Vladdy’s on the box
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. will grace the cover of MLB The Show 24, officially announced this week. Vlad had a bit of a down year in 2023. But he’s young, undeniably a superstar, and with some cross-generational appeal due to his Hall of Fame father (who was the cover athlete for Sony’s MLB 2006).
I think everyone was anticipating Ronald Acuña as the cover athlete after his huge 2023 that established him as one of the two best players in the sport. But for one reason or another, The Show resisted the easy answer here.
I saw multiple people refer to a “three-year rule” that prevents MLB athletes from endorsing multiple different games within three years, as an explanation for why Acuña and Julio Rodriguez couldn’t be on the cover of The Show 24. Acuña was the cover athlete for a mobile game called MLB Clutch Hit Baseball last year, and Julio was the cover man for MLB Tap Sports Baseball 23.
I’ve asked around about this rule a lot without much success. It’s unclear whether it would be:
- An MLBPA union rule, I guess to spread the wealth and prevent an Ohtani or Jeter type from taking every cover on products that need to license the whole union anyway, or:
- Something game companies enforce as part of their deals, to better reap the brand recognition benefits of getting a big star on the cover of your game.
I’m going to try and compile a better list of cover athletes that includes mobile games going back at least a few years to check this. I don’t see any immediate recent counter-examples. Joe Mauer was the cover athlete for The Show two years in a row, but one, that was more than ten years ago and two, it’s unclear if this rule would prevent endorsing the same company in back-to-back years. If it’s a union rule, probably yes. If it’s a game company rule, probably no.
Derek Jeter was on the cover of All-Star Baseball 2005 and then Major League Baseball 2K5 in back-to-back years for two different publishers. But that’s even longer ago, and Acclaim went bankrupt and lost the MLB license in July 2004 (after All-Star 2005 came out despite the dumb year in the title). Maybe another small piece of evidence in favor of this being something game companies enforce rather than the union, if the biggest exception came when a game company fully lost their rights to the MLB and MLBPA.
Jason Kelce wants to bring back Backyard Sports
The very talented (and just-retired) brother of the very talented tight end who’s currently dating Taylor Swift wants to bring back Backyard Baseball and Backyard Football.
The last Backyard Baseball game was Backyard Sports: Sandlot Sluggers in 2010, published by Atari, which through a convoluted business history is a French company formerly known as Infogrames.
The latest result for Backyard Baseball on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office suggests someone tried and failed to take over the trademark in 2019-2020. And the original and second trademark registrations are dead. Copyright works differently so you couldn’t necessarily put Pablo Sanchez in your own game without someone out there challenging it, though it’s not clear who. But the name might be fully up for grabs?
A new Pawapuro arcade game
A new Powerful Pro Yakyuu Medal Game has appeared in the wild recently. It’s like one of those arcade games with a giant ocean of tokens sitting there waiting to fall off into the prize chute. But this one comes with a physical Pawapuro-kun who swings the bat at a button (with different prize values for the ball hitting different areas in the outfield, like a classic baseball arcade game). And a fancy screen with some 3D graphics to watch also.
It’s tempting to say “Oh wow Konami loves to milk its properties for pachinko games” or whatever but this looks pretty cool I think.
Yahoo! Auctions listings of the week
Did you know there are at least two Pawapuro aprons? Like, cooking aprons?
I might have one of these in the mail to me now.
YouTube Viewing Guide
- Sammy Sosa High Heat Baseball 2001 (PS1) CPU vs. CPU Gameplay – There’s something horrible about the player proportions in this game. Necks and limbs seem to stretch as long as they need to for the animation. Otherwise, the game is kind of nice!
- Earl Weaver Baseball (PC) CPU vs. CPU Gameplay – Electronic Arts used to publish good baseball games. About time I finally tried out this classic.
- Power League (Sharp X68000) CPU vs. CPU Gameplay – Hudson’s baseball game came to the Sharp X68000 computer as well as PC Engine, and besides some different soundfonts for the music it’s awfully similar. Nice game.
- MLB Clutch Hit Baseball (iOS) Gameplay – Well I talked about it above with the minor controversy over The Show‘s cover athlete. So I checked out the game. It’s from a developer called Wild Caly that seems to have no previous projects. The gameplay is bone stupid at least so far, very simple timing only hitting and pitching. And it’s got about eight too many pop-ups asking you to buy things on start-up. But the graphics are alright?