Extreme Sports Games

Moanaroa brothers make baseball journey from Australia to Lowell together

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LOWELL — On and off the field, Boss and Moko Moanaroa are an inseparable duo.

At 6-foot-1, Boss is a bit taller and a lot more talkative than his more reserved older brother, who at 215 pounds is a tad heftier.

But otherwise the two could have easily passed for twins as they teased one another following batting practice at LeLacheur Park, donning matching white Lowell Spinners uniforms.

"It's alright having him here," Boss said with a laugh, shoving his brother. "Nah, we are really close. It's great to have him here. I wouldn't be here without him."

In fact, had it not been for the contributions of each brother, neither Boss or Moko would likely have made the 10,090-mile journey from their native Australia to America.

But now, they are the first brother duo to play together for the Spinners, Boss a rising star prospect and Moko given the golden opportunity he thought he would never have — and both have already homered so far for Lowell.

"I try to stay away from him," said Moko, jabbing his brother back and laughing. "We are very tight, especially playing baseball together as long as we have. We live together, travel together. It's great."

Growing up far from baseball's hot bed, Boss initially fell in love with more extreme sports.

"I was more into rugby and BMX racing," he said. "I liked the excitement."

But it was Moko, 1 years older, who began to share his love for baseball with his young brother.

"It was really my brother," said Boss. "Then I started to lose interest in the other sport and started to love baseball."

In 2008, while playing in the Australian Schoolboy Tournament, Boss experienced the meeting that changed both of their lives.

Living Vicariously Through Extreme Sports Games | ExtremeTech

I’ve never been one for sports games. Having played several incarnations in the Madden series, a batch of NHL games, and so on, I gave up on sports games because they never quite felt like the real thing. Well, the real thing as seen on TV. I’ve never played pro football or hockey, but I know when stats look ridiculously off, and the statistics generated by certain, action-oriented sports games don’t match up with reality.

That, and I really don’t like pro sports. They bore me silly. Call me un-American, but watching adult millionaires play sandlot games while worrying about their investments in auto dealerships doesn’t interest me. And when said millionaires go on strike because the lowest-paid pros only make six figures…excuse me while I weep for the poor souls. The last baseball strike turned me off of pro sports forever.

I didn’t play many sports as a kid. When I was very young, I did a few soccer and flag football ditties, but as a teen I wasn’t interested in trying out for the varsity team. I had better things to do, like hang out at arcades and get in fights and stuff. I was a scrapper.

Now, cut to twenty years after my high school graduation and here I am, a family man, watching my children not like sports either—except for extreme sports on a game console. Though their TV time is strictly limited so they don’t gaze like moths into the cold glow of the LCD display from after school until bedtime, they have become experts at catching air and pulling tricks. Even my wife, Emily, who won’t admit she’s a gamer even though she spends hours a day playing Animal Doctor and Animal Crossing: City Folk , is into the extreme sport titles.

I tried all three games myself to see what the fuss was all about. I discovered:

The graphics, physics and general mechanics of this genre have become incredible since the last time I played one of the Tony Hawk games. I’m astounded at how natural the controls are in skate 2 particularly—once you get used to them. This is so much easier than real life. I was pulling huge air, doing ollies, nollies, hand plants, massive jumps, midair tricks on ATVs that are impossible in the real world (I think), all within minutes of firing up each game. The wipeouts are more brutal than ever. In Pure , the camera rolls with your character as you spill down hills or over cliffs.

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