Retro Gaming: Baseball Stars for Nintendo

Growing up, and still to this day, I have always enjoyed playing sports video games especially when you were able to play against someone else. I spent hours and hours of my childhood doing Nintendo battle against my friends on the field of Tecmo Bowl, the court of Double Dribble, the rink of Ice Hockey, the ring of Pro Wrestling or in Konami’s Karate Champ or Track and Field to name just a few. Even though it could be glorious to defeat a friend in a head-to-head match-up and earn those trash-talking rights, it was all erased the moment you turned off your system. You also had to use the players provided with fixed pre-determined skill levels and attributes. That was true until Baseball Stars came along.

Baseball Stars changed the game (literally) and was truly ahead of its time when SNK brought it to market in the summer of 1989. What made the game visionary and special is that it was the first baseball game to have battery backup. The awesomeness of this cannot be understated. It was similar technology to what was used in The Legend of Zelda a few years earlier. First, it allowed you to play a season and the game’s memory chip kept track of your team’s record and statistics over the course of that season. Second, it allowed you to create your own team and name all of your players. Third, for each victory you were awarded dollars which could be used to improve specific skills for each player on your team. You could now play a game with longer-term goals than just winning an individual match-up. Who would think that little battery backup and memory chip would make that big of difference, but it did. Now I not only wanted to beat my opponent, I wanted to accumulate the best statistics and create the most dominating team over the course of an entire season. And best of all, you could shut the system off and come back the next day and all of your work would still be there!

This was revolutionary to me and is likely (if not certainly) taken for granted now as EA Sports took it to a whole other level with Madden Football, NBA Live and their other sports titles in the 90's. Baseball Stars combined acceptable gameplay with advanced memory options to create a new sports video game experience. It would be difficult to estimate how many hours we dedicated to this game, but it had to be in the hundreds if not thousands. One specific thing I remember is that you earned the most money by beating an all-female team called the Lovely Ladies. Baseball Stars did not have any Major League Baseball licenses or affiliation, but since you could create your own teams it allowed you to create your own MLB team and/or players if you wanted or even put yourself in the game. During a season, you could view the league standings and top ten leaders in statistical categories like batting average, home runs, RBIs, pitching ERA, pitching wins, and saves. Each individual player’s batting average and home run totals would be shown when that player was up to bat. These previously unavailable options held my interest and earned my dedication. And all thanks to that little battery-powered memory chip. Like many, I moved on to more advanced sports games with better graphics, better gameplay as well as real licensed team and player names. But it all started at the end of the 80's with Baseball Stars and that game will always hold a special place to me for exactly that reason.

Thanks for reading and please share your memories of Baseball Stars if you have any! You can always read more at my regular blog Kickin’ it Old School (http://OldSchool.tblog.com) including many exclusive interviews and Top 10 lists. Please also like us on our Facebook page (http://www.Facebook.com/KickinItOldSchool80s/) and be sure to follow us on Twitter @OldSchool80s (http://www.Twitter.com/OldSchool80s/).