I was a weird kid. I know this probably surprises you considering how well adjusted I turned out to be, but it’s true. I played baseball for 15 years as a kid, right up until jobs and school prevented me from doing so any longer, and one day I will play again, but my passion for baseball was never really in the playing of it.
Even from a young age, I was always more interested in thinking about the game. I was fascinated by the way rosters were put together, by the strategy of the on-field decision-making, and by the way things like arbitration worked.
What I loved doing, perhaps more than anything else, was sitting in the basement of my house and playing the newest baseball video game. World Series Baseball for Sega Genesis was the first one I remember playing with any frequency. From there I moved on to Triple Play Baseball ‘96 by EA Sports and stuck with EA up until they lost the MLB license to 2K Sports, which is when I switched over the MLB: The Show.
No matter the game, I was always far more interested in the menu options and behind-the-scenes stuff than the actual gameplay. I wanted nothing more than realism in roster construction so I particularly enjoyed games where I could control every team.
Still, I always found console video games frustrating because of their lack of customization and control. It was years before The Show even included 40-man rosters and a somewhat accurate free agent and arbitration process in the offseason. I don’t blame console game makers for this, after all, most people who play those games aren’t interested in the finer points of the sport; most people aren’t as hardcore about it as I am and there’s no doubt that the on-the-field gameplay itself is mind blowing.
