a catcher. However, this difference was a significant decrease in production from Bonds which "coincidentally" followed the magazine cover. Coincidence? Yeah, I pretty much think so. However, I think that without this aura of superstition surrounding various athletic traditions, the "magic" and "mystique" surrounding professional athletics would be lost. If people can't dream through sports, where else can they imagine what could have been if only fate had not been against them.

A Brave New World

When I was a young child in daycare, my friend Isaac and I would play Madden 95 on his Sega Genesis. Talk about high-tech! Looking back on what the videogame was, I wonder why I was so amazed by the graphics. At this point in my life though, I did not have any videogame experience beyond the Sega. Ever since, Madden has been pumping out the game after game that allow children to play just like I did. However, the future of Madden, while it seems to intend to remain in the console market, will be branching out soon. In multiple articles released today, Peter Moore, the president of the EA sports, has said that a version of Madden will be released on everyone's favorite social networking site, Facebook! While I could not locate many details as to how the game would play, I'm wondering if it will be along the lines of Farmville. Farmville is incredibly popular in that it allows people the ability to benefit through the increased participation of friends. In order to do well, it is definitely helpful to have many friends beside you. I wonder if maybe Madden will adapt a similar mode. The more friends you have, the more talent you will be able to add to your team. I definitely do not anticipate Madden being a live play football game simply because that would be an incredible load to put on an Internet connection. Therefore, it might be more along the lines of NFL Head Coach where the user chooses the players and the plays but does not actually execute them. Also, it is possible that this game will be nothing like the rest of the franchise. Because it is on a different platform, it does not necessarily need to live up to the high performance expectation that people have come to expect from the best-selling videogame franchise. Simply using Madden on the name of this application will cause amazing traffic and usage because of the brand recognition. Brands can sell better than the product can often times.

Will I be playing Madden if it ever debuts on Facebook? Without playing it, I cannot say whether or not I will become a loyal follower. I have played Facebook games and enjoyed many of them, so I will give Madden a try as long as it is free. I would also really appreciate it if the game would be competitive even if the user does not feel like buying points through PayPal. I just want to play a fun little game; I don't want to become enthralled with a game that will lead me to drain my savings as I have seen World of Warcraft and other MMO's do to many others.