pitch. It will remain good for batting and have good bounce, he said.Sta

Long gone but never forgotten, Friday is the 20th anniversary of perhaps the best non-NFL game in American football history. Arena Bowl X pitted a pair of quarterbacks who would move on to bigger things, trading scores throughout the night in a tiny auditorium filled with 11,411 fans dressed as farm animals in Des Moines, Iowa.What was it like to play Arena League football, and that game in particular? ESPN.com has the video and spoke with the quarterbacks -- Jay Gruden of the Tampa Bay Storm and Kurt Warner of the Iowa Barnstormers -- for details. (Theyre now known as Washington Redskins coach Jay Gruden and surefire Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner, but youve probably made the connection already.)On this particular day, Grudens Storm held off Warners Barnstormers with a late goal-line stand to win 42-38.Warner: Jay was the best Arena quarterback up until that time. Im not sure what has happened since then, but I consider him the best Arena quarterback ever. He was a smart guy that maybe wasnt the most talented physically, but he had that intelligence and the ability to put the ball where he needed to. He threw a very catchable ball, and, at that point in his career, he was like a coach on the field. People make such a big deal about arm strength, but that doesnt matter as much if you can throw the ball with anticipation and accuracy and make it catchable, and he had those skills and he did them so well. He was the model quarterback of the Arena League. He really was. We all wanted to be like Jay.Gruden: At the time, we were pretty damn good and we had a strong reputation. Had we known what Kurt was going to turn into, it might have been a different story. But we were the intimidators.Warner: It was a great back-and-forth game, very much like what Arena football was in those days.Gruden: I remember Steve [Houghton] hit me about six times, and one time he hit me in the end zone and I fell into the security guard back behind the wall. It was fun. Those were my favorite kinds of games.Warner: Ive always said, if everything was equal, from money to retirement to endorsement opportunities -- all that stuff -- if everything was equal, Id play Arena football over the NFL. It was built for quarterbacks. It was just backyard football. You ran the ball 4 or 5 yards per game. It was always a two-minute drill. There was always pressure on the quarterback to score. If you didnt score on one possession, you might lose. Those scenarios to me were so much fun.?(Note: Warner and Gruden combined for nine touchdown passes in the game.)Gruden: I loved the crowd. It was like 9,000 [actually, 11,411] people packed in this little barn dressed like farm animals screaming. I can remember Johnnie [Harris] fighting a fan who had grabbed him. It was so loud you couldnt hear from me to you. It was a blast. It was a lot of fun.Warner: It was a typical, last-team-with-the-ball-wins type of game, and thats exactly what we had the chance to do. We drove inside the 5-yard line.Gruden: [T]hey complained about their guy getting called out of bounds at the 3. They thought he got in. Oh, boohoo. But they had a first-and-goal at the 3 and we stopped them four plays in a row.Warner: We werent able to finish inside. We had the chance to win and I didnt make the plays to finish the deal. It was a classic Arena game where you were just going back and forth with guys making plays all over the place.Gruden: We had to get one first down, and I threw a pass out to Stevie Thomas on the left. Game time.Warner: I dont think theres any question that the Arena League allowed me to flourish. I played three years in a league where the quarterback wasnt supposed to be stopped. We never wanted to kick. When I went into the NFL, I had that same mentality. We were very good on top of that. But we had that mentality [with the St. Louis Rams]. We were not going to punt. We were going to score every time.Gruden: We were all young guys trying to get the chance Kurt got. I tell you what, he had a quick release and he was accurate. He showed no fear in the pocket. For quarterbacks, say what you want, you learn a lot about the position playing Arena ball as far as anticipation, timing and getting the ball out of your hand. That was a different era. We had defensive linemen playing offensive line, so the pressure was a lot different as far as the pass rush was concerned. It was a great experience making the tight window throws on the goal line, anticipation throws, fades, touch. It was good.Warner: When you think back to Jay in those days, you think about a coach on the field, how he handled things and managed things. The way he led his teams, to championships and just on the field, its absolutely no surprise the kind of offensive mind hes become and the success hes had as a head coach. He was a very fiery competitor, but a great leader and a very smart player -- you see all of that now in his current job. NMD R1 Primeknit Australia .Y. - New York City has been selected to host the NBA All-Star weekend in 2015, with the game played at Madison Square Garden and the slam dunk contest and other skills events held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Ultra Boost Cheap Australia . The players spoke Jan. 13 during a Major League Baseball Players Association conference call after Rodriguez sued the union and Major League Baseball to overturn an arbitrators decision suspending him for the 2014 season and post-season. http://www.nmdaustraliasale.com/nmd-r1-shoes-australia/mens.html . Now that hes hitting streaking teammates with pin-point passes for easy layups, Love is asserting himself as one of the true superstars in the league. Ultra Boost Clima Australia . President of baseball operations Larry Beinfest was fired Friday after 12 years with the Marlins. The move came as the team neared the end of its third consecutive last-place season in the NL East. Ultra Boost Australia Online .Y. -- Leading 3-0 with only 11:25 left, the Colorado Avalanche committed a seemingly meaningless penalty to give the New York Islanders a power play. Match factsSaturday, October 29 Start time 1330 local (0800 GMT)Big pictureNew Zealand have never won an ODI series in India. While the prospect of correcting such a record is daunting at the best of times, the whitewash in the Test series and the drubbing in Dharamsala only made it seem near-impossible. But after nearly two weeks, with the series at 2-2, they would rather look at Saturdays game as a chance to create history. After the Ranchi ODI, every member of New Zealands team management has used elegant variations of the same theme.New Zealands greatest strength during their last visit to India, for the World T20, lay in their astute reading of pitches. Tim Southee put it down to effective information exchange between batsmen and bowlers. Not every time we can get it right. We just give ourselves the best chance to read the conditions and adapt quickly, he said on the eve of the match.One area where they have not adapted quickly enough is their middle order. Corey Anderson and Luke Ronchi struggled in the first three ODIs and were subsequently dropped, but Ross Taylor has shown signs of form in the last two games. In a crunch game, they will need most of their batsmen to back what has generally been a competent bowling unit.India, on the other hand, will probably look at an opportunity missed after they could not close out the series in Ranchi. That means Jayant Yadav and Mandeep Singh will have to wait till at least the new year to make their ODI debuts, unless there is a last-minute injury or a left-field selection punt. For a young middle order, though, this is another chance to repay the faith that MS Dhoni has invested in them.Form guideIndia LWLWW (last five completed matches, most recent first)New Zealand WLWLWIn the spotlightAxar Patels record of two wickets from four games does not really indicate how well he has bowled this series. He has been Dhonis go-to holding bowler every time New Zealands batsmen have looked threatening, and in Ranchi he even contributed a gutsy 38 after being promoted to No.5. Axars niggardly bowling will once again remain crucial to bottling up New Zealands middle order.With seven wickets from four games, Tim Southee has quietly climbed to second place in the top wicket-takers list for the series. His late swing with the new ball and nerveless death bowling has given New Zealand all-round bowling cover. Southees knack of striking at the right time, like his dismissals of Dhoni in Delhi, and Manish Pandey and Kedar Jadhav in Ranchi, has proved to be game changing.Team newsAjinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Umesh Yadav were among those that did not feature in Indias optional training session. Dhoni had an extended hit in the spinners nett and, along with Jadhav, practised the sweep for a considerable length of time.dddddddddddd Jasprit Bumrah appeared to have regained his fitness and will likely take Dhawal Kulkarnis place in the XI. India are unlikely to tinker with the side too much otherwise.India (probable): 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 Ajinkya Rahane, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 5 Manish Pandey, 6 Kedar Jadhav, 7 Hardik Pandya, 8 Axar Patel, 9 Amit Mishra, 10 Umesh Yadav, 11 Jasprit BumrahIn Ranchi, New Zealand had replaced Corey Anderson and Matt Henry with two spinners in Ish Sodhi and Anton Devcich. Taylor felt the six-bowler dynamic gave captain Kane Williamson greater latitude. Williamson and Mike Hesson will probably have to choose between the extra batting muscle of Anderson and the extra spin option of Devcich.New Zealand (probable): 1 Martin Guptill, 2 Tom Latham, 3 Kane Williamson (capt), 4 Ross Taylor, 5 BJ Watling (wk), 6 James Neesham, 7 Anton Devcich/Corey Anderson, 8 Mitchell Santner, 9 Tim Southee, 10 Trent Boult, 11 Matt HenryPitch and conditionsThe cyclone Kyant, which threatened to hit Visakhapatnam, has weakened into a deep depression, but there is forecast for showers on Friday and thunderstorm on Saturday. There were heavy showers on Thursday night as well, but the curator, K Nagamallaiah, said the ground staff had covered 80% of the outfield. On Saturday, the pitch appeared bald and devoid of any grass, even as the outfield remained lush. The rain wont have any effect on the pitch. It will remain good for batting and have good bounce, he said.Stats and triviaAmit Mishra has taken 10 wickets in the series, three more than any other bowler from either sides.Tim Southee is the only New Zealand bowler to have taken three-wicket hauls in the series. He did it twice and both came in wins - Delhi and Ranchi.India have a 4-1 win-loss record in Visakhapatnam. The lone defeat came in the last completed game here, against West Indies in November 2013.India won the deciding match against New Zealand in the 1995-96 and 1999-2000 series.QuotesWe have been on the road for a long period of time but we have three more days to get ourselves up. You dont often win series away from home, especially in the subcontinent. We know what we need to do to win.Ross Taylor was excited about the prospect of making history.Virat is a great player and its always nice if he scores. It makes life easy for the batsmen coming in. But, we have too many quality batsmen in the team and we need to deliver whenever we get the opportunity.Kedar Jadhav insisted India are not over-dependent on Virat Kohli. ' ' '