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How The Show Can Embrace Baseball's History

It’s a beautiful spring day in Brooklyn.

The smell of freshly cut grass fills your nose mixed with popcorn and hot dogs. A small murmur is coming over the crowd as it gathers in the stands at 55 Sullivan place for opening day of the 2014 Baseball Season.

This old ballpark has seen its share of history since opening in 1913, the year after Fenway Park opened -- if you are counting. The Dodgers have called this place home for years, full of its quirky dimensions including the short 297 foot right field.

As the GM, you’ve considered how your park was built and made adjustments accordingly. You want guys who can push the ball down the line here, center field does stand out there at an impossibly long 484 feet.

You see, at Ebbets Field, this place was built to have baseball played in it like it was being played in the early 1900s. Pitchers reigned supreme and the concept of the Babe was neither a ballplayer or a friendly pig from England.

Thanks to some hard dealing, you’ve built a pitching staff which limits contact as much as possible with a set of outfielders built to have enough speed to cover the vast caverns of the Ebbets Field outfield. You’ve got hitters who can hit the gaps with ease, sure your guys don’t hit home runs — but you score runs with the best of them.

It’s All Possible

The above example isn’t exactly real in any way, but it could be if the folks at SCEA San Diego are ready to fully embrace the history of America’s greatest game.

You see, America’s history is tearing it down. Old and historically significant places like Ebbets Field are routinely torn down to make way for future development. If it doesn’t fit into the economic future of a city, the place is as good as gone.

The folks in Houston are still debating whether to tear down the Astrodome or not. Sure, it doesn’t make much economic sense to have a stadium sitting empty, but tearing down a place which changed the way stadiums were built is also a tough sell.

But in MLB The Show, you don’t have to worry about this stuff. Thanks to the power of next-generation hardware, you could bring back to life old places like Ebbets Field, Crosley Stadium, the Polo Grounds, old Comiskey Park, Tiger Stadium, Forbes Field, and so many more.

Even cooler would be to be able to roll back the clock and play MLB as it once was. Imagine playing a season in the 1950s with all of the old and classic ballparks in tow. A 1954 Season could have you playing the Milwaukee Braves, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the Chicago Cubs all in one road stretch. In the AL, it’d seem even more familiar except the Athletics are from Philadelphia and the Senators are still a team from Washington.

Who knows how commercially viable such a mode is really, but it would seem anyone with a remote interest in how the game once was would feel as if such a mode would have at least some place in the game’s future.

Preserving Old Ballparks Digitally

More importantly, places which fewer and fewer people who are alive have visited could be brought back to life in stunning detail. It’s very likely the number of people who both play The Show and who visited Ebbets Field as a youngster is a very low number with two hands being able to count them all.

However, imagine a feature which gave the old ballparks the same treatment as the new ones, with painstaking detail applied to every corner of the stadium. For Major League Baseball, being able to have a feature in the game which allowed you to tour the old ballparks and learn about the game’s history seems like something that’s an all too obvious selling point.

There would seem to be an incentive to have SCEA do the dirty work of rendering the stadiums and giving them some compensation to allow such a ‘tour’ feature to be put onto a computer at the Baseball Hall of Fame as well — but that’s just me suggesting something crazy.

Imagine being able to digitally tour the old Tiger Stadium as it once was and then jumping into a game there. Even cooler, imagine being able to turn the clocks back and have modern day players play through a season in classic ballparks to see how the stats would fare. What about shrinking the league to the 1950s sized 16 teams and holding a fantasy draft, imagine the vast array of talent you'd see on each team. The possibilities are truly endless.

Baseball’s History: The Final Frontier

With such a rich and vibrant history, Major League Baseball has a library of content and built in retro features that would make any other sport blush. Other leagues were just getting moving in the 1950s, baseball was already in mid-season form.

To this point, no baseball video game has adequately approached the history of the game in a manner which added replay value — or really even value — to the game.

If the developers at SCEA are seeking an idea of where to go next with the series, the answer may just be backwards in time.


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Member Comments
# 21 Senrab34 @ 03/14/14 08:03 PM
There was a game on the Xbox that had old stadiums like the Polo Grounds, the Astrodome, Crosley Field, etc. and you could play as Babe Ruth, Mike Schmidt, Nolan Ryan and several other all-time greats. I can't remember if it was MVP baseball or another one, but you could also do an expansion team and draft. I don't remember if you could use the players in franchise mode, but you could choose an old stadium for your expansion team. The other cool feature was when a team was opening a new stadium in the future in real life when you got to that year in your franchise the game would have the new stadium and it would build a new stadium for teams that needed one like Oakland and at the time, Miami. It is amazing to think a game had all of this 10-12 years ago and we haven't had one close to that since. If SCEA decided to do something like this it would be amazing. Great article.
 
# 22 Senrab34 @ 03/14/14 08:05 PM
I guess I should have read the post directly before my last one. It was All-Star baseball that I was referring to. Sorry about that.
 
# 23 pirates1fan @ 03/14/14 08:10 PM
This forum gives me chills. This! This is why I love the game of baseball and it will never compare to any other sport.

Oh, and the Field of Dreams speech is incredible. Whoever wrote that needs to be in the baseball hall of fame.
 
# 24 Knight165 @ 03/14/14 09:10 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghost Of The Year
I love the old stadiums of yesteryear & would enjoy them being in the game, but I'd like to see a way to have two eight team leagues set up without having all the expansion teams cluttering things up. With import-a-player, The Show is already ahead of the curve over madden & nba2k in regards to historical rosters.
Online franchise....you can set up the league the way you like....including the playoffs and how many teams make it.....and you can use a custom roster in it as well.

M.K.
Knight165
 
# 25 Moose Factory @ 03/14/14 09:39 PM
I've thought about a historic mode too and wondered why The Show didn't have some kind of aspect that celebrated baseballs history.

I think something called "Cooperstown Mode" would be perfect. I mean think about how last years Tiger Woods had The Evolution of Golf mode that spanned historic to modern day scenarios. It was a really fun mode. Recreating hall of fame moments from Baseball hall of famers would be amazing! With those historic items spreading out into other modes too.
 
# 26 WB1214 @ 03/14/14 10:56 PM
This is the first post that really made me want to play with an old time roster and league setup. I would love to form a team Ebbets Field
 
# 27 NicoFrost @ 03/15/14 12:01 AM
The older I get the more interested I am in the history of baseball. I love the old stadiums being included. And I absolutely love the idea of playing a "replica" season from the 30's or 50's or something. That'd be sweet!
 
# 28 Scooter3 @ 03/15/14 03:02 AM
The classic Baseball alarm just went off and I just woke up!...This is what I have been clamoring about for years. Been reworking my 16 classic teams for 6 years including 2013. I reworked 90% of my classic players faces and added new players this year. I didn't put them on the vault though.
A friend was going to help me with the attributes but was too busy with school and couldn't finish.
my verizon air card won't let me on the vault it keeps dropping off. All I can say is that my players faces improved from last year"BigTime".
I would love to see my players in baggy uniforms in the old classic stadiums kicking some old classic dust around! The Milwaukee Braves vs the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field sounds like Baseball Heaven...

If SCEA ever decides to go this route I would like to volunteer to work with SCEA with my classic faces. What I could do is create generic faces....and it wouldn't be my fault if my created faces looked like the greats...It would be up to the people who bought the game to pick the best match out of 400-500 faces then add a name a number a stance etc. to that face....This way I would get paid you guys would get everything when you buy the game...and I wouldn't have to remake every player every year...I could play the game ....what a concept.....Love the idea.
 
# 29 barsoffury @ 03/15/14 07:58 AM
Great article!

One of the unique things about baseball are it's stadiums. New and old. They aren't like other sports where all the dimensions are the same. Sure some are pretty ridiculous when you look at them and you could swear a 3 year old drew the outline of field when all you told them to do was draw a diamond shape. But that's what makes them special. Everyone is different from the next. They're pieces of art.

I hope The Show can expand on this.
 
# 30 Ghost Of The Year @ 03/15/14 08:25 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Knight165
Online franchise....you can set up the league the way you like....including the playoffs and how many teams make it.....and you can use a custom roster in it as well.

M.K.
Knight165
I wasn't aware of that as I never play online. I'll give it a go this year for sure.
 
# 31 Knight165 @ 03/15/14 10:58 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghost Of The Year
I wasn't aware of that as I never play online. I'll give it a go this year for sure.
I don't either actually....but when you start an online league(now franchise)...you can choose the # of teams....the # of leagues and divisions...and then select which teams are assigned to each slot(so you could put Milwaukee back in the A.L. for instance)
With the ability to load custom rosters....it is the best option we have for single season historical play this year.
Unfortunately....for the PS4 version....I EXTREMELY doubt the classic stadiums were able to be added at all this year.
This is something that would only be fully possible if SCEA makes a push for some sort of historical mode.
(also...right now you can't edit team name or city...so we are "stuck" with what is current.

(....something I wonder about...even if it doesn't involve new announcers...is if they could put some sort of static track or change the tone on the announcers to make it seem like an old time game)

M.K.
Knight165
 
# 32 RyanLaFalce @ 03/15/14 11:12 AM
MLB The Show definitely needs historic teams. I would even be satisfied with "All time" teams in which every team would consist of the greatest players from that team. Make sense?
 
# 33 Knight165 @ 03/15/14 11:15 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by RyanLaFalce
MLB The Show definitely needs historic teams. I would even be satisfied with "All time" teams in which every team would consist of the greatest players from that team. Make sense?
Well....we've got plenty of those....visit the roster section.
Tons of historical team sets....All-Time teams...year specific teams....and even (my favorite) single season sets......

Give them a try....

M.K.
Knight165
 
# 34 RyanLaFalce @ 03/15/14 11:18 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Knight165
Well....we've got plenty of those....visit the roster section.
Tons of historical team sets....All-Time teams...year specific teams....and even (my favorite) single season sets......

Give them a try....

M.K.
Knight165
I'm thinking about it once the PS4 version drops. Maybe do a historical playoff mode or something.
 
# 35 VonRye @ 03/15/14 03:30 PM
If SCEA came up with classic ballparks, uniforms, etc., I don't think I could give them my money fast enough. Baseball is the only major sport with a serious case of nostalgia that makes us long to play old seasons, with old teams, in old parks. Build this and we will surprise you with the results.
 
# 36 johnlnames @ 03/15/14 07:48 PM
This feature would be epic. The show needs a game mode like this, nice post.
 
# 37 Skyflame21 @ 03/15/14 10:35 PM
Absolutely love it! Oh and by the way... Thank you for the "Field of Dreams" quote. Makes me smile everytime I hear it. That and the Burt Lancaster part are simply priceless.
 
# 38 shanev @ 03/15/14 10:41 PM
would pay good extra money for this feature. I think they could market it with James Earl Jones speech. I'd make up a RTTS Roy Hobbs!
 
# 39 eaw913 @ 03/15/14 10:44 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by shanev
would pay good extra money for this feature. I think they could market it with James Earl Jones speech. I'd make up a RTTS Roy Hobbs!
I was actually thinking of ways they could do this. It college even be implemented as like a collector's edition (have an extra CD that has the historical stuff) and other goodies with it. I would no doubt pay $100 or more for it.
 
# 40 tanchl @ 03/16/14 10:13 AM
Playing with classic teams overwhelms me with nostalgia, a very hard feeling to explain, but it's like the feelings I assume I had back in the day when I would open a pack of baseball cards, sit down on Saturday afternoon to watch the Game of the Week, or here Mel Allen announce "This Week in Baseball."

I like to play tournaments with my classic teams at one location. For instance I just completed The Winter Classic held at Sportsman Park. I have a blast with my tournaments so I probably won't go new gen. until classic stadiums are available; the classic stadiums are my number one favorite feature.

If the fees for the use of classic stadiums are so steep, why not create a 21st century style stadium creator like the old Earl Weaver games? Could you imagine what the creative ones could create!
 


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