The Best Baseball Video Games

Dan Stephens shares his favorite baseball video games from past to present.

Hey there, baseball fans. In this era of fantasy baseball, there is not much of an offseason to speak of. Even though the game we love goes on an annual hiatus, fantasy analysis is published year-round, meaning that once one season starts, preparations for the next one begin right away. While it is great to have access to new thoughts and ideas while the players are on break, just keeping up with the news isn’t the same as actually having a team to manage.

To scratch that itch during the offseason, or when preseason prep is starting to feel like a grind, I step away and immerse myself into the hobby that turned me on to fantasy baseball in the first place: baseball video games. Starting from a young age, I found the genre incredibly engaging, especially as the games and platforms evolved to their current states.

I’m already reaching a point where my mind feels a bit saturated with spring training overreactions, injury speculation, and hot takes. At the same time, I’m champing at the bit, ready for the new season to begin. To tune out the noise and quell this restlessness, I figured I might as well jump back into my old hobby before real baseball was demanding my attention again. Join me on a nostalgia trip as I look back at some of my old favorites to find some mindless, but still baseball-adjacent, fun.

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R.B.I. Baseball (NES, 1988)

My very first baseball game came to me the same Christmas my parents caved and bought an NES. The fielding dynamic was clunky, the game lacked an MLB license, and there were only eight teams represented, but I was six and got a kick out of seeing Nolan Ryan and Will Clark represented as little eight-bit snowmen and pretending to be them on weekend mornings.

Baseball Stars (NES, 1989)

A few years down the line, I discovered Baseball Stars at our nearby Blockbuster. I was enthralled with the level of customization allowed in the game as it was my first experience with create-a-player and create-a-team features, custom league configurations, and season-long statistics. All of these were saved to the game’s memory chip even after the console was turned off thanks to its innovative onboard battery backup.

Old Time Baseball (PC, 1995)

This game probably more than anything else is what stoked my earliest curiosity into fantasy baseball. A baseball sim at its core, the game was so rich in detail and depth that it had near-infinite replay potential. A player could adopt a team in any season going back to the 1870s and play it out, mix and match teams from different eras in a custom league, and even explore the histories of bygone stadiums.

Selecting an exhibition game brought up a selection screen containing the greatest teams of all time like the 1927 Yankees and 1968 Cardinals. From there, the player could select the era to play in which would affect the game physics to a degree, and then configure the game further by selecting from legendary broadcasters Curt Gowdy or Mel Allen to call the play-by-play.

Of course, my favorite mode was the fantasy draft, which was probably the first time I had ever heard of such a thing. Constructing a roster from a player pool of thousands that reached back to the origins of professional baseball wasn’t exactly a challenge given the volume of great players stretching over 100 years, but it was incredibly fun seeing what combinations of players I could bring together over and over again.

MVP Baseball 2005 (PlayStation 2, 2004)

This is probably my most frequently played title in this article. It’s also the sole reason why I have yet to ditch my old PS2 and the day that machine dies will be a sad day indeed. Its debut coincided with my college years and I don’t know how many hours I lost to it when I really should’ve been more focused on academics. Oops.

What really hooked me were the immersive franchise modes. In Dynasty mode, a player could draft a team, shuffle players through the minor leagues all the way down to Single-A, and negotiate trades with the game’s AI. Owner mode had many of the same features with the added responsibilities of managing a team’s finances by adjusting ticket and concession prices, negotiating player and staff contracts, customizing the stadium, and even relocating the team.

Game play was quite fun as well. Fielders were responsive and at-bats had a feature known as “Hitter’s Eye,” which allowed the player to guess the pitch type. Play-by-play was done by the dynamic duo of Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow, a special treat for me as I was a homesick Giants fan attending school in Southern California at the time.

MLB: The Show (Multiple platforms, 2006 - present)

The MLB: The Show franchise debuted in 2006 and has spent most of its run as a PlayStation exclusive until branching out to other platforms in 2021. My first foray into the series was in its second year, and I remember it being a buggy, frustrating experience. That didn’t stop me from picking up the 2008 version, which quickly worked its way into my regular rotation as it fixed most bugs and improved on the features of the earlier iteration. It also added unique animations to better reflect the batting stances and pitching motions of the game’s real-life counterparts.

The biggest draw for me back then was the new “Road to the Show” feature, which took the create-a-player feature most sports titles had to another level. After tweaking the mind-boggling number of characteristics and attributes attached to a player, it was drafted and then one had to play their way from Double-A ball up to the majors. While the franchise and this game mode are well known nowadays, back when I first dove in over 15 years ago, it was a fresh experience that set it apart from other baseball sims.

More recent versions of the game have expanded the game mode options to include "Storylines" and "Diamond Dynasty." Storylines allow the player to recreate historic games and moments featuring legendary ballplayers, often with specific challenges attached. Diamond Dynasty is almost like a game within the game. Players build a unique team, earn experience points, and level up while playing various single-player or online games. The newest version is slated to release on March 19.

My Pick

So, which title am I pulling off the shelf so I can plug in and unwind? As I said above, I have a real soft spot for Old Time Baseball and how it let me explore the history of the game. Sadly, my copy is long, long gone.

Fortunately, one of the game’s designers, Clay Dreslough, went on to produce the Baseball Mogul series, which has many of the features I loved in OTB. One can play a historical season, do a fantasy draft beginning in any year going back to 1901, or take full control of a team as owner/manager and try to build a dynasty. It’s a great substitute for fantasy baseball and one I’m looking forward to playing again soon.

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