Baseball video games

 The other day, while doing a search for something, I came across a video game I had played for a few years in my early 20's, called 2020 Super Baseball. The game was released for the Super NES in 1993, and offered a take on what they thought baseball would be like in the year 2020. I thought it would be fun to kind of go over some of the rules and things and see how close they got. I figured it might be fun to do this and maybe talk some of my other favorite baseball games. 

It should be noted before I get started, that the site Baseball Life did an article about the game and how they got some things right, but that article was written in 2019, before Covid. 

The game predicted that baseball would be played between some of the most elite strong human player, and robots. There were also female players in the league. In the game, you would earn money for doing things in the field and at bat or on the bases, and you could also lose money. The money you earn can be used to buy 'upgrades' which make your human or robot stronger, or could even be used to upgrade your human to a robot. The robots could lose power by throwing too many pitches, jumping or diving too much, and sometimes they would explode, making them worthless and unable to hit, field, or throw. 

One of the biggest differences in the game was the field of play itself. The game had 12 or so teams, but they all played in one stadium, called Cyber Egg Stadium. 

I don't know if you can tell in the picture, but in 2020, the developers imagined that human players would have become so advanced in hitting Home Runs, that there would need to be glass installed over the stands in order to keep batted balls from injuring fans, and there were some crazy rules with the new stadium/version of baseball in 2020. 

You still had fair and fould balls, but fair territory was turned into a 'fair zone' and was much larger of an area, basically anywhere past 3rd and 1st base. The 'foul area' was basically any area before 3rd and 1st except for the infield grass. Another difference is that balls hit ontop of the stands are in play since there is glass covering the fans in the stands, so balls can ricochet off of the glass and back into the field. The only way to get a Home Run is to hit it basically straight ahead, into or past the 'Home Run zone' or to leg out an inside-the-park one. 

I had played this baseball video game on my friend Jon's Nintendo in the 4th or 5th Grade in 1995, and I distinctly remember there being robots in the game, and if there was a close play, the robots would fight, and whoever won would get the call that they wanted. I don't remember the name of the game, but in 2006, when I moved to Montgomery, Alabama and was staying with my future brother-in-law JT, I told him about the game, since he had some gaming system where you could play old-school Nintendo and Super NES games on it. After doing some research, he found 2020 Super Baseball, and the title sounded the same, so he downloaded it, and we got to playing. We soon found out that it was a different game, but it was just so fun to play, that we played it for the rest of the year, until he ended up taking a seasonal job in Indiana delivering plants to stores. Around 2014, I got a Retron system, and JT got me a copy of 2020 Super Baseball for Super NES, so I've played it a few times when I get the urge to.

Where I think the game got it dead on are that they had females playing the sport. While there aren't any actually playing in games, the Giants hired Alyssa Nakken as a coach, and others have followed her. The game also predicted that there would be a ton of HRs hit, prompting the HR Zone in order to reduce the number of Homers hit. 2019 was a record setting year for HRs hit, and had Covid not come, I think 2020 would've been a record year, too. The one stadium for all teams wasn't true when the 2019 article came out, but MLB is doing it for the playoffs (kind of), and I really think that would've been the best option had the season been fewer games over more time. While the glass covering the fans didn't happen, there is more netting up, and if fans are ever aloud back in games, who knows, there may be (plexi) glass put up to stop Covid. The Fair and Foul Zones haven't happened, but Manfred hasn't hit his prime yet. Robots aren't playing, but there has been talk about Robo Umpires to call balls and strikes. 

I think out of the 8-10 baseball video games I've played, this one is in the top 5. 

I won't go into too many details on some of my other favorites, but in order, they are probably 

5. Star League Baseball 

4. 2020 Super Baseball

3. MVP Baseball 2003

2. Backyard Baseball

And my number one favorite baseball video game ever is Hardball (the original). Nothing earth-shattering about the graphics, but just a fun game to play!  The view of the pitcher and hitter is still a unique one. The game was just so easy to get good at if you knew the hang of it. I would basically swing up if I had a hitter who didn't have power, and more times that not, it seemed that they would hit a ball in the infield that would drop before a fielder caught it, and beat the throw to first. If it was somebody who hit in the #1, 2, or 8 (with a pitcher batting) for the Champs, or #1 for the All-Stars, you could automatically steal 2nd on the next pitch if 2nd base was open. Little things like this can help you dominate. I would usually just sit on slow stuff, and eventually I would have a power hitter mash one over the fence, and I got good enough at reading where a ball was going to land and what kind of throw a runner would beat out, that I could have the right runner take off to the right base, and they would cause the computer throw to a base that would generate a throw that would take longer, and put my team at an atvantage. I played a whole 162 game season out as the Champs with no DH, and posted it the Lemon 64 website.  user named Doomtints started the post, and he used the Champs WITH a DH, and posted his stats. That gave me the idea for no DH, and I posted my final stats on page 5 of the thread, and I smashed the OP's ones. I played the original game on my Commodore 64 computer, but now play it on an emulator on my laptop. Do you guys have any favorite baseball video games?

If you were looking for a baseball card angle, I do get my Series 1 & 2 boxes of '94 Stadium Club today! I really don't know how this thing will work. I really want to open the whole 2 boxes with my son tonight, but I just don't think we will have the time, the cards are probably going to brick together, so taking them apart is going to be a challenge, and he just hasn't been behaving good this past week, so I don't want to give him a huge reward like that. Guess Daddy's going to have to be patient and maybe open a few packs at a time with him, and maybe let him open some on his birthday (he turns 4 in a month and a day). 

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy