I Am Theo Epstein

Yet another off the field post, this time concerning the release of MLB '06: The Show on PS2 and PSP. If you're a videogame dweeb like me, this holds a lot of promise. Summer 2005 was the last stand for EA Sports' MVP franchise, as MLB signed an exclusive agreement with Take Two Entertainment, the company that produces the stunningly unimpressive 2K series. I've had The Show on reserve for some time now, and I've been playing the demo to keep myself jazzed up for it's arrival, and all I can say is that it promises to make up for what I've been missing and more.

MVP Baseball 2005, the crown prince of baseball games, was outstanding in it's ability to mimic the depth and detail of running a baseball franchise, from every minor league filler signing to the retention of my minor league hitting instructor. I saw players I drafted go from Single A All-Star to MLB superstar. It's downside, however, was the presentation. The graphics were OK, acceptable only because of the game depth, but the presentation was terrible. The announcers, who will go unnamed because of their awfulness, did nothing but add "Look at the stellar diagonal patterns on the grass!" to their repetoire between 2003 and 2005. It got old REAL fast.

2k% is the inverse of that. The team of John Miller and Joe Morgan from ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball are just as classy and engaging as they are in TV, making playing every game far more believable and ejoyable. ESPN's graphics, which will not be with 06 version due to ESPN's signing with EA, make it look just like Sunday Night Baseball too. The game graphics, however, were terrible.

The Show looks to combine the two. Rex Hudler, Dave Campbell, and Max Vasgersian provide life-like commentary to run the play-by-play, and the graphics are probably some of the most realistic I've seen, definitely the best I've seen on PS2. Anyways, I can't wait to get out of work and hunker down in front of the TV and get into the season.