Video Games

Baseball, like all sports, has been successful in video games played on home and arcade consoles. Games have been produced for all the major systems including Atari, NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, Gameboy, Playstation 1-3, Xbox 1 & 360, Gamecube, Wii, and Switch. The first baseball videogame, simply titled Baseball, was released by Nintendo for the NES in 1985. Rather than license actual team names or create fake ones, it simply used the letters A, C, D, P, R, and Y. Why those letters where chosen is anybody's guess.

Successful Series

• MVP Baseball 2003 - 2007
• Triple Play 1997- 2002
• 2K series 2004 - 2013 (was previously known as World Series Baseball which ran 1994 - 1995)
• Baseball Stars - produced 4 games between 1989 and 1990
• Bases Loaded - 1988 - 1990
• Super Bases Loaded - 1991 - 1994
• MLB The Show 2006 - Present (was previously known as MLB series from 1997 - 2005)
• RBI Baseball 1988 - 2021

Star Series

During the 1980s and 1990s stars were often given title treatment as well as appearing on the cover of certain games. These included Earl Weaver Baseball (1987), Tony LaRussa Baseball (1991 - 1997), Tommy Lasorda Baseball, Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball, 2 different Ken Griffey, Jr games for Super Nintendo, Bo Jackson Baseball and Roger Clemens MVP Baseball.

Fake Teams

In the early years of video games, MLB did not license games. This led to games using fake names, teams and logos. The Baseball Stars and Bases Loaded series had to use their imagination. Teams included the Brave Warriors, Ninja Black Sox, Lovely Ladies, USA Bisons, Aussie Thunders and Italian Waves in the Baseball stars series. In the Bases Loaded games, there were no team nicknames until Super Bases Loaded II. Instead, teams went by cities, which were a mix of real major league cities and fake ones including Jersey, Omaha, Hawaii and Washington D.C.

RBI Baseball was an unusual case as it used real player names but fake team names.

Other fantasy games included Super Baseball 2020, which was released in the 1990s, predicting what the future of baseball would be like in the year 2020. The game featured a special home run zone in centerfield (the only place a homer could be hit}, landmines in the outfield as well as robot and female players. Backyard Baseball is another fantasy game. It features childhood versions of baseball stars as well as local children. The game is aimed at younger fans. Baseball Superstars is also an example of a fantasy game as it includes fictional teams, and features anime-style players with super powers. It features female players such as Yuna and Yomi, as well as non-human characters such as Pluto (who is an alien) and Boomstar (who is a robot).

Covers

The cover of games often feature star players at the time. The 2K series made Derek Jeter the cover boy three straight years from 2005 to 2007. Other stars being featured on covers include: Juan Gonzalez, Sammy Sosa, Tony Gwynn, Brian Jordan, David Wright, Pedro Martinez, Jason Giambi and Mike Piazza.

Video killed the ballpark stars

With Major League Baseball on a prolonged pause because of the coronavirus pandemic in the spring of 2020, it put together a virtual league featuring one player from each of the 30 teams playing a schedule of 29 games against all his opponents, with the game "MLB The Show" serving as the platform. Other sports league, such as the NBA, had adopted that approach as well. Blake Snell, representing the Tampa Bay Rays faced Amir Garrett, of the Cincinnati Reds, in the opening contest played on April 10th. Snell ended up winning the tournament on May 3rd, defeating Lucas Giolito of the Chicago White Sox in the finale.

Further Reading

• Mandy Bell et al.: "Needed it 'so bad': Snell is first The Show champ", mlb.com, May 3, 2020. [1]
• Chris Bumbaca: "MLB forms virtual 'The Show' league with one player from each team, 29-game schedule", USA Today, April 10, 2020. [2]
• Michael Clair: "10 greatest baseball video games ever made", mlb.com, January 8, 2020. [3]