Video Games: Revisiting “Major League Baseball Featuring Ken Griffey Jr.”

Revisiting “Major League Baseball Featuring Ken Griffey Jr.”. How a 22-year-old video game still holds up after all this time.

As the whole world stocks up on toilet paper and fresh meat, I’ve been looking for ways to keep myself busy while practicing social distancing. In doing so, I dusted off my old Nintendo 64 and popped in “Major League Baseball Featuring Ken Griffey Jr.” (I didn’t even have to blow on the cartridge for it to work).

I rarely missed a sports video game release as a kid. I must have had multiple dozen NBA Live, MLB 2K, NHL, and Madden games growing up.

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Currently, in my early 30’s, I couldn’t even tell you which console I had which game on. I just know that I had them – only for the same $60-$70 games to be in the “$9.99 or less” rack less than a year later when the newer and improved version came out.

Now, after having Ken Griffey Jr. invite me to play Major League Baseball, an opening that every baseball gamer could easily identify, I jumped right back as though it were 1998.

After spinning the “menu ball” a few times, I decided to play an exhibition game between the unbeatable Seattle Mariners and my former “amours”, the Montreal Expos (who in this parallel universe were still 6 seasons from moving to Washington DC).

Admittedly, I chose to be Seattle, a team stacked with cheat codes such as Griffey (rated: 10 in batting & 10 in power) and Randy Johnson (the man with the 106 MPH “super fastball”). After many “shadow ball home runs” (for me) and many “yurrr outs” (for the computer), the exhibition contest finished as a runaway 36-1 victory for Seattle – the lone run against, coming off of an ill-advised diving catch attempt by Jay Buhner (more known for his “rocket of an arm” than his defensive prowess).

The tiny yellow hitting circles of the now-defunct Expos were no match for Johnson’s slider or even Heathcliff Slocumb‘s change-up in the 9th.

There have certainly been other sports video games that have stood the test of time, but perhaps none more than the “Angel Studios” made baseball game. It may have been the most perfect arcade-style baseball game ever created.

Every last detail was simple, yet intricate, right down to the accuracy of the carnivorous Olympic Stadium in Montreal. As time stands still in our everyday lives, I’m guessing that won’t be my last exhibition tilt before current big leaguers are asked to come back to work and “play Major League Baseball” once again.