(Last updated: January 23, 2023)
Tackling My Sports Addiction and Playing the NameGame
by DR Wolfe
PART ONE:
Before I teach you how to play the NameGame I’ll tell you a little about the way I over came an unhealthy sports addiction, and substituted the NameGame for my love for competition and statistics.
Despite my visual impairment, as a young boy I was drawn to baseball. I couldn’t play the game because I couldn’t see the moving ball, although I did wrestle and run track in high school.
It was the statistics that came on the back of every baseball card that caught my attention. It drew me like a kid to cotton candy. And I suspect there were millions of other kids like me. So I started playing this game, sorting the teams and comparing the statistics on the back of each cards. Then I would use the scoring system we used in track and field and figure out the score for each team.
As I grew older, around twelve or thirteen , I became interested in basketball. hockey and football and started reading the sports section every day. It wasn’t the bullshit that was in every article that interested me, but it was the box scores that fascinated me most. And that’s probably why I became pretty good in mathematics.
However, what may have been a healthy interest in the game became an every day obsession, even though there was no Internet at the time, Despite my failing vision My need to gather information about sports began interfering with the other interactive things I should have been doing with my life, like playing piano and guitar or reading a book. Rather than gathering useful information, I was spending much of my time either talking about or watching sports. And even when I could no longer see the television, even from close up, I continued to glue my eye balls to the TV for another decade, pretending to watch the game.
But luckily the sports world provided me with more than enough good reasons to dislike sports, but it took several decades to kicked in.
What happened first was that I began to notice that the sports talk morons, the broadcasters, the owners and in some cases, even the players were really sick people and didn’t give a crap about the fans.
And now, the NHL is forcing a Russian player to wear one of these “Fag Flags” on his uniform, even though he’s not gay himself and his religion doesn’t approve of homosexual behavior. So despite living in America since he was thirteen, the NHL thinks he should either wear this queer symbol or go back to Russia and die in the conflict with Ukraine.
It’s clear all the professional sports leagues, and most colleges, think sports should not only be about competition but also about being politically correct.
The announcers and sports talk people always talk about the home team, but I noticed hardly ever was a player from the same city where they grew up. And when a home town kid returned home to play for the home town team, they would eventually take off in a few years for better money. So screw the home town team! There is no real loyalty for players any more, although they always expect the fans to be loyal to the home team.
If you’re a sports fan you probably know about this, but In 1984 there was this amazing home run race between two players, Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa. When it happened There was rumors that they were using steroids, but nothing was conclusive. So most fans believed these were clean home runs.
But two decades later, we learned it was all a big fat fraud and they were using human growth hormones. McGuire, Sosa, and later Barry Bonds all admitted to using steroids to set their home run records.
Then there was this amazing cyclist named Lance Armstrong, who dated musical genius, Sheryl Crow. Armstrong was able to substantially beat every other cyclist in the world for over a decade. Since he was American we Americans put on our blinders and cheered, ignoring the allegations by other cyclists, including some Americans. The other cyclist claimed Armstrong was using steroids, but he denied everything, and Disney’s ESPN and the loyal fans believed him.
In fact, Armstrong hired these dirty lawyers with his fraudulent winnings and his promotion money from the U.S. Postal Service to use lawfare to destroy the lives of several of his sharpest critics.
About ten years later while Armstrong was recovering from testicular cancer he admitted on national television to harvey Weinstein’s good friend and enabler, Oprah Windfrey, it was all true and that he had lied about cheating.
Another big contention for fans was the lack of a playoff system. Every other sport had a playoff system that allowed the winner to be determined on the field, except college football. It all came down to the wealthy boosters who felt they would lose their opportunity to be wined and dined during the bowl celebrations if they allowed a playoff system to take over determining the champion.
Sometimes one of the bowl games matched up the two top ranked teams, but it was rare, which meant the broadcasters and writers picked the champion. Fans screamed bloody murder, demanding that the champion be determined on the field, screw the wealthy boosters. But apparently these millionaire and billionaire boosters didn’t give a crap, so the bowls continued and the debate raged on.
But consider this, the colleges and universities are providing a free training ground to the NFL and the NBA at the expense of the students, since there is no minor league in football or basketball. The colleges and universities are receiving absolutely nothing from these professional leagues and passing the costs of training their future athletes along to the students. So perhaps the NFL and the NBA should pay all outstanding student loans, that is until America creates an online four-year university that is free to everyone (with virtual football and basketball teams and naked cheerleaders, and no fraternities or sororities).
In the 1990’s NFL owner Dan Snider stated emphatically that not in a million years would he ever change the name of the Washington franchise, even though every indigenous person on earth felt the nickname was extremely racists. African-American players in Washington were forced to wear this racist name on their uniforms, if they wanted to play ball.
But it didn’t matter. This Jewish billionaire and most of the politicians from Washington D.C. simply didn’t care that the nickname was offensive to Native people and racial minorities.
But the owners don’t give a crap that this violent game injures most of the players for life, including Aaron Hernandez, who hung himself in prison. Why our school districts would allow a violent game such as this to be played by kids makes no sense, where young pretty girls with large breast are subjugated to the side lines as cheerleaders for the boys. While the boys perform as gladiators for the adults, bashing out their brains and bodies.
And that’s the point. The owners, the broadcasters and players simply don’t care about the fans, as much as they pretend. They want our money and time, and they’re willing to do or say anything to make this happen. but deep down they just don’t give a crap what we think, as long as they get their bling. So why should we, the loyal fans, give a crap about any of them!
If you want to know more about the media and this sports addiction problem in America you can read chapter 11 in my autobiography “3 Americas: More Truth Than We Can Handle” posted at wolfeout.com.
Organized sports, be it college or professional, has no effect over your life as a fan. And you have no control over the game, as much as we fans would like to believe. Besides, today not only can the owners and league chip the ball and control its bounce and flight, agitate the players with small shocks or itches, and manipulate the outcome of every game, it’s no longer necessary to bribe or blackmail the officials. And it all can be done without the fans ever knowing.
So worshiping a team is dumb, unless your kid is playing. You have no control over anything the players or coaches do, and it can really screw up your mood. We’re happy when our team wins, but we’re miserable when they lose. So why not avoid all that emotional crap and live a life without sports.
Besides, I’ll bet your partner would appreciate it if you came home one day and said “Honey, I’m going to give up all sports!”
I did it, so can you. And I’ll tell you how.
PART TWO:
By now, knowing how impatient sports fans are, you’re probably asking how do you play the NameGame? Before I teach you to play the game, I’ll explain a few important concepts behind the game.
First, it’s mostly about adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing numbers. And using math whenever you play It will automatically build your memory skills and ability to compute numbers very quickly, which may come in handy. And if you love statistics it will draw you in, like no other game.
And the good news is that you don’t have to stare at a computer screen to play, like most video games. But you do have to use your brain, which will help prevent dementia. And as the computing becomes easier, you may find it is relaxing. Especially, if you like simple math puzzles that rank your results, like me.
I use an abacus for most of the math, and it also serves as an active score board with running scores for each team, But a calculator or scratch paper will due just as well.
I predict if you play through four or five seasons of the game it will become addictive, but in a healthy way. For example,you can only play for about an hour or so before the brain begins to give out, just like the body.
First you don’t need a computer because you can also play this with index cards, a notebook and scratch paper, but myself, I prefer a computer because it’s sorts the folders automatically which is easier than sorting index cards. And it keeps me organized, as a blind person.
The important thing is not to cheat. Sure, it’s easy to cheat for your favorite team, and who’s going to tell or complain? You are the President of the League, and you make all the rules. You can even imagine your players with symbols, slogans, or flags on their uniform, if you want.
Many times through many different versions of the NameGame I would give my favorite teams a slight advantage. And I thought it would be better to play if I could find players with names that would score a lot of points. But there’s only 340 points available in each game to spread around, not including ties. So it you want to make it fun for a long time then don’t ever cheat, unless you really want to cheat. I promise I won’t ever tell.
And lastly, decide all your rules before you start and pledge to never change the rules in the middle of the season or game, because I promise your subconscious will know and consider this cheating, and shut down your interest in the game.
Setting up teams:
Before telling you how I play the NameGame an hour or two per day, I’ll suggest how you can choose teams and tell you how I set up my league.
Let me say this first, everything I am suggesting is completely optional. There are only the rules you make and no one will ever know, unless you tell them. In fact, people may never know what you’re doing, working away on some kind of math problem. They will admire your diligence, working away doing math problems while drinking a beer or two.
My league consists of 48 teams. 32 or 64 would probably work better, as far as the schedule goes. When I created the NameGame, I didn’t want to use the names of cities or universities as teams for my league. So I use the 48 contiguous states. which is easier to remember, and no greedy university lawyer or city attorney can claim copyright infringement.
My league consists of an east and west region, with six conferences in each region. This means every conference has four teams. which equals twelve conferences, six districts, and two regions with 48 total teams
If you’re using a computer, first create a folder for all twelve conferences. Note the order isn’t the same as the one listed below. Then create four teams inside each conference folder for each teams.
EAST REGION
EASTERN DISTRICT
FAR EAST CONFERENCE
Maine
New Hampshire
Rhode Island
Vermont
NORTHEAST CONFERENCE
Connecticut
New York
Ontario (formally Massachusetts)
Pennsylvania
EAST CENTRAL DISTRICT
MID AMERICAN CONFERENCE
Kentucky
Ohio
Tennessee
West Virginia
MID ATLANTIC CONFERENCE
Delaware
Maryland
New Jersey
Virginia
SOUTHERN DISTRICT
SOUTHEAST CONFERENCE
Florida
Georgia
North Carolina
South Carolina
DEEP SOUTH CONFERENCE
Alabama
Arkansas
Louisiana
Mississippi
WEST REGION
NORTHERN DISTRICT
FAR NORTH CONFERENCE
Illinois
Indiana
Michigan
Wisconsin
MID NORTH CONFERENCE
Minnesota
North Dakota
South Dakota
Utah
WEST CENTRAL DISTRICT
MID WEST CONFERENCE
Iowa
Kansas
Missouri
Nebraska
NORTHWEST CONFERENCE
Colorado
Idaho
Montana
Wyoming
WESTERN DISTRICT
SOUTHWEST CONFERENCE
Arizona
New Mexico
Oklahoma
Texas
FAR WEST CONFERENCE
California
Nevada
Oregon
Washington
The Schedule:
It takes me about three to six weeks to play an entire season, depending on what else I’m doing and how interested I am.
You could change this, but in my version there are no home or away games, which means every game is played on a neutral field. And every match involves four teams, except the regionals, which has six teams competing, two teams from each district. And the best two teams in each region advance to the championship.
If your league consisted of 32 or 64 teams you could avoid this problem of having six teams rather than four teams in the regional. Or if you only played duel matches between teams than how many teams in your league wouldn’t matter. The important thing is to create a history which will keep your interest if you enjoy tracking trends and following statistics.
The scheduling of games in my case is created using a random number generator on the computer but a single dice would work just as well.
The season beginning with the year 01 consists of eight weeks, which I labeled W1 through W8. You could add a ninth week if you wanted to play some sort of all-pho game with the best players, but personally I like to exclusively keep players on their own teams whenever they compete, win or lose. A sort of loyalty you don’t get in what they call “real sports.”
In the first two weeks of the season, for each match I randomly select two teams from the east and two from the west. And I never select two teams from the same conference. This makes the first two weeks of the schedule as random as possible.
So you begin in the east and roll the dice. Since there are six conferences I number each conference. Then I roll the dice again, selecting the team one through four. If five or six is rolled , or created by the random number generator, I roll again. And if the conference has already been selected for that week, I roll until I get a number I can use. Then I repeat this process for the two teams in the west. After twelve matches are scheduled and every team has been used, i go to the second week of the schedule, labeled “W2”.
The third week of the season involves only teams from the same conference competing against each other. For example, first I select four teams from the east that will compete, and then four teams from the west. Again, I would make sure two teams in the same conference would not face each other until the conference championship, the 4th week of the season. Sometimes I have to move teams around, but I try to make sure the schedule is as competitive as possible. And even if a team loses every match during the first three weeks, they can still win the championship, as I’ll explain.
So in the forth week I hold the twelve conference championships. Again, rotating between the east and the west, each conference would hold its championship and in the 5th week the top two teams would advance to a districts playoff against another conference geographically in the same region. And the two losing teams would play a consolation match against the same district.
For example, in the Eastern District the top two teams in the Far East would face the top two teams from the Northeast, and the two losers in each conference would also face each other.
This ends the regular season with five games played in five weeks. Every team plays an equal number of games so you can compare the statistics of players and teams year to year. You may have an all-time scorer and a season scoring champion but they may not be the same player.
As I mentioned, the 6th week is the regionals. And this is when the rubber meets the road, since it’s more difficult to move on to the championship, since there are 36 players competing instead of 24 in each event. I don’t change the scoring even though there are two additional teams, so points are harder to get. The best two teams move on to the championship, which is held the 7th week.
The 8th week of the schedule involves the four worst teams in the league, and they compete to not be the worst team for that season.
After entering all the final statistics for the season, I’m ready to start over and hold the draft for the next season, which is completely a random selection.
The Player:
In the NameGame all players have value and they keep their value throughout their six year career. There’s no chance of injury or suspension so the players can do what ever they want in their free time, and I would imagine they do.
Each player has value based on their name. Both alphabetically and numerically. Since players are listed with the last name first, so the 1st event is based on the last name. All twenty-four players in each match are sorted alphabetically. Then like track and field, the first seven and the last seven players are ranked in each event and are given points based on how they finish.
For example, 1st place worth ten points goes to Adams, second place worth eight points goes to Almon, third place worth six points goes to Black, forth place worth four points goes to Butterfield, fifth place worth three points goes to Campbell, sixth place worth two points goes to Duncan, and seventh place worth one point goes to Evans.
Likewise in the lower division of the 1st event, 1st place goes to Williams, second place goes to Thomas, third place goes to Robinson, etc.
If there is a tie between two players, then similar to track and field the points are added together and the players split the points. A tie between the top two players would mean that they would each earn 9 points, by adding 10 plus 8 and then dividing by 2.
If there is a tie between more players, like the top seven, then you would add up all the points, 34, and divide by seven. No player who places in the top seven ever receives less than one point. And when four really bad teams compete there will be more ties than usual. Lastly, it is rare, but four really bad teams can result in players earning points in both the upper and lower event.
Then you repeat this with the 2nd event matching up first names. If you’re using index cards you have to alphabetically sort them by first name. If you’re using a computer, the computer will automatically sort the names, if each player is actually a separate folder. I’ll explain better a little later how to set it up, if you’re using a computer.
The 3rd event involves counting the letters in the last name and repeating the sorting and scoring process for the highest and lowest.
The 4th event involves counting the letters in the first name. And the 5th and final event involves adding together the letters in both the first and last name.
Getting the Names:
The list of names used in the NameGame must be completely random. In other words any source of names that lists the names alphabetically, like the old style phone books, won’t work. Each season, except the first, you need 48 new names and taking the first 48 names from any alphabetical list may stop at the names beginning with B or C, and that’ won’t work.
I tried hundreds of lists in dozens of variations, and I finally found a list of books from a site exclusively provided to the Blind and reading impaired through the Library of Congress which works. Unfortunately, it’s not available to the general public. but this idea will work on other sites with similar lists, such as the sports section, news magazines or best seller lists.
As I prepare for a new season using my source, I copy the list of books, it first lists the title, the author, the reader, and finally a short description of the book. So, in the title there may be a name, but not usually. There can be several writers and readers listed, so I use them all, unless the first name is abbreviated to one letter. Then finally, in the description of the book there is usually one or more names listed.
So beginning at the top of the page I begin selecting every name, with a few exceptions, including first names with only one letter or last names that are repeated, such as fathers and daughters who are both listed as the authors.
Once I have my list of forty-eight names in a folder called 01 Raw Names, I begin sorting the players into their appropriate teams. I have a selection system that selects teams in a certain order, such as the list above. And this order never changes season to season.
So under the NameGame folder there is a folder called 01. And under the 01 folder I create a “01 Raw Names” folder. And in this folder I create folders for every player as follows:
Davis, Angela California 01-06. Fenwick, Dick Ohio 01-06, Oates, Bernie Washington 01-06.
Then I put each folder from the Raw Names folder into the appropriate team folder listed as, California Players, Ohio Players, and Washington Players. And I change the year listed to 1y.
In selecting names, I should mention that first names that are two letters are used as a single word. In other words, C.J. would be written as CJ, and would follow Cesar and Cindy, even though C.J. would normally be listed first.
Names with two first names or two last names means I get to choose which is better, although first names such as Mary Jane or Betty Sue would be combined to make only one name.
Also in my game spaces and punctuation are not counted. For example, van Halen would be written and counted as “vanHalen=8” And St. James is written and counted as “StJames=7.” Of course you could count every character and space used, then van Halen would be worth 9 points instead of 8, and St. James would be worth 10 points instead of 7.
The first year under my system you need to select 288 players, 6 players on 48 teams. As you go round by round the players are given a career year, such as 01-01, 01-02, etc. And then the individual name folder is copied into the team folder, and changed to 1Y, 2Y, etc., which indicates how many years they have been in the league. Consequently, players selected in the first year after the first round in this initial draft will not get an entire six year career. I’m not sure how to avoid this, although you may have a better idea.
For example, players selected in the last round will be given the designation 6y and only play one year, where the players selected in the first round are rookies and are given the designation 1y. The next season in the team folder, in 02, each player’s year designation is incremented by one, and the player listed as 6y is posthumously retired.
RECORDS:
Each year along with the top scorer I have an All-Pho Team that consists of the top six scorers in the league. But you could also have a second all-pho team, or an all-pho team for each conference. But you may find keeping to many records takes the fun out of the game. So I would suggest only keeping the most critical records.
The cool thing about the NameGame is that you can always go back and make more record, and replay match ups . or you can have match ups of champions from different decades compete. Or you could have all-time all-pho teams from each state compete against each other every ten years.
I also have a Rookie of the Year, a Best Sixth Player award and a League MVP.
Along with the top four teams winning trophies by advancing to the championship, I also keep track of Most and least Points in a Season.
I have a master list of Raw Names that includes the names selected in each new season. Before assigning a name to a particular team, I always check the master Raw Names Folder to make sure the name hasn’t been used.
I also keep a list of individual scoring for every team, so I can keep track of the best all-time scorers for the league as well as each team.
Typical Game:
Using the computer to create folders, that are inside of folders, which are inside of other folders, I create a folder for every player and every team and as I said the computer automatically sorts everything. Then in the folder for that particular team I create a team folder labeled (team name) players which includes the six folders of the players for that team. This is the important part, I create five folders for each event for that team with all six players.
So the 1st event is the same as the team player list. The 2nd event begins with the first name listed first.
In the 1st event folder the players are listed alphabetically with the last name listed first, so the 1st event folder is automatically sorted, the same as the master team folder.
In the second event, labeled 2nd, I copy the first name at the beginning and re-save the folder. For example, Chuck Woodson, Chuck Ontario 1y.
This way the computer automatically sorts the first names alphabetically.
In the third, forth, and fifth events the appropriate letters are counted and the number is listed first, so the computer automatically sorts it.
To begin the match I first copy the entire team folder for each of the four teams into the match folder. Instantly, the game is already played and it’s only a matter of counting up the points and awarding each player with the points they score, and placing this number at the beginning of that name folder. for example, 10 Black, Matt Colorado 2Y. Then if Black scores more points in the third event, I would change the folder for Black to: 15 Black, Matt Colorado 2Y.
Then after all five events have been scored in the individual player folder I would add up the scores for all six players and place that number at the beginning of the team folder. For example, 79 Colorado Players.
Here’s an example of how a typical match folder from the 1st week of the season would look, stored in the W1 (week one) folder of the 01 All Games folder:
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
68 Alabama Players
79 Colorado players
92 Pennsylvania Players
112 Montana players
Montana 112, Pennsylvania 92,Colorado 79, Alabama 68
At the end of each match I transfer the folder with the team results into the team folder, and include at the beginning of each folder I write W1 through W7, indicating which week the game was played. Then there is a master folder with total team points and record kept both in the individual team folder, and in each week of the games folder.
Here’s an example of a team folder after a season has been completed:
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
541 15-0-0 Nevada players
Nevada players
W1 97 3-0-0 Nevada players
W2 123 3-0-0 Nevada players
W3 121 3-0-0 Nevada players
W4 105 3-0-0 Nevada players
W5 95 3-0-0 Nevada players
W6 79 5-0-0 Nevada players
W7 89 3-0-0 Nevada players
As you may have noticed there is a total points folder which includes the total points as well as the wins, losses and ties for Nevada’s regular season. and inside this folder is a list of each player’s total points for the season. Once you have these statistics for each team and each player you can create lists every week for the top scorers and the top teams in the conference, the region, and the league and keep them in the games folder.
(Note: In this diagram above, Nevada was undefeated in all of it’s matches, including winning the regionals and championship.)
hopefully, I have given you enough information here to get you started playing the NameGame, and I haven’t totally confused you. But how you organize your league and score your matches is totally up to you, so don’t worry to much about using my method.
And just so you know how sick these sports people are and how far they’ll go to manipulate the game, I’ll tell you what they did to my NameGame folder. In my game, Every state isn’t capitalized, and I do this intentionally because of how my screen access speech program works. In edit mode, it speaks the first letter of a word if it’s capitalized a little louder than normal. I use this feature so that I can quickly tell if the word is a team or a player.
But apparently some sadistic manipulator is manipulating my computer in all sorts of ways. And it appears they are from Massachusetts because every time I type in the word massachusetts with a small m the word is automatically capitalized when I hit save. And no matter how many times I change it back to a small m, the computer changes it back to a capitol “M”.
It doesn’t change the outcome of the game, but it shows how arrogant these people from the Deep State and Massachusetts are and how concerned they are about what I’m writing.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if these malicious hackers were good friends of Harvard Professor and America’s dirtiest lawyer, Alan Douche-o-witz, who once represented his good friend, prolific pedophile Jeff Epstein.
Although Douche now denies this, he once said he first met Epstein at a party thrown by billionaire Evelyn Rothchild, who was apparently providing party favors for her guests.
Julie K. Brown, a reporter formally with the Miami Harold and author of the excellent book “Perversion of Justice”, wrote that sworn statements from two of Epstein’s victims said Douche-o-witz was one of these wealthy pedophiles from Massachusetts who raped them several times during these orgies on Pedophile Island and at his mansion in New York.
AIPAC’s favorite lawyer, Alan Douche-o-witz, wrote a book called “The Blame Game” in which he attacks poor people for suing these reckless corporations who negligently or intentionally do harm. In his book he calls any victim who would seek damages from a corporations or wealthy person, “exploiters of the legal system.” Imagine that, a Jewish Harvard professor from Massachusetts who rapes children calling poor victims who sue for damages exploiters of the rich!
But Massachusetts is also one of the extremely fascist left-wing states who proudly allows their doctors to mutilate the genitals and breast of gender confused children, for profit. And we know once a person undergoes this surgery they are forced to continue taking gender bending drugs for the rest of their life to maintain the charade, at a cost of over a million dollars per person. Because we know they can’t glue or sew those parts back on once Dr. Frankenstein removes them.
It is also the home of ESPn, one of the sickest sports talk networks, so we shouldn’t be surprised by all this sickness. It’s apparently what Disney and Harvard stands for.
As far as my own NameGame goes, I changed the Massachusetts team to Ontario since it’s also located in the Northeast, which geographically works out just fine.
Given all of this nonsense and manipulation, I strongly suggest you immediately turn off that useless sports garbage on the television or radio. You don’t have to be a brain dead, powerless consumer of sports any more. Just give them the middle finger and play the NameGame instead! Good luck.
DR Wolfe
DR [email protected]
(E mail me if you have any questions about playing the NameGame, and I can send you some samples of my league.)