Barstool Writer Witnesses History
As I entered the Funspot Arcade in Weirs Beach, New Hampshire last Sunday (long story) I had 2 things on my mind: kicking somebody’s ass at Bubble Hockey number one, and number two, playing Centipede, an old school game in which I always thought I was the greatest. Well somehow Bubble Hockey was the only game in the history of video games they didn’t have at Funspot so that left me searching the rows upon rows of 1980’s standup arcade games for Centipede, and sure enough, I found it.
Sadly though, there would be no Centipede that afternoon. Not for me or for anyone. The game wasn’t broken, it worked fine. The reason it was “temporarily unavailable” was because right beside it, directly to the left, was a video camera on a tripod, a guy playing Dig Dug, and history in the making.
Now there were a bunch of things I thought I’d see that afternoon at Funspot – negligent parents, Skeeball, a grown man dressed as Donkey Kong, but a video camera on a tripod filming a guy playing Dig Dug was not one of them. So naturally I abandoned the party I walked in with and headed straight for the guy getting filmed playing Dig Dug. I don’t know, I was curious. He had his own stool, a modest cheering section (3) and of course the camera setup on the tripod.
“What the hell is this”? I asked one of the on-lookers in attendance.
“That’s Donald Hayes”.
After a 3 second pause where both of us were waiting for the other to respond, finally I bit.
“Huh?”
Now the only Donald Hayes I know is the former Patriot and Panther wide receiver, and clearly this was not that man. This was a middle-aged dorky white guy with glasses and a collared shirt tucked in to his khakis.
“That’s Donald Hayes” the fan repeated. “He has the world record in 7 ‘classic’ arcade games including 1 of only 5 people ever to have a perfect score in Pacman.”
“Ohhhh, that Donald Hayes” I thought to myself, “Obviously”. Now clearly I had never heard of this man, but still, I was interested in what was going on here.
Me: “Really? What games does he have the title in? I’m probably the greatest Centipede player of all time.”
Fan: “Nope, he is.” (Pointing to Hayes) “He’s got the world record in Centipede, Millipede, Super Zaxxon, tied in Pacman, Joust and a couple others.”
Me: “What about Frogger?”
Fan: “Actually, yes. I lose track sometimes but he has the world record in Frogger too.”
Me: “Jesus Christ.”
Now I didn’t ask at the time but I did a little research since. (I was unhealthily obsessed with this guy for 24 hours after I left the arcade). What happened was this – according to Twin Galaxies.com, the official scorer of video game records throughout the world and the people you mail the tapes to – the fan was right. Hayes, a native of New Hampshire, is apparently one of the greatest living arcade players in the world and owns the world record in 7 “classic” games, including the ones mentioned above. He HAD the Dig Dug record too, but last month some joker with no prior world records came from out of nowhere to break it. This was a shock to Donald Hayes. I mean this would be like Lou Merloni breaking Joe Dimaggio’s 56 game hit streak, so Hayes (Joe D) was back at it last Sunday trying to recapture his title.
“He’ll break it”, the fan confidently stated.
Me: “Yeah, but he doesn’t even have the high score.” (It read 999,990, Hayes’ score was 200,000).
Fan: “Um, he’s already rolled it over twice.”
I did the quick math which meant Hayes was already at 2.2 million, the record was 4.5. The question now became – has this guy ever touched a girl? There was no way. If you check out his website, www.thedonald.org, I doubt it. The only non-Table Tennis picture he posted (obviously he’s an expert Table Tennis player too) was one of his parents’ cat, Mitzi. If you think I’m making this up, I encourage you to check the site.
Back to the action. At this point, I decided to take a live look-in at the historic Dig Dug game in progress. I’ve maybe played once or twice in my life, basically you’re a little dude digging tunnels and trying to kill people underground. Not exactly “Halo 3” but difficult nonetheless.
Anyway “The Donald” was now on the 216th level or something ridiculous like that and well on his way to history. The few minutes I watched he was just digging and dugging at will. At one point he went right when the bad guys thought he was going left, then went left when the bad guys thought he was going right. Amazing. Think I’m kidding? This is an actual quote from Twin Galaxies referee David Nelson who was on hand to oversee the event.
Again, this is a real quote courtesy of twingalaxies.com:
“It was a very nerve-wracking last half-hour or so of his game because he was down to his last man and almost died several times,” Nelson explained, “but [he] pulled off some absolutely astounding moves to survive and get through it.”
Like I said, amazing.
Naturally a few hours later (I wasn’t there, we left), Hayes broke the 4.5 million record, was showered in tokens and recaptured his Dig Dug title, and as easy as it is to rip this guy, I won’t do it. Because if you think about the millions of people who ever played Dig Dug or Centipede or Pacman, or any of the others for that matter – Hayes is the best. And frankly, you have to respect that. Shouldn’t everybody strive to be the best at what they do? Not their job, I mean something they enjoy.
For example, if you like playing poker, wouldn’t you want to be the best at it? If you like doodling at work for no reason, wouldn’t you want to be the greatest work doodler who ever lived? Of course. Growing up we all thought we were pretty good at these games, but we’re not even close to The Donald. RBI Baseball, Sega Golf or NHL ’94 is a different story, I’d kick his ass at all 3 of those games, but fortunately for Donald Hayes, he found his true calling in life. Now granted that calling might not ever lead to meaningful human contact and ultimately prove to be useless in the grand scheme of life, but then again, what is useful?
The bottom line is sure, I didn’t get to play Bubble Hockey or Centipede like I had hoped last Sunday afternoon, but I was there for history. Dig Dug history. And while I never got to see Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky or even Mozart live and up close, I saw Donald Hayes. And for the Sunday before the Super Bowl in the middle of nowhere New Hampshire, that’s just going to have to do.