A few weeks ago, I made a FanPost about an experiment that I did on MLB 14 The Show. When I made it, I thought it was just going to be a stupid thing that people wouldn't think much of. It turned out to be an overwhelming success. The post got so much more appraisal than I ever thought it would. I still have no idea why you guys liked it so much, but it was awesome be able to have entertained you all. And since it did so well, I decided that, since Spring Training games are still a few weeks away, we can alleviate the off-season boredom with another MLB 14 The Show experiment. So we back at 'em wit a sequel.

That paragraph now translated into honesty:

A few weeks ago, I made a FanPost about a ridiculously stupid thing I did on MLB 14 The Show. I quickly realized that FanPosts about video games = easy recs, and I like recs. Recs make me feel good about myself because I am an attention-seeking individual who was not given enough attention as a child. So I decided that because I like recs so much, and because I have nothing better to do because it's the off-season, I should make a sequel that will hopefully get a lot of recs again because recs are fun. So like all great movies, it's time for the extremely disappointing sequel.

Also, something was alluded to in the comments of the last post about making this a series in the mold of Breaking Madden. I'd just like to reiterate that this is not a series and will not become a series. This is just me screwing around on a video game.

***

In sports today, we witness some of the greatest athletes on the planet, some with damn-near superhuman abilities. They have bodies that we envy, abilities beyond our comprehension, workout regimens that we'd pass out 10 minutes into attempting, and girlfriends we fantasize about.

Then there's Bartolo Colon, a 41-year-old dude that gives precisely zero fucks, looks like he's made of mashed potatoes, and actively hates any physical activity. Yet somehow, he still finds a way to be a serviceable MLB starter, despite everything about him shouting "NOT AN ATHLETE" at you. He is the anti-athlete. And we love him. How can we not? Look at these GIFs and tell me how you can't love him.

It's fun to stay at the...

We can't get enough of this guy. Why can't we have more people like him? Well, thanks to modern technology, we can. In MLB 14 The Show, I can create as many Bartolo Colons as I want. So let's do it, let's make more of him. In fact, let's fill an entire team with Bartolo Colons and make them play a game. Bartolo Colon will play every position, and he will bat 9 times. Yes, Bartolo Colon will have to play the field, hit, and run, as well as pitch every inning. He will detest every minute of it. We will love it.

Bartolo Colon will pitch to his catcher, Bartolo Colon. Up the middle, they'll feature the double play combo of Bartolo Colon and Bartolo Colon, with Bartolo Colon on the back end. There are some big bats in the lineup, namely Bartolo Colon and Bartolo Colon. As we all know, Bartolo Colon can eat a ton of innings, so the bullpen is not always a necessity, however when they're needed, Bartolo Colon is the lockdown 8th inning man who usually sets it up for the closer, Bartolo Colon. It's okay though, if anyone gets hurt, Bartolo Colon will be there to back him up.

Now I know what you're thinking, it's like the episode of Bugs Bunny, where Bugs Bunny plays every single position. Yes, it is. And a famous clip from that episode is the PA announcer announcing the lineup of Bugs Bunnies. So I took the liberty of making my own audio clip of a lineup full of Bartolo Colons. Here's what it would sound like if beloved Mets announcer Gary Cohen announced a lineup full of Bartolo Colons.

Bartolo has to face an opponent, though. To even the playing field, he needs to face a team comprised of one player as well, a player with limited athletic abilities who struggles at moving. It will have to be a position player who would never, ever pitch, so the Bartolo Colons aren't completely overmatched when they hit.

At first, I wanted to do it with Adam Dunn. Perfect, right? However, I quickly realized that Dunn has too much pitching experience. So I had to scrap that idea.

My next idea was Lucas Duda, just so we get to see the "Lucas Duda at SS" meme that's been going on for a while on this site. But then I realized that it would have to be a game of the New York Mets vs the New York Mets- which, no.

Then, it hit me: We love to root for Bart, right? He needs to face the perfect antagonist, the perfect "heel". It has to be a player that we all hate, on a team we all hate, who is not fit to play defense, and is not good enough of a hitter to destroy Colon at the plate, either. The answer was obvious.

Ryan Howard. We all hate him, he plays for a team we hate, and when he dies, they should extract his Achilles and staple it to his signed contract, and it should have its own exhibit in the "Museum of Bad Ideas".

A team full of Ryan Howards will face a team full of Bartolo Colons in a game that completely obliterates our understanding of the concepts of "defense" and "running".

How it will work:

Obviously, Bartolo Colon and Ryan Howard are already in the game. So I created clones of both of these players by copying their exact attributes and skills, and mimicked their appearance as well as I could. Then, I exported these clone players into my files, and imported them 23 more times, saving them over every single player on the Mets and Phillies.

Now, one problem I ran into was that Bartolo Colon stands at 5'11", and weighs 280 pounds. That's a big dude. Unfortunately, it's too big for the game to allow. You see, heaviest the game allows a created player who stands at 5'11" is 244 pounds. He literally defies logic so much that the game can't comprehend it and register it as an "athlete". So that means all of our Bartolo minions can't be as chunky and Colon-y as we'd like them, but they'll have to do.

Once again, it should be noted that I did not edit either player's ratings at all. They will hit, pitch, and field their positions as well as the game thinks they're able to. Also, like last time, I will not control either team. I will simply just sit back, pop some popcorn, and watch this destruction of the sport we've grown up loving. Whatever happens was meant to happen, and is not up to me in any way.

Also, the actual game-created Bartolo Colon and Ryan Howard will play. Actual Colon will be the starting pitcher for the Mets, and actual Howard will start at first base for the Phils. They're the "captains".

The Game:

The game was played in Citi Field, meaning the Colons had the home-field advantage.

In case you're wondering, the starting lineups looked like this:

Mets Lineup:

Order # Player Position 1 Bartolo Colon SS 2 Bartolo Colon 2B 3 Bartolo Colon 3B 4 Bartolo Colon 1B 5 Bartolo Colon LF 6 Bartolo Colon RF 7 Bartolo Colon CF 8 Bartolo Colon C 9 Bartolo Colon P

Phillies Lineup:

Order # Player Position 1 Ryan Howard CF 2 Ryan Howard 2B 3 Ryan Howard RF 4 Ryan Howard 1B 5 Ryan Howard LF 6 Ryan Howard 3B 7 Ryan Howard C 8 Ryan Howard SS 9 Ryan Howard P





I went with everything I've learned about constructing a lineup from our great manager Terry Collins. Second basemen always hit 2nd, shortstops and center fielders have speed, so they lead-off, your corner guys are the meat of the lineup, and catchers hit either 7th or 8th all the time. To cap it off, the lineups are full of veterans who shouldn't be playing. It's perfect.

1st Inning:

Top Half: The Howards came out strong for their leader, determined to prove that they can still play Baseball, as long and they're facing someone who's actually older than them. After a strikeout of the leadoff Howard, the next Howard reached on this crucial error by catcher Bartolo:

That would wind up opening the floodgates, as the next 2 Howards would draw a walk and then single, to load the bases.

The next Howard grounded into a fielder's choice that resulted in the 2nd out, however the first run of the game scored on the play. There were runners now at 1st and 3rd with 2 outs, and the Bartolos weren't out of it yet. However, Colon got the next batter to strike out swinging, to end the threat and hold the Phillies to just one run.

Bottom Half: The Colons would not let that get to them, though. They would stand up for their captain as well, tired of being underestimated because of the way that they look. They are athletes, damn it.

A lead-off single and a HBP gave the Colons an immediate opportunity to tie the game. The next two Colons would strikeout and flyout, but LF Colon would come through with two outs, and rip a double into the right-center field gap. Keep in mind that these are Bartolo Colons running, so only 1 run was able to score, to tie the game at 1-1.

The next Colon would come up with runners at 2nd and 3rd though, and he would not strand them, hitting a double off the wall in left field. (No really, it was off the wall, he actually almost homered!)

Both runners scored, and Colons jumped out to a 3-1 lead!

The Colons would not score again in the inning though, meaning the rally ended at 3 runs.

2nd Inning:

Top Half: Now trailing 3-1, the Howards got a lead-off single from catcher Ryan Howard. However, after seeing the Colons get to his pitcher for 3 runs, apparently that Ryan Howard got a little over-zealous. So this particular Howard tried to silence the nay-sayers questioning the remaining athletic ability of Ryan Howard by attempting to steal a base. But the Colons would not stand for this. Ryan Howard cannot steal bases. He is freaking Ryan Howard, damn it! This was not happening, not on Bartolo Colon's watch. The stolen base attempt was snuffed out, and he was out by a mile.

Don't tread on Bartolo Colon.

Bartolo worked through the rest of the inning painlessly, capping off a nice bounce-back inning.

***

Alright, so the next 3 and a half innings turned out to have almost no action at all, so in the mean time, here are a few GIFs of what you probably came here to see, Bartolo Colon playing defense:

You thought that the Bartolo Colons would be lackadaisical in the field? Nonsense. Look at these herculean efforts by Colons to back their guy. Hearts. Of. Lions.

Wait, who's the cut-off man? "I'm the cut-off man!"..."No, I'm the cut-off man!"... "No! I'm the cut-off man!" Well, he over-threw the cut-off man anyways.

Catcher Bartolo Colon actually did not do as poorly as I thought he would, as he actually caught most of the pitches. However, he did have a few moments:

That bat did not hit that ball.

Also, I don't really know where else to put this, but as I was searching Google for pictures of Bartolo Colon when I was creating his minions, I stumbled across this picture:

Yes, that is Bartolo Colon in 1997 with the Indians. No, that is really him. Look a little closer, you'll see it.

That is... frightening.

***

Okay, now that we got that over with, we now re-join the action in the top of the 6th.

6th inning:

Top Half: The game is still 3-1 in favor of the Colons. Starter Bartolo Colon was into his 6th inning of work, and he completely settled down after the rocky first inning, he hadn't yielded much since then. However, to start the 6th, he walked two of the first 3 batters, and he was quickly in trouble with two on and only 1 out, and his pitch count past the century mark.

For the Colons, their leader was tiring. This was probably his last inning. If there was ever a time for someone to make a play and show their devotion to the name on their backs, this was it.

The next batter was Ryan Howard. He laced a single into right field, but since there were only runners on 1st and 2nd and it's Ryan Howards running the bases, it looked like it would only load the bases and not score any runs. However, this happened in right field:

Right field Bartolo Colon missed the ball completely, and it went all the way to the wall. Both runners scored, and the Ryan Howard who was batting wound up at 3rd base, with a single and a 2-base error. The game was now tied at 3-3. Bartolo Colon's right fielder minion had let him down, and that was the end of his day, as Terry Collins called for the bullpen.

The game was now completely in the hands of the Bartolo minions. Bartolo Colon came on in relief, and came in to the game with the lead run only 90 feet away and only one out in the inning. Still tied, he needed to preserve the tie for his captain.

The first Howard he faced shot a double down the right field line, scoring the run. That gave Howards the 4-3 lead, and put an important insurance run in scoring position.

However, Colon was able to limit the damage there, as he got the net two Howards to fly out and strikeout, ending the inning.

But the damage had been done, the Howards were now back in front.

Bottom Half: The Colons went down in order the bottom of the inning.

7th inning:

Neither team did much in the 7th inning. The Colons had been mostly stifled by the Ryan Howard pitchers since the 1st inning. Still trailing 4-3, time was growing thin.

8th inning:

Top Half: The inning started painlessly for the Colons, as he set down the first two Howards on strikes. However, back-to-back base hits by the next two Howards made things dicey. Those were extremely important insurance runs now on base, and with the way the Colons had been hitting, they could not afford to fall any further behind.

Bartolo bared down though, getting the next batter to ground out to third base, ending the inning.

Bottom Half: Time was now of the essence for the Colons. They had 6 outs to score 1 run to tie, and 2 runs to win. A lead-off hit aroused some optimism for the inning, but the Colons would wind up going down without much of a whimper, as the next 3 batters were retired.

There was a little bit of excitement, though. The Ryan Howards had been surprisingly competent on defense the whole game, but the first blunder of the game came by SS Ryan Howard, who just happened to botch this play on the final out of the inning:

But Bartolo was still out at first, because he's Bartolo Colon. Any other player in Baseball beats that out. SS Howard even waited a beat after botching it to reach all the way down and pick it up, but Bart was still out by a step. Nonetheless, it showed that the Ryan Howards were still Ryan Howards, and capable of making a key error at any point. This clearly foreshadows nothing.

9th inning:

Top Half: It was do-or-die time for the Colons. They needed to keep the game at 1 run to even have a chance in the bottom of the inning. And they were able to do that, holding the Howards scoreless, aided by yet another caught stealing. Seriously, don't insult Bartolo Colon.

Bottom Half: This was it. It was down to the last 3 Colons. Could they pull it off down a run in the 9th?

The first Colon up did not answer the call. He must've been in the bathroom. He grounded out to first base.

The 2nd Colon batter flew out. The Colons were down to their last out, with nobody on in the 9th. Things were looking bleak. The battle was almost over. The Colons were down to their last gasp.

The next Colon fell down 1-2 in the count. The Colons were down to their last strike. He would keep the game alive though, ripping a single right up the middle. The Colons had life.

Then, in a plot twist, Terry Collins decided to bring in a pinch-hitter for the next batter. He was replacing the ever-dependable Bartolo Colon with unproven bench bat, Bartolo Colon. Terry must've had a "gut feeling", or saw an angel with him or something.

Bartolo, ready at the drop of a hat, came in and immediately stepped up for his manager and the real Bartolo Colon, knocking to first pitch into right field for a base hit. Suddenly, the Colons had the tying run at second base, in scoring position, and the winning run at first base. They were not going down without a fight. Not today. Not with so much on the line.

On the mound, Ryan Howard was losing his composure. The Colons were getting to him. All of a sudden, he couldn't find the zone. He fell down 3-0 to the next Colon batter. After finally pouring in a strike, he lost him to a walk.

The bases were now loaded, the tying run was at 3rd, and the winning run was now in scoring position at 2nd. There were two outs. There were forces at any base. These are the kinds of moments where legends are born. It came down to this. Everything we'd worked for had come down to right now, in this moment.

Click here to see what happened.

Bonus:

Now, I'm sure you've wondered, how would a team of Bartolo Colons do over the course of a 162 game season, against normal competition? Well, I've got you covered.

Oh.

The composite team batting line was .155/.187/.179. They scored 137 runs the whole year. They recorded 830 hits. The entire team combined for 11 home runs. Nobody on the team stole a single base over the entire season, which may be because nobody on the team so much as attempted a stolen base, even once. On defense, the team had 201 errors over 162 games.

So it's suffice to say that a team full of Bartolo Colons is basically the equivalent of the 2009 Mets.

I must say though, the post-season retirement page was a little depressing: