002 · BASEBALL
Read: Is NES Baseball haunted? →
In this episode we take a look at Baseball, a 1983 arcade game based on... you guessed it, baseball.
See below for timecodes to jump ahead to a specific section. For more on 10-Yard Fight and EVERY NES game be sure to check out NEStalgiacast.com. At our website you can find detailed information about every game we play, our ESSENTIAL GAMES LIST, and links to our Twitch, YouTube, and more!
00:00 - Welcome!
00:35 - What we mean by Chronological
01:49 - Introductions
02:08 - First Impressions
04:53 - Fielding
06:40 - Hitting
08:05 - Pitching
09:56 - Strategy
11:15 - Sam's Game
13:20 - Joe's Game
14:20 - HBP?
15:04 - Sound
15:55 - Other Thoughts
18:09 - NES Remix
19:52 - ESSENTIAL GAMES LIST
24:28 - MLB: The Show
26:11 - Post Show: Real Baseball
Baseball was one of the NES launch games, and our verdict came out the way the room reacted to it: this is definitely baseball, and it does nothing to sell you on baseball. It is a game full of clever ideas that gets too many basics wrong, and it asks for a lot of patience in return for a little fun.
What it gets right
- Smart controls for a two-button pad. There is a lot to learn, and the manual is worth reading. You can pick your pitch, steer the ball after it leaves your hand, pick runners off, send or hold them with the D-pad and B, and shuffle around the batter's box (we think of that as an ancient cousin of the "guess the pitch" feature in modern games). Joe, who defended the game, was impressed by how much you can do, Sam admired how many solutions Nintendo found to the controller's limits, and we liked it more than 10-Yard Fight.
- It really is baseball. The rules are all there. Getting a full game of baseball onto the NES in 1985 is an achievement on its own.
- Little touches. The teams are real-style clubs shown only as a letter and a color, and the original Famicom version used Japanese teams. We loved the whooshing sound of the ball. It also lives on in NES Remix as a single bottom-of-the-ninth challenge, which we all agreed is the best way to play it.
Where it falls apart
- You can't field. The outfielders are slow and clumsy, sometimes seeming to jog away from the ball, and you can't move them. Hits turn into runs you couldn't have stopped, so scores run wild. One of our games ended 14 to 13.
- It tells you almost nothing. The pitcher shakes his head and lingers for several seconds before every pitch, and nobody could tell whether that was a hint or just animation. The ball passes right through the batter, so there are no hit-by-pitches, and we never saw anyone walk.
- A tie is the end. If you finish nine innings level there are no extra innings. The game just stops.
- It's silent. No music, thin sound effects and no organ between innings. There is no atmosphere at all. We called it minimalist baseball.
- It's exhausting. Nobody enjoyed a full nine innings. Sean quit in a rage down 15 to 0 in the fourth inning, and nobody else ever got past five innings of a game.
Two players?
We never tried it, but we wondered whether sharing the odd controls and frustrations would make a head-to-head game better or much worse. A Twitch duel was promised.
The bottom line
Skip it. It is a fun look at how Nintendo tackled a sport with so few buttons, and it is worth a quick try for that, but this is not an Essential NES game. Every other baseball game on the system will give you more, starting with the ability to field, and nobody on the show voted it onto the Essential Games List.
Written from our conversation in this episode.
Found automatically from the transcript and checked, but it can miss things or pick the wrong page. Spot a mistake? Tell us.
Games
- Baseball mentioned at
The episode's game: Nintendo's launch-day NES baseball game, a port of the 1983 Famicom original.
- 10-Yard Fight mentioned at
The other NES launch game, covered in the previous episode, also a simple sports title.
- Backyard Baseball mentioned at
A computer baseball game with a jingle for every batter, which the hosts wish this game had.
- NES Remix mentioned at
A Wii U and 3DS series in which Baseball appears only as a bottom-of-the-ninth challenge.
- R.B.I. Baseball mentioned at
A later NES baseball game one host remembers being more fun than this one.
- MLB The Show mentioned at
The modern baseball video game the hosts say shows how far the genre has come.
Hardware
- Nintendo Entertainment System mentioned at
The console Baseball launched with in October 1985; the hosts also compare it to the Japanese Famicom original.
- Wii U mentioned at
One of the platforms NES Remix was released on.
- Nintendo 3DS mentioned at
The other platform NES Remix was released on.
Companies
- Toys "R" Us mentioned at
One of the stores where you could pick up the NES at launch.
- Circuit City mentioned at
Electronics retailer another host remembers buying the NES from; the story is saved for the post show.
Teams and leagues
- MLB (the league) mentioned at
The league whose teams the game's single-letter squads are based on.
- New York Yankees mentioned at
One of the real MLB teams the game's letter-and-color teams stand in for.
- Detroit Tigers mentioned at
Another real team the game's teams appear to be modeled on.
- Philadelphia Phillies mentioned at
A real MLB club the hosts spotted among the game's teams.
- Boston Red Sox mentioned at
A real MLB club the hosts spotted among the game's teams.
- Buffalo Bisons mentioned at
The Triple-A team near where two hosts grew up; its location and parent club are a running joke.
- New York Mets mentioned at
The team one host adopted after a trade-off with their friend's Buffalo Bills fandom.
- Buffalo Bills mentioned at
The NFL team the other host was made to adopt.
Terms and events
- Hit by pitch mentioned at
The ball passes straight through the batter in this game, so a hit by pitch never happens.
- Extra innings mentioned at
After a tie in the ninth inning this game simply ends instead of playing extra innings.
- Perfect game mentioned at
The hosts joke that a perfect game is impossible when you can't control the fielders.
- T-ball mentioned at
A beginner version of baseball one host played as a kid.
- Little League Baseball mentioned at
The youth leagues everyone enjoys until it stops being fun, according to the post show.
- Seventh-inning stretch mentioned at
The ballpark tradition with its own song that the hosts find charming.
- Kickball mentioned at
A schoolyard variation of baseball one host was famously bad at.
Articles, videos and sites
- Game manuals (NES manual archive) mentioned at
The instruction booklet Sam studied for ten minutes to make sense of all the controls.
Other
- NEStalgia Essential Games List mentioned at
Our Hall of Fame of NES games still worth playing; Baseball did not make it.
- Shea Stadium mentioned at
The Mets' old ballpark, where planes landing at LaGuardia flew overhead, which a baseball game once recreated.
- LaGuardia Airport mentioned at
The New York airport whose planes flew over Shea Stadium.
Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.
Welcome to Nostalgia. In this episode, we're talking about baseball.
Alright, you're here on Nostalgia, and this is the chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America, chronological meaning of course, in order, and nothing would sound better than another NES launch game, right boys? That's right, another sports game at that. Another sports game at that. Now just for the record, just to clear up a little something here in terms of chronologicalness, if that's a word that you can say. Nope. Okay, cool, you can't say that, but we did because you can't tell us what to say on the radio.
In terms of chronologicalness, you know, you might be wondering like, oh, was baseball really the second game? Like, no, they all came out on the same day, and that day is actually like, kind of up for grabs, because retailers didn't really like, release things at the same, there was no agreed upon date for things back then. So the general census is October 1985, on a specific day, you could go to your Toys R Us or what, you know. Circuit City. Circuit City, that's a great one. I have a Circuit City story, maybe for the post show.
And you could just kind of, you know, pick it up, the NES. And that was with these launch games. And so we're kind of, when they're falling on the same day, or they don't have a specified day, they just have a specified month, we're just going to do the one that goes in alphabetical order. So first was 10-yard fight, which is a number. Numbers always come before letters. We're learning. That's just a given law in society. They don't teach it at the school. That's one of those things you've got to figure out. That's a screen skill. I learned that the hard way. You accidentally do it, you go to jail, and then when you come out, you're like, okay, now I know. Mm-hmm. Cool.
So, very quickly, let's just go around the room for those of us who don't, well, we know each other, but for the people at home who don't know us, let's talk about who we are. I'm Michael Esposito. I'm Joe Castu. I'm Sam Smith. And I'm Sean Tresmond. Alright, guys, let's get right into it and talk about baseball.
That was the name of the game. There was no fun. I love how definitive it is. Like, this is baseball. It's like, all of a sudden, when you get the card, you're like, oh my god, baseball. It's also very hard to Google. They just, yeah. It's also just as boring as regular baseball.
Boom! Sam, do you want to take us through initial impressions? Yeah, I mean, it's not that it's boring. So, what I do before all of these is I look up the manual, right? And I was staring at that thing for like 10 minutes, I think, just trying to make sense of it. Not that it was difficult, but there's just so many different things that you need to learn how to do that I feel like, I mean, like, maybe if you've played baseball games before, you would know, but just kind of hopping into this. Some things just kind of, you had to...
So, you didn't know how to do it. You don't really come from a baseball background. Like, you didn't know the rules necessarily? Or you feel like you still knew the rules, but there was just a lot of controls to learn? Oh, the controls I'm talking about. I know how baseball works. Alright, cool. Nice. So, yeah, I actually really liked kind of the controls. I did it a little differently because I went in without looking at the manual, which is what I did with 10-yard fight, which worked fine for me.
But with this, I was like, at first I kind of was thinking like, oh, so there's a lot you don't have control of when you're fielding. Until I looked at the manual and I was like, oh, they actually kind of came up with solutions for all the like, all the limitations that the controller had. Like, a lot of solutions for like, I mean, you could try and pick off the runner, which I didn't think you'd be able to do because there's only two buttons on the controller. Which is something that the computer tries to do an awful lot. The computer does try and do that a lot.
Sorry, I'm getting ahead of my... My initial impression was I was actually, I think I liked it more than 10-yard fight. I was pretty impressed. Okay, Sean? All right, creative solutions to control issues and trying to simulate as much of baseball as possible. Aside, I rage quit this game through my first actual game. Through your initial impression, a rage quit happened. Yeah. All right, I love that. I can't wait to talk to you about the rest of this game.
Cool. And then just real fast, my initial impression is, yeah, this is baseball. Like, definitely baseball. And to Sam's point, this is like, for people who think baseball isn't fun, this enforces that rule. Yeah, it says like... This does not sell you a lot of baseball. It doesn't. Right, I can agree that if you already like baseball, I don't know, maybe, I mean, you like baseball. I think baseball is fun. You maybe didn't like this game as much, but I kind of liked the game.
I thought it was, yeah, like you said, it was baseball. They accentuate all the boring parts of baseball. So let's get into it then. Let's just jump right in there. And Joe, you kind of seem to be the person who liked this game the most. So defend it. Yeah. So I don't want to say it was like absolutely amazing or anything, but I was just as a launch NES title.
I mean, I was, I thought it was pretty cool that you could, you know, everything that you could do, which again, was kind of reinforced by the fact that I didn't look at the manual at first. So then when I discovered it all, I was like, oh my God, you can actually throw different pitches or you can, you know, even just like there are issues with fielding definitely,
especially with like how slow the fielders are. And the fact that you don't control the fielders. Yeah. It blew my mind when I really, I thought I must be doing something wrong. That was part of it. I was not reading the manual, but I was picking it up as I was going along as far as I could play without actually quitting the game. Did you ever read the manual? Never read it. There is a lot of like multi button things that like I never would have guessed. I'd love to hear what you have to say.
Whenever it went into the field, I wasn't screaming at my TV, but it's definitely the most clumsy fielders I've ever seen in a video game. I know that they're trying to show you that your left and like your midfielder, your left fielder, your right fielder are far away. So they're not moving very fast, but they still have to show up on the screen.
But like, they're not moving. They're not even moving towards the ball. Yeah. That's the most frustrating part. I agree with that. It's like all of a sudden it feels like, oh, this is a, and this is actually something different than I guess than what I'm about to talk about. But I was thinking like, oh wow, this is a pop up. Like, no worries. Right. And it's like, but my player's not getting that. Yeah. You know, it was like, what's going on? Like you hit the ball and it seems like, you know, it's going to be the same thing. Like, oh, they're never going to get that thing. And then they just like scoop it up and they throw it to first and you're out.
I wonder, I don't know the difference in difficulty and like if it can get, if it gets any different. But for me, the AI in this game was challenging. See, I had a kind of a weird experience because my first game, I was really good at bat. Like it was, I hit a home run, like every other pitch was a home run.
And then I wasn't so great in the field. So it ended up being like a really high scoring game. And then my second game, I mean, I had picked a different team. I don't know if they got as in depth to make, I doubt it. I think it was just something, something that with the way I was playing. But the second time I was way better in the field and I was terrible at bat. I kept grounding out. I'm pretty much every, every pitch I grounded out. Did you, did you move around the batter's box at all? I did once and I never did. I tried it. I don't know if it was like helping me with my reach or anything.
Yeah. I don't know what it was to help me. If you're on an inside pitch and you don't have enough time to move your guy like further outside the box. And I, and it was hard enough trying to just read like, is this going to be a ball or is this going to be a strike? And forget about like your own pitching. Awesome. I have no idea if I can throw a ball. Yeah. There's also like, I think I can only throw strikes. When your guy swings the bat, you have to make, you have to hold down the button. Otherwise it doesn't swing all the way, but you can't check swing.
So like what, there's like, I think that has to do more with where you're trying to hit the ball. Like, I, I, yeah, that's what, that was my guess. Honestly, I think that the moving around the batter's box is like an archaic version of like the guest pitch feature in a lot of the recent games. I do think, yeah. And I think like also there might, there might be like some kind of like, if you move further out of the batter's box so that your thicker part of your bat hits the ball, it might go out further. That's what I'm thinking for like inside pitches.
Right. Like outside pitches seem fine. I don't know. There's so much this game doesn't communicate to you. Another big thing for me was sometimes my pitcher would, you know, like look like he's ready. You know, he's looking at the catcher for the read and he shook his head like, no. And I'm like thinking like, is he telling me that he doesn't want to throw this? I knew about the D pad that you can change the pitches. Yeah, you can change the pitch you want. And so I was like, does he not want the fastball? Like, is he saying that the AI is going to hit this better?
I think it's just like, never communicated. I think what happens is, well, I thought that too. I think what happens is, the pitcher just like has a motion that he does, where he just like, the animation is he bends forward and he just kind of shakes his head a couple times and then he goes up into his position and then you can pick the pitch. I think he's looking at runners. No, and then he picks off the runner and then he picks off the runner again and then he throws the pitch. No, no, your pitcher I'm saying.
Oh, okay. When you're pitching, you can't just pitch. You have to wait like six seconds for your guy to finish shaking his head and then get on the mound and then you can pitch. And it's like, why? I already know what I want to do. It's just, it's like those boring moments they kept in baseball. Yeah. Like all the waiting.
Simulation. Yeah. All the waiting around for things to happen. That's in this. That's the part that you like. I didn't mind it. What I did mind is that I couldn't tell if it was just a cool little neat feature of like, hey, this is just like the real game where the pitcher looks at the catcher. Right. Here we go again. I don't think baseball is that boring. If you're there, if you're watching it, then like maybe.
Okay. There's a lot going on in baseball, which is why I liked that there was a lot going on in this. But I mean, I'm defending it a lot, but it definitely had a lot of issues. There were a lot of like really interesting things that they were able to put into this game. But it just, I think it just highlights the parts that they weren't able to get into it. Like the fielding is just so, like I can pick what kind of pitch I want and where I can control the pitch after I let go of the ball. But I can't field, you know, it's like I can't move anyone in the outfield.
I had no idea how to advance runners. This is something I should have like read the manual for, but every hit was a single. And it had something to do, and I'm trying to remember exactly, but you, on the D-pad you press the base you want to go to and hold that and press B. And then they'll go to, and that's how you throw to those bases too. It sends a runner at that base.
This probably explains the rage quit a little bit. Do you want to tell us a little bit about this game that you have? Yeah, I started off normal enough for the first inning was scoreless. And then the second inning I was down 1-0. And then the third inning I'm down 5-0. Which is fine, I had a bad inning. And then I just couldn't hit. I got a couple singles. And then in the fourth inning I'm down 15-0.
And that's where I stopped playing the game. So I played it enough to absorb all of these cool like, oh yeah, you could do this and that and the other thing. But I played it a lot less than you guys. I think despite the frustrations I still had a pretty fun first game. I think the games are pretty intense. But yeah, no. In a sense, I'm sorry, intense isn't the right word there. What I mean is, you're never like comfortable in this game. Like you might think, oh I'm up by seven runs. I got this in the bank. But then your fielder will just like chase after the ball. Chase after the ball. But so my game, I was going and they scored a little bit because I was trying to figure out the controls and everything.
Even though I looked at the manual. And then I kind of got the hang of it. I scored. I got a home run that felt really good. I got a second home run at one point. That was pretty sick. It was going back and forth a little bit for a while as I was kind of getting used to the controls. And then going into the final inning, into the ninth inning, I tie the game to score. And then there, I'd score at the tying run and then I'm out. So the score is like six to six or something like that. I have to hold their team before I can go into the tenth inning and do extra innings. Which I assumed there would be, but there are no extra innings if you tie. You just tie. I was so frustrated.
I was like okay, and I finally did it. I was like oh, I actually held off the opponents. When you tie, it actually goes to a black screen that says you're on your way to the Super Bowl. Yeah. It's so bad. When you tie, it's like well, that's the game. I'm like that's not the game. Were these released together actually? Sorry, this and 10 yard fight? Were they like on one cartridge? Same. Oh no, no, no, they were not. No, no, no, yeah, yeah, yeah. They were separate cartridges. You were paying full money for each of these. And I think talking about baseball, the high scoring games for a second, my game final score was like 14 to 13.
And I think that that's way too many runs in it. And that's the normal occurrence in these games too. It's like the fielders are just so bad in both teams. The fielders are just so bad that it just makes you like, I don't know, it just, it's like any time I think I'm doing good, it's like nah, I'm just gonna blow up. It is a trade off. It, it, it, you, they have all of these little things that remind you of how slow baseball is. They have, you have to wait for the, the pitcher to, to crash down, get stretched out, look at it, look at all the runners, talk, like have a mini conversation with his catcher.
Um, so you have to balance that with these extremely high scoring games. Right, right. To actually make it worth playing in front of your TV. And I, I, I still never really had a moment where I felt like, wow, this is moving really slow. But ironically, while I was just listening to Sam, I was thinking, cause he was talking about the ninth inning and tying, I was like, I don't think I finished a game.
I think I only played like, I don't know why I didn't just play a full game. I think I played like five innings of two different games. Cause I just wanted to see if anything would change if I like, if I pick different teams or anything like that. But, uh, but yeah, I, I don't know if I would play nine in, nine innings of this game because it's, it's cool to play it. It's exhausting. It's exhausting to get to a full nine inning. The thing is, it's like, it's intense that when you're playing the game and like you can come back and you can prevent them from scoring.
But also there's just so much random stuff that you can't control that just gets frustrating. Because if you're, if you're doing really well and then they just hit, you know, a grounder to the outfield in between right field and center field. And your guys just decide that they're going to take forever to get there. And they don't know which way the ball is. And they don't know what, I don't know. Then you say like, yeah, throw it. And then it takes forever for them to throw the ball.
So we talked about, we talked about, uh, you hit two home runs in your game. I hit a home run too. Did anybody actually get walked though? Did any? No, I was throwing balls, but I was never walked. And I, and I was hit, but like it goes right through me. It goes right through me. I was thinking, but it just, no, it doesn't, it just a ball.
It like went right through my batter though. But did you walk or no? No. Why would they program that the ball could go into you and not program that like you needed to fight it? Well, I don't even think, I think they were just like, I think they just programmed where the ball could go and forgot that there's going to be a batter there and like never made like a hitbox or anything. Didn't have enough space to program. I mean they would have to, it would be kind of complex because there are left and right handed hitters in that. So you'd have to wait for these, you'd have to like make this a hit by pitch area.
One other thing I wanted to talk about was that, I mean there's all this space in the game and there's no music either. Oh yeah, yeah, no music. And again, again, no more no music. And the sound effects aren't really all that great. Like when you take something like backyard baseball where every time there's an at bat, you get like a little, it's like a little jingle. We want a batter. No, just like a batter.
Oh yeah, even stuff like that. Right, right. And then like that's it. Even just a little like, yeah, I know what you're saying. Even between the innings it would have been nice to have like a little organ thing or something like that. Yeah, that's what I was, I want the organ. There's no atmosphere in this game other than the fact that it's like, yeah, it's long. Yeah. Minimalist baseball. Yeah, it's minimalist, yeah there we go. Another minimalist sports game for the launch titles. Yeah. So one thing I wanted to mention is we were talking about, and I asked the walk thing out of curiosity and then I'm glad that that led to a hit by pitch, but can you imagine pitching a perfect game?
In this game? Yeah, I don't know. A perfect game means that no one got walked, no one got on base. Like you just... No, that's like, that's impossible. Not that you struck them all out, but that like no one got there first. Especially because you can't control the fielders. Right. So if there was a hit you couldn't even like make sure it was caught or like, it's probably not going to be caught. In games like this I even wonder like, is there, there's gotta be some cheating. Like behind the curtain of like, whatever you're going to input, they're gonna hit. They're gonna hit the ball. Right, right, right, like yeah. I don't know. I wonder... No, I agree with that.
There's a two player mode in this, right? Yes. Yeah, I wonder if that's more fun because you both kind of have the weird controls and the frustrations on your side. Right, right. Or if that would just be even worse because then you're more competitive. I think that's a good point. You might have to find out on a Twitch stream pretty soon. Okay. You might have to load this bad boy up and see a real duel.
So then one other thing that I thought was kind of interesting, the teams that are represented, even though they're only represented by a single letter, they're actual Major League Baseball teams. Yeah. It's actually like the Yankees and the Tigers I think. I think it's the Phillies too. The Phillies and the Red Sox I think as well. I don't know, I just picked the P team. Yeah, and they have the Red. Yeah, and it's very interesting that they chose to go that route and I went a step further and found out that in the original release on the Famicom, they were the Japanese teams.
Oh, that's cool. So they were different too and they were the Japanese baseball teams. So that was like a nice little touch. And I didn't really realize that, I kind of suspected but I didn't really look too much into it, but sort of the colors correspond with the letters. The colors correspond with the letter, yeah. And that's like the only, no stats change or anything like that. I think all the players from 1983 were in this stat wise. I wonder where that stands in the whole, oh this is an officially licensed game, but I wonder where that stands as like maybe that's one of the first games that even tried to do that.
Yeah, like had teams. To have it be in some sort of realistic situation. And I'm sure they get away with it, I think they probably would have had to license it if they said, this is the Yankees, like they probably would have had to pay for that. And they said this is the dark blue Y team. Yeah, the dark blue Ys are at it again. Real fast, just before we go into our essential games, which I'm sure everybody's dying to hear what we think if this one makes it or not. An interesting thing to note is that this game made it into NES Remix. And I don't know if you guys know what that is, but basically for 3DS and Wii U, they released this series called NES Remix.
Interesting. And this got into it in a weird way. It's in the original NES Remix pack and it's a bonus challenge. And the only challenge is it's the bottom of the ninth, it's 0-0, you only have the 3 outs, and you have to try to win. That's the only thing that is going to be. I actually think that's a better way of playing the game. Maybe 2 or 3 innings, but... Just one half of an inning.
Oh, it's just bottom of the ninth. It's just bottom of the ninth. You don't even get to field? You don't even get to field. That makes sense then, yeah. It's just bottom of the ninth. I think honestly, that's a great challenge. That's the challenge of this game to begin with. And I'll be honest, at first, I thought maybe I was controlling the fielders, but I couldn't tell.
I was like, is this in my input? Do we really see? You're still doing it. You're your little brother. You're your little brother with the unplugged controller. I was like, you're controlling the fielders. No, but I was like, am I suggesting which direction they go? And then I was real upset that I couldn't tell how high the ball was, so I couldn't tell if I was going to catch it, like how far back I'd go. And then I realized it doesn't matter that you can't tell because I'm not controlling any of these players. One thing I did like was the sound of the ball going. I love the little slidey, you know, size. Yeah. Well, for realism.
Yeah. Have you ever played baseball? Yeah. It sounds just like that. It always makes that sound. They actually have like, they put a little bug in the baseball. Yeah. That was my favorite part. We used to have a guy that we hired to make the whoop sound in the baseball. That was beautiful. I thought that was just the umpire's job. I think that was one of my favorite parts of the whole game. Okay. Very nice. Yeah. Alright, so let's move into our Essential Game List.
Alright, so as many people probably don't know because they probably just skipped tenured fight and somehow they love baseball so they wanted to find out what happened here. Essential Games List is just a portion of the show where we basically decide if this game makes the NES Essential Games List our Hall of Fame, if you will, only not from the context of, you know, this deserves to be in the NES Hall of Fame because it's a good NES game.
I'm talking, you got your PS4, you got your PC, all the hottest games that are coming out now, whatever next gen consoles come out if you're listening to this in the future, you got those games too. And it's like, you hear about baseball for the NES and you're like, oh, I wonder if this is like, essentially, should I play this game? Is this a part of the NES DNA?
Well, we'll tell you right now. Sean? I have a little bit of a preface, but this goes for, between the two games that you've heard us talk about so far, between Tenured Fight and baseball, I think these games are a little different because not only are they NES games, but they're also sports titles. And I think sports games are different in that they are so similar just by virtue of trying to simulate the same thing, that it's still interesting if you're a fan of that sports game. It's always interesting to go back and see how did they do this back then. So I would still recommend looking at these games, but these are not essential NES titles.
And I already told you that I couldn't finish one game. So this is not on my list. I love that you couldn't finish a game for the record. Like, that is such a, people must feel cheated, but what the listener has to understand here is that like, this could happen to you. Like you could think like, I'm gonna prove them wrong. Baseball is an essential game.
Go in there and I guarantee you, some of you, not all of you, there will be some people that will hear me say, you know what, Mike's a jackass. Like, screw that guy. I'm gonna go ahead and beat this game. But other people will know, eh, this isn't for me. Sam? I think that, let me, alright, it's a Friday night, you don't have a lot of things to do, right? Is this gonna become your shtick? I love this. This would be, this would be a great drinking game for one time.
What are the rules? Between two people. Like, drink every time the ball is in the air for that many seconds. Or something like that. Or drink when you don't, drink when you don't have control of the ball. You know, like you hit it and then you just start drinking. Mm-hmm. And you try and finish your, your beverage before the next person. It should be a week better. But if it keeps, yeah, but if it, if it goes into the outfield, you have to keep going. You know? Uh, and besides that, I can't see this game getting to any, uh, any, uh, any playtime. And also, you only play that drinking game one time. And then you're dead. Yeah, no, this one goes in the jank folder as well.
So, Joe, uh, it's up to you to, if you vote yes, there's a chance. If you vote no, it's officially off the list. Okay, look, I, I had fun. It was fun to me. I mean, it was, it was definitely not an essential game. And I, I even remember when I was younger playing a different game and I think it was RBI or something. It was another game. RBI baseball, yeah. Yeah. I, I, I, I'm remembering, I mean, these are like my memories of when I was seven years old. So maybe I'm misremembering it, but I remember it being more fun than this. I didn't think it was terrible. I think it might be more enjoyable with two players, but definitely it wasn't anything to write home about. So I wouldn't say it isn't essential.
I think that every other baseball game on this system will offer more. And that doesn't mean that they're going to be better. Hopefully they will be. We'll find out in time, but I think they will definitely offer more. And just by more, I mean the ability to field. You know, I guarantee no other, no other baseball game on the NES will make that mistake again. And you know what? I don't know what I'll do if they do that, but I'll tell you what, that game will also not make my essentials.
I guarantee if it doesn't let you field. I think that there's so many components to baseball and there's so many things that this game got right about it. But the only things when you really look at that is the rule book, you know, like they got the rules right. They were able to program baseball on the NES. I guess that's all you can say about this and 10 yards. Yeah. And we did say that on the 10 yard fight episode.
Again, we are looking at this in a modern setting. Like, is this worth playing again? Right. It's still, it's still pretty cool. I think what's boring here is we're, we're talking about baseball when MLB the show is out. And I would love to take any kid who played baseball at that time, grab them in a time machine and just show them the show.
I'm sure they'd be like, why are you showing me this? Like, there's so many other things I could be seeing in the future, but just showing them like, look at what baseball has become on video games. Like the show is a, like, this is a plug. This is a freaking plug for the show right now, but that is such a complete baseball experience. And just like, really, really just shows off like why people who love baseball, love baseball.
This never, this is not a game that I would be like, you know, my girlfriend, I would be like, Hey, you know what? You want to love baseball? Let's play baseball on the NES. Like guarantee you we're never going to a game.
So that's my verdict on that. Uh, so unfortunately, sadly, we are still, uh, empty at the essential games. It might be a while. It could be, it could be a while. If we get an essential game. And that's all the time we have for this episode of Nostalgia. Join us next time for Clue Clueland. And be sure to play it yourself if you can. For more Nostalgia, please subscribe to our podcast wherever you listen. And be sure to check out NostalgiaCast.com.
That's N-E-S-T-A-L-G-I-A, cast.com. On the website, you'll find links to the show and show notes, as well as our other platforms, such as Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. Thank you so much for your support of Nostalgia. We thank you for spending time with us. I'm Michael Esposito, and you can find me on Twitter at Esposito Film, and I'll talk to you soon. Good night. Welcome to the Post Show. The Post Show. You're entering the Post Show. Imagine a world where we talk about baseball and it's not a video game.
Cool. So, Sean, I get the feeling that growing up in Buffalo, you didn't, you know, there wasn't really baseball surrounding you. You didn't really grow up on baseball. See, I didn't grow up on baseball. I went to a handful of Bisons games, which is our AAA affiliate, which bounces around the league. So let me ask you... I really don't know who they're with right now. Maybe Toronto? I think it's Toronto again. I don't know. I thought it was Cleveland. Oh, it could be Cleveland now. It could be Cleveland now. Anyway, no one cares about where the Buffalo Bisons are playing in the nation.
You can go to that game, buy seats for like $5 and sit in front of the umpire. Like, you know, it's the catcher, you, then the umpire. I feel like we switch roles where like you made me adopt the Mets, whereas I made you adopt the Bills. And I think that's a happy trade-off. I think so, too. You know, we're both miserable. All the time. One thing I wanted to point out is this is America's pastime. You know, this is a big deal.
Baseball is a big deal for America. And I just feel like... Why did you want to point this out? I wanted to point that out. I'm laughing so much, but I'm kind of being serious. It's like, people like, people shit on baseball so much. And I just feel like baseball is like... I love baseball. This is just you being really insecure about your baseball. I was pretty rough. I can not be romantic about baseball. I was pretty rough on baseball, I feel like, in the beginning of our nostalgia.
You said it was boring. I said it was boring, but like I grew up with baseball like a lot. Like when I was a kid, I was playing like willful ball with my parents. And I was playing t-ball. And then I went through like every league of baseball up until high school when people started getting really good.
Right. That is actually a true thing. It's just like everybody enjoys a little league and then there just becomes a moment where you realize like... It's like, I don't want to actually do this. Yeah. And like, there are parts of it that I really loved and I like going to games and I don't like watching it because I think that's like a little bit... I think even when you go to a game, right?
It's like, you're under no obligation to watch all nine innings. Yeah. It's being in the ballpark. Yeah, that's fun. It's getting the hot dog. Yeah. There's like parts of it that are fun and it's like a fun thing to have on in the background. Who doesn't like... I don't know. But the seventh inning stretch. Like that's so fun that they have like a song and everything.
Yeah, that's cute. It's cute. It's nice. And like when you see a really good baseball game, there's nothing... I feel like there's nothing like it. Because it's like, in some ways, it's like a really... It is like one of the best sports I think. I went to a... It's like, hey, there's this little ball. How fast can you throw this little ball in this little square? And how hard can I hit it? Yeah. It's like, well, I don't want you to throw that little ball over here. I'm going to get over there. You know? It's just kind of like... It goes through their head at every pitch. There's a simple... There's a very simple nature to it that I really like.
And the fact that people are so good at throwing this little ball into this little square, I think it's just really... I think it's great. But this game was... The game was not... I didn't get that feeling. The video game. Yeah, the video game. It's such a data-driven sport too. Like, there's just so much information and it's just a statistician's... Statistician? Statistician's like dreams. It's an anesthesiologist's dream. I mean, I... They dream a lot. I enjoy the...
I mean, I still like watching baseball and I do enjoy being at the park. But I think it's rare. Like, it's such... It's so different from every other of the... Of the big four sports or just any other sport that's played in any level in America because it's... Because of its pace. Like, every other sport is so fast, at least when they're in play. With the football, you do have to wait between plays. But like, you really can't just relax while you're there. But like, when you're at... When you're watching baseball or when you're at the park, you can just focus on the atmosphere.
And it's not just about like, I gotta pay attention to the game, guys. And I think that even though I was giving the show a lot of praise, I would love to see a game that gets the atmosphere like, so right down to the fans' point of view too. Because even in the show, a lot of those fans are like, just copied a thousand times over. That's just... No, I don't understand. Like, there needs to be... Someone needs to like... For me, I thought atmosphere was going good in baseball games when they were able to program the planes flying in over Shea Stadium because they were landing in LaGuardia. And I was like, oh shoot, how do they know? How do they know? They did research on LaGuardia.
Yeah, we're all from New York. No, it's funny that you said to Sean that you said growing up in Buffalo, I imagine you weren't a baseball fan because I also grew up in Buffalo. I feel like I was like really exposed to baseball. But who do you root for? I mean, Red Sox is like my family's team. I don't really foul it as much anymore, but like that's why I say I'm kind of like... The rest of my family is still really into baseball. I like baseball, I don't really watch it. But I played growing up, I mean like recreational leagues and stuff like that. When you're from a team that doesn't have a team.
Right, that's true. Especially when you don't... I guess Toronto is the closest team, but like... But I feel like everyone up there, I don't know if you feel the same way, everyone up there is for the Yankees. Yeah, which is why, I mean for some reason just growing up my dad was a Red Sox fan, so I just inherited that. But I was always like the odd man out as far as being a Red Sox fan.
But yeah, I mean, so I felt like I was really like... Baseball and hockey I was just like really exposed to, and I didn't get as very into them like my brothers and stuff did. But I felt like Buffalo was like... I didn't get the feel of like Buffalo's not a lot of baseball in Buffalo. Interesting. Okay, and you know this post show is going on a little long, but one thing I have to mention is like all the variations of baseball too that kind of exist. Like, you know, things you don't think about too, like kickball.
You know, like these things are like, they're integral to your childhood, and I'm sure we all played kickball growing up and stuff like that. And it's just like, that's baseball, but you kick it. You know, it's like everything else is pretty much the same thing. Why isn't there a league game? Oh, you can peg. Yeah, yeah, I hated that. Oh, yeah? Just because I would probably get pegged. I wasn't that great at kickball. I was one of those guys that probably like the ball came rolling, and I like lifted up my leg, going for the kick, completely missing. And it's like, how do you miss that big red ball? That's me. I think that's a good note to end. So Sam, can you just log into your computer and end this podcast?
And not that this needs to be included, but I do want to point out that when you were talking about kicking a big red ball, your foot was inches away from a big red ball that's in this room. That is important to note, and that will make it to the post show. We're not going to talk about the bottom. Thank you.
