With Rich Hill’s retirement, Justin Verlander is now the sole remaining player from the original MLB The Show game
Time does that.
I love how pretty much every sitcom even up until now has a gut punch of a finale. I’ll still never forget when Steve Urkel got shot in the face and bled all over Laura Winslow.
Laura never got over that, but Carl had enough of Urkel.
Love triangles are a nasty business
How can you say that about Carl (Laura’s Dad)? He did it because Urkel almost beat up Harriet.
When Steve looks at all the blood on Laura and weakly said “Did I do that?” As he loses consciousness. That was sitcom back in the day.
At the end of “Dinosaurs” they all freeze to death.
Alf being captured
Hol up! WHAT!?
ALF was captured by the Federal government and then the show ended.
Family Matters had some crazy shit go on behind the scenes
Remember when this GIF slammed shut the White Sox competitive window? the Pope does
The Pope might excommunicate the entire Northside.
If they were moving out, why did they leave the rug?
Courtesy gift for the new owners
So the floor wouldn’t get scratched up when the new owners moved their furniture in.
If I know anything about courtesy rugs it’s because there is water damage under that thing.
Don’t be a cynic.
That was me in 2022 when Pujols retired. That time playing backyard baseball 2003 with my favorite pros is now long gone
r/retiredgif
Not many players left who pitched at old Yankee Stadium.
I still keep expecting Greinke to announce he’s coming back to get 3,000 K’s as a knuckleballer or something to get the number back up
He’s coming back as a full time shortstop, but will hit 3k coming in to pitch as a position player
and 1 more HR and SB
All I heard was grienke is coming back for 3000 hits
If he comes back it’s as a DH
Who’s left?
Not a pitcher, but Andrew McCutchen played in the 2008 Futures Game at Old Yankee Stadium
Him and Scherzer might be the only ones left
Scherzer didn’t face the Yankees until 2010, so it may well just be Verlander.
Depends if David Robertson pops up again this season?
Was Verlander announced by Bob Sheppard
Definitely, there were a few years of overlap
Now I feel old as fuck. Clemens high heat to Rodriguez. Like it was yesterday.
Is anyone still active from Ken Griffey Jr.’s Slugfest?
I’m pretty sure there are none left from that era :(
Their kids are playing now, sheesh
And are league MVP competitors sometimes. We’re old. =[
Paul O’Neill is probably still beating coolers on the Golf course
He lives in the same community as my grandmother and I kinda want to see if I can find him on the course there See if he breaks the coolers
Adrian Beltré was 20 years old in 1999 and he made it to the 2018 so probably the last one.
I think the last player would have been Bartolo Colon.
I think Slugfest used 1997 rosters and came out in 1998.
Colon played the longest of that 1997 draft class and that’s what I was looking at. There might be guys that were rookies before 1997 and played longer but I’m shitting and out of shit.
Came out in Spring of ‘99
It uses rosters from the 97 season though.
No one in the 98 rookie class is in the game.
If you count MLB Slugfest then Justin Verlander.
1999 was 26 years ago.
Pretty sure Verlander is also the last player represented* in MVP 2005 who’s still active as well.
*Not by his real name or likeness though. Long live Johnny Snare!
Fuck that exclusivity agreement. Killed all baseball games.
Can’t be said enough.
2K did that in response because they lost the NFL license.
Did it? MLB 2K still ran until 2011 or 2012, finally died due to quality more than anything
It did. The whole thing was a failure, the 2k series became junk after junk while the show was the only good game out but it was PS exclusive. MVP was so much more fun. The 2k series was ok at best. I miss when we had 4+ options, the all star series was great too.
I’ll always love 2K5 for using the baserunning method of running faster the faster you tap X so I could go 40⁄40 with Frank Thomas and Posada
Out of the Park Baseball is still around too but obviously a very different genre of baseball game.
Hard disagree. 2k08 was a great game. If you liked MVP and picked up 2k08, you would have liked it. 2k poached a couple of devs that worked on MVP, and it showed
The problem is that the baseball video game market is really niche. There simply isn’t the demand to support multiple developers really pouring huge amounts into developing an MLB game. It was an arms race when 2k got the 3rd party exclusive agreement, and while you could say EA had the 2nd strongest product on the market, at that point the product Sony developed at 989 Sports which turned into SDS was already the best in the market. If you had a ps2, it was already the game you were buying and people were already opting for Sony hardware because of the console exclusive baseball game
2K didn’t penetrate the market enough with 08. SDS subsequently poached the guys they took from EA. 2k just packed it in from there on out until discontinuing the product
If there was no deal, EA and 2k would be competing over a declining market and SONY would always have the incentive to make theres a little bit better because it also drove hardware sales for them. SONY’s ability to do that would have only grown as we entered the current era of sports online gaming because while what made their product better in the mid-oughts was subtle, come the time when we are all playing MUT and DD, they could have just added one more card to every pack than EA would in its game, and other things like that just made there product a better deal
The NFL deal is even worse. NFL renegotiated the exclusive 3rd party rights deal for Madden until 2030 iirc. Thing is, EA initially said no because even they were seeing how Madden was being perceived in recent years and wanted more competition. The NFL was the one pushing for exclusivity this time around.
I still haven’t played Madden much since 04. I’ve downloaded the free versions just to dab but that’s about it.
I doubt EA didn’t want to go to 2030 because they want competition
I bet it has to do with other terms. I wouldn’t be surprised if their deal prevents them from operating sports gambling and they probably want to figure out how to merge sports betting into their product
In 2004, EA was paying $60 million per year for the exclusive license
Now, they’re paying $300 million per year for the exclusive license
Interesting, the NFL might kinda have them in a corner, where they’re only willing to sell EA the license if EA is paying for exclusiveness
Meanwhile, EA knows that the barrier of entry is high for other studios. Its not as if 2k is ready to bring their own product to market should EA no longer have the exclusive license
There is no free version as you have to pay for EA play.
Funny thing is 2k8 was the first one I didn’t buy.
I dont think the show ever had a franchise mode as well done. Like some features are definitely missing from the shows franchise mode. You would get messages between seasons in 2k8 saying that a pitcher added or dropped pitches from their arsenal
The show misses this evolution.
Also, some guys can only pitch to one side of the plate in real life. The show misses this, 2k8 got it pretty spot on
i cry becase nintendo had something called pennant chase baseball and it actually looked decent but died way late in development
Apparently Japan has a really good baseball game but it’s NPB only and probably not translated. It looks so smooth.
Baseball games Sports games!
ftfy!!
I liked MVP 06 and 07
at least there was still one decent baseball game after that agreement. there hasn’t been a single good football game since madden signed that deal
I dont think Snare was based on Verlander. EA made a bunch of fake minor league players to populate the farm systems. Every or had a 5 star player. They had like 15 different players and duplicated them across systems but altered the name. So for example, the Mets and Dodgers had the same 5 star prospect, his name was Inoue in the Mets farm and Thomas in the Dodgers farm
The fact that the 5 star prospect in the Det system was a RHP and Verlander was in the system is I think happenstance
I’ve seen this list in a few places, which places Verlander as Snare. According to a Hardball Times article:
Dowd also unofficially made a top 100 list of prospects for MVP 2005 and gave the players the names of MVP development team members, family, friends, and other acquaintances. He then stashed them in teams’ Double-A squads–a fun Easter egg for those in the know. For example, the Smallenberg triplets on the Yankees Double-A team are Dowd’s best friend from high school, his brother, and his father–all Yankees fans in real life.
I don’t know if he’s ever confirmed the list that’s out there, but it was done on purpose. And yes, that’s the Jon Dowd.
Dowd was definitely Bonds. The red sox also had a guy who was a scab in ‘94 and had a characature put in their place.
That list is happenstance though. Someone looked at the minor leaguers in each system relative to the fake prospects and connected dots that don’t really connect. Mets are a perfect example, the guy who they say Tucker is, Petit, he wasn’t the guy they would have made a prospect based off of. Plus, Tucker wasn’t even the best prospect in the Mets farm system in the game. It was instead a 2nd baseman, Inoue, who was based off no one and a mirror image of Thomas, a 2nd baseman in the dodgers system, also based off no one.
The developers created a bunch of fake prospects and randomly assigned them, in some cases it looks like there was a real life connection
Edit: SF had a 5⁄5 prospect whose name was Kuiper. That was definitely intentional
The red sox also had a guy who was a scab in ‘94 and had a characature put in their place.
Kevin “Don’t let the Sox win tonight” Millar
his name was Inoue in the Mets farm
I don’t care if he’s fake and from a video game. The Mets would have made the playoffs if they called up Hideki Inoue in 2005.
I always traded him. While the game had the potential ratings available to manipulate, and you could make guys 5⁄5 stars, there must have been a hidden archetype for each player. Inoue was the 5⁄5 potential speed archetype. His contact would get solid and he’d get as fast as the game allowed, but he couldn’t hit for power, and this was MVP ‘05, not MVP ‘85. There was no space on my roster for a 2nd baseman who could hit 20 dingers
Iirc TEX had an 5⁄5 potential 2nd who would hit for power. I normally swapped them straight up
Missed it by one year! 06 rookie.
I only started playing in 2020 so I do not know if there are any legends players who have been in the game since its first installment, but Verlander is the last remaining player who is active through every entry
Diamond Dynasty wasn’t a thing until The Show 15 or 16. Not sure if there were past players in any games before that
The early MLB The Show games (‘06-‘07) had two legends teams consisting of players from baseball’s “golden” and “silver” eras
Some older games had players already pre downloaded, I definitely remember on MLB 2K5 there was a team that included people like Yogi Berra and Reggie Jackson, I just don’t know if The Show did
Diamond Dynasty was introduced in 12, but it wasn’t really the same mode as it is now
Well 15 is when the community market and the reward system we know nowadays was introduced. Then 16 introduced BR and conquest.
16 was the first year of the Diamond Dynasty we know today, so that’s what I’d put the marker at for first year of the game mode
Actually. It started in mlb 12 the show. You had some real players but you mostly had generated players and you had to rebuild your team every 20-30 games.
NOO DICK MOUNTAIN, ERODED.
Even the tallest and most erect of summits is just as vulnerable to the sands of time.
This is how I learn Dick Mountain retired? My heart breaks anew
I wonder how many 40 year olds will even be in the league next season.
Chris Martin and Yu Darvish will both turn 40 mid-way through the season.
The other 40+ year olds or soon to be are all free agents: Verlander, Morton, Gurriel, Scherzer, Robertson, Turner & Santana.
Verlander, Robertson, and Scherzer will find contracts if they want to play, everyone else might be hearing the bell toll
i bet Turner and Santana could find a contract if they wanted to as well.
Though JT seems more like a “turn him into a coach!” guy atp
It really feels like it’s become an exclusively young man’s game focused on peak performance in the physical prime. I remember there being spots for older bench players/pinch hitters and lefties out of the bullpen, finesse innings eaters. Not so much a thing anymore.
I still have this odd memory of being excited when Yu was added in the roster update for 12. It was my first mlb the show on ps3 at launch therefore my first big roster update and having online play. Ahh memories.
Any players left from 2008 MLB Power Pros? Or am I just old af
It’s just Verlander, Cueto (still hasn’t technically retired and is currently pitching in the Dominican Winter League despite not playing last year), and Scherzer (though he’s in the game as Great Ortiz but he appears fully in the Japanese version with an updated roster). If you extend it to the Japanese-exclusive 2009 it’s them and David Robertson assuming he signs with another team. 2009’s World Baseball Classic mode does also include Aroldis Chapman, Yuli Gurriel, Liam Hendriks, Kenley Jansen (before he converted to a pitcher and was still a catcher), and Yu Darvish though.
Down from two dicks to one
dick fitts will pitch as long as he needs to, until the next worthy Richard appears to continue the legacy.
im just hoping zack grienke is kinda, sorta carrying the torch for mvp baseball 2005 if he comes back
The world needs a hero
Oh GOD. Also I felt weird in showing this headline to my wife and going, “I think it started in 2006?”
And apparently I nailed it.
(Playstation 2 Startup Noise)
I remember when JV was a rookie :(
My favorite pitcher of all time.
This dude could go out and pitch with a 5 ERA and I’d still love him. I might not have him on my playoff roster, but I’d still watch every game.
Don’t you mean Dick Mountain’s retirement?
Julio Franco being in MLB 06 the show means players on that games roster spanned the 1982 season through at least 2025.
THANK BASED RAKE-MAN
MLB2k15 was better anyway
And honestly Triple Play never gets enough love
2K15 never existed?
It’s a mod for pc for 2k13 and it’s amazingly well done
Verlander is also the last active MLB player born before I was, as I’m a few months older than Max Scherzer.
The same was true with Zack Greinke and MVP 2005. I know Verlander was in MVP as a fake minor league player, so it may or may not count depending on how you see things.
It’s impressive that Verlander’s career has lasted so long, and sad for us 90s/2000s kids that he’s the last bastion of our childhoods (in video game form, at least).
This is like that episode of Louie where he’s dating a girl with daddy issues and he tells her he’s older than every (then-current) player except Jaime Moyer.
Rich was my Jaime Moyer.
I think the last active member of Backyard Baseball 2001 was just elected to the HOF today.
I hope Ben and Meg are doing alright
Until he comes back to get #15. He’s timeless.
I am pretty sure there are no players from RBI Baseball 4 left, either. I played that game for so many hours as a kid.
Only a handful of players left from pre-2010.
JV (FA), Scherzer (FA), David Robertson (FA), Ottavino (FA), Justin Turner (FA), Andrew McCutchen (FA). I cant think of any more, feel free to add on.
Joe Mauer is in the Hall of Fame… we’re the same age.
Never forget Dick mountain
That the last of the MVP 2005 guys?
He just needed one more team to break the record. Damn.
With Rich Hill’s retirement, 2026 might be the first baseball season of my life where I’m older than every major leaguer. If he pulls the magical midseason appearance again though…
That’s it. The last remaining player who is older than me has retired.
I think this also makes Verlander the last rostered player from The Bigs
And tbh the graphics are still the same.
I jest, but PS5 has been out for how long now? And they still are releasing it on previous gen engine. Embarrassing.
Grown men who publicly admit playing or knowing about video games are sad. Doubly so when you have sense enough to like baseball.
……. Why are you hating on people who like video games?