But not in MLB 21. I’m just doing MLB 20 and I don’t have an intention on getting 21. I came to MLB The Show late. In fact I’d never even heard of it because I stopped gaming 10 years ago when I started taking bass lessons and then got into a couple of bands.

While I was in the local thrift trying to score some cheap vinyl records late last year, I spotted a copy of MLB 16 for like 50 cents. Covid had killed the gig scene for the time being and I was still working from home, so I’m like, sure why not try this. I had a PS3 that hadn’t been powered up in a decade. But I’m a baseball guy and it seemed interesting. Well I had a great time with that. There were no servers up, of course, so I didn’t experience Diamond Dynasty, or any of that. Diamond level gear was available by default, so I just used it and was cool.

Eventually I scored a PS4 Pro for cheap and MLB 20 was going for $10 new on Amazon, so I got it. And I was completely overwhelmed with all the different aspects. Diamond Dynasty? Trading cards? Conquest? Moments? No idea what that’s about. I just wanted to play some baseball with better graphics. But I did some research, gave it a good try, bought some cards, traded some cards and once I wrapped my head around it all, I realized I didn’t want to make a career out of this video game. I just didn’t have that kind of time to kill.

At that point, I sold everything to get stubs. All the cards, all the gear I wasn’t using, everything. Every time I got a card, I immediately sold it. I turned my DD team into a bunch of faceless nobodies. Then went to the market and started buying stuff, and soon realized that I could usually sell gear on the market for many times what I paid for it. That was cool. It was a nice feeling when my buys and sells went through and I accumulated better and better gear. Meanwhile, my stubs bank account was steadily going up. It was like playing the stock market. I played a few Conquest maps just for the stuff I might get, but never did the strongholds, because I had neutered my team, lol. Moments are a time sink, but they are pretty cool. By now my guy has mostly Diamond level gear and I’ve 75,000 stubs collected from card/gear sales, so I’m straight. I can just play it like this and not think about the rest.

I hear MLB21 has a lot of issues and the fact that it seems tied directly to DD makes it a non starter for me. And it saves me from buying a PS5, since I don’t have time for a bunch of games anyway. The fact that they have 21 patches on it tells me it wasn’t ready to release in the first place.

There are a couple of things I miss from MLB 16, like being able to track the ball as I’m running with the R1 button, stealing is harder and sliding doesn’t really work with classic baserunning. But other than that, I love MLB 20. Hitting seems easier in 20 vs. 16 so I don’t have to juice the sliders to make some progress. It’s a pretty good looking game, and the idea of using a “loadout” like some first person shooter to play baseball isn’t appealing to me. I can just fire up this old game, play awhile, and then get on with my life.

Anyway, sorry for the long read. But I’m kinda excited to just play some virtual baseball.

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