If you were to somehow find a time machine and jump back to the summer of 1999, you?d be able to witness the birth of an obsession. Upon exiting the DeLorean you?d find a much younger version of myself, helplessly engrossed in Ken Griffey Jr.?s Slugfest on Nintendo 64. I am still at a loss as to why the game took hold so ferociously, but I literally would play that game until my thumbs blistered over. That is not an exaggeration. I was a really dumb kid. However, in my defense, those damn control sticks were so rigid they could have been used to slowly etch the faces into Mount Rushmore. Ever since that fateful summer I have eagerly awaited the arrival of April, and my yearly dose of grand-slamming goodness. And just to bring things full circle, Ken Griffey Jr., the man whose game so deeply imprinted on my childhood, is striding back to the plate as the official face of MLB The Show 17. If that isn?t a good omen, then I don?t know what is! Keeping Baseball Alive
If MLB The Show was a political candidate, it would have been running unopposed since 2013. Though the lack of competition is an easy recipe for complacency, Sony San Diego has somehow managed to keep expectations high and the bar of quality even higher. Even more promising is the fact that this is the first season without the release of an accompanying PlayStation 3 version. The entire studio was able to singularly focus on the current generation version, and it definitely shows.
Where some seasons tend to be mor...