In the fall of '93 I was a little boy with little knowledge of the outside world, especially the sports world. As a star coach-pitch baseball player, I knew very few names of professional baseball players. As a Pee Wee football player, I knew of only a couple of players in the sport of football. But, as soon as I stepped onto the field in either sport, I wanted to be the best and wanted to perform at the very highest level.

As you grow up, you realize that maybe your dreams of becoming a professional athlete are not going to become a reality for one reason or another. So what is the next option when trying to live out your dreams of becoming a professional athlete? What about video games?

In Madden 94, EA implemented an idea of creating a player, which was a revolutionary leap at the time as well as being one of the first ways to put your digital alter-ego into a video game. Living out your dreams is why sports video games even exist if you ask me.

Sports video games exist because everybody can not be a professional athlete and the lifestyle athletes live is something everybody at one point in his life wants to achieve. If you want a chance to be the player that hits the winning walk-off home run in game seven of the World Series, sports video games allow you to put yourself in that situation.

If you want to make yourself a golfer and play through a career as a PGA golfer, all you need to do is pop in Tiger Woods to walk amongst the best. Tiger Woods even takes player creation a step further by allowing you to use the vision camera to actually put your face in the game.

Using sports video games is as close as most people will ever get to being able to play any sport at a professional level.

Both games do a great job of taking you through the ups and down of professionalism with unique cut scenes and putting yourself in big game situations.

Games like MLB 08: The Show and NBA 09: The Life take the concept one step further and actually take you through the whole process of being a professional athlete. Both games do a great job of taking you through the ups and downs of professionalism via unique cut-scenes and being put in big game situations.

NCAA Football 2006 tweaked the create-a-player idea with the Race to the Heisman Mode. The 2006 Race to the Hiesman mode was a really great mode and really made you feel like a college freshman trying to work his way up to becoming a Heisman winner. This mode allowed you to create yourself, let you do drills to get your player ratings, and from there you received offers to different colleges. Race to the Heisman then made you take an IQ test before picking a major -- all while having you juggle a girlfriend. In the versions following the 2006 version, EA Sports added the ability to start as a high school senior and go through your high school state playoffs, which offered another unique twist to the game.

After your four years of college were up, you could receive a chance to go pro in Madden in the game's Superstar Mode. EA Sports has expanded upon on the mode as the years have gone by. You will take the rookie exams while going through the entire process NFL rookies go through. You will then play out your NFL career while trying to win a Super Bowl, as well as putting together a good enough career to be considered a Hall of Famer after you retire.

Through modes like Superstar Mode in Madden, gaming companies have created a way to live out your biggest childhood dreams. Most likely, you could never pass the ball quite like Montana or drive the lane as good as Kobe. However, gaming companies have given you the ability to do this by creating your digital alter-ego to live out your wildest dreams. In short, sports video games are great to ease the pain of arm-chair quarterbacks, the not-so-good golfers, and meat-arm baseball players everywhere.

It's almost like a scene out of The Field of Dreams.

Now it's time for you to sound off! What are some of the greatest tales about your alter-egos in sports video games and how high of a rating did he (or she) have?