Friday Starter is a weekly column of news and tidbits from the world of baseball video games—past and present, domestic and foreign.
Another wave of 8-bit baseball game ports
I’ve talked about this before on the dang About page of this website: It’s important to preserve anything we can about baseball video games, because they’re rarely re-released or ported. Baseball games tend to have licenses. And even as game companies dig further and further into their archives looking for games to port or rerelease, none of them have been interested in renegotiating those licenses.
So this month, we’ve gotten two more old baseball games re-released, and of course, neither comes with a league or player license. First off is Pete Rose Baseball… I mean, Baseball for the Atari 2600, originally by Absolute Entertainment.
This is coming out as part of Retro Classics, a streaming retro game collection of titles belonging to Activision Blizzard, mostly for the Atari 2600. A baseball player model is the biggest sprite on the art for Retro Classics:
And you can see what is clearly a photo of Pete Rose in the upper right corner inside Retro Classics, though his name has been removed from the game:
I have yet to try out this Game Pass streaming option, but I recorded gameplay from Pete Rose previously using the MiSTer FPGA here:
I don’t expect any changes inside the game itself. Pete Rose’s name never appeared inside the game, nor did any other player or team have a name besides “Home” and “Visitor.” This is not the first time this game has been released with Charlie Hustle’s name removed, as we can see from this late Atari 7800 printing on the right below (but I’m surprised his photo is still there in this Activision release).
This game released 11 years after the Atari VCS launch, so it’s a very late title for the console. If you haven’t seen too many other Atari baseball games, it may not look like much. But compared directly against Home Run or RealSports Baseball, Pete Rose is a technological marvel. The Atari 7800 version is even nicer, so it’s a shame it isn’t included in this collection.
Coincidentally, it’s been a big week for Pete Rose. Outside of the gaming realm, his permanent (lifetime?) ban was revoked by Rob Manfred, as part of a politically-tinged fight over his eligibility for the Hall of Fame.
But most annoyingly of all, why waste bandwidth streaming Atari 2600 games pixel by pixel 60 times a second, when you could download the whole Atari library with one or two of those frames’ worth of bandwidth? Seems wasteful.
Jaleco Sports: Bases Loaded is another recent port. This Steam and GOG port includes Bases Loaded for NES and Super Bases Loaded for SNES. You wonder why these are the only two games included. Unlike other baseball game series, Bases Loaded tried to reinvent the wheel frequently. So there are good reasons to include Bases Loaded 3 or Super Bases Loaded 2. You could reasonably have a different favorite in the series.
Not to mention, it’s a shame not to have the Japanese versions of these games available to choose. This is a pretty common feature in these re-releases. And a re-release of Moero!! Pro Yakyuu would be big for preservation, because no current emulator reproduces its special sound chip correctly. Not to mention, Moepro is a real cultural event due to its many famous bugs, especially the bunt home run. Oh, what could have been.
Power Up Baseball arcade machine in Brookfield, IL
Last week, Frank Cifaldi posted a picture with a real-life Power Up Baseball arcade cabinet. To my knowledge, this is the first real-world playable cabinet for Midway’s unreleased “1996 NBA Jam for baseball,” and it’s located in the Chicago area at Galloping Ghost arcade.
Cifaldi has a personal connection to the game, as it was his work with the Video Game History Foundation that unearthed the game four years ago. Here is some footage of the game:
One more piece of weird merch
Last week I covered Japanese baseball video game merch, including Famista underwear, a Yu Darvish-Pro Yakyuu Spirits cap, and… Moero Pro Yakyuu underwear.
I found one more thing this week I wanted to cover that’s an enjoyably random mixture of properties. This is a Subaru Impreza rally car model kit with branding for Taisho Baseball Girls, an anime and video game cross-media property about a girls’ baseball team in 1920s Japan. Not the first merch that would come to mind!
The model car can be yours for $100, if you’re so inclined.
Song of the Week
“Game Over” from Namachuukei 68. This Konami baseball game for the Sharp X68000 computer. I’ve written about the game here for SABR. This game over tune is appropriately short and bittersweet, with a great tone and some of those famous Konami drums.