In the year 2005, MLB’s Most Valuable Player awards went to Alex Rodriguez (AL) & Albert Pujols (NL). But any baseball fan under, say, 30 years old at the time knew the real MVP of the ‘05 season—the EA Sports sim that just might be the best baseball video game ever constructed.
A brief rewind…
I grew up playing various baseball sims in the 1990s and early 2000s—each with their pros and cons. Tony La Russa Baseball II was marvelous at simming stats and seasons—but this was often the gameplay experience.
Triple Play 2000 for the PC had a great Home Run Derby mode—but not much else. All Star Baseball 2001 was okay for the Nintendo ‘64 (I once played an entire season with the Boston Red Sox simply because I loved Pedro Martinez & Nomar Garciaparra)—but sort of a one-trick pony.
Then the Sixth Generation of video game consoles dropped—Nintendo Gamecube (my brand of choice), Playstation 2, Microsoft Xbox, & Sega Dreamcast—and I wandered in the desert of baseball sims for a few years. All Star Baseball 2002 for the Gamecube was atrocious, EA’s MVP Baseball 2004 was just okay, and Madden NFL games were SO GOOD at the time that I found myself playing a lot more pixilated pigskin.
But on May 18, 2005, EA Sports changed the baseball gaming landscape—releasing MVP Baseball 2005 for the GCN, XBOX, PS2, & PC. There’s a strong case to be made that no sweet-swinging software has surpassed it since.
What made MVP ‘05 so iconic? Let us count the ways…
Gameplay
Every solid gaming experience starts with, well, the gameplay engine. Baseball sims are notoriously terrible at this—usually on the “impossible to get a hit or even make contact” front. Somehow, EA developers hit the sweet spot (pardon the pun) of making pitching feel extremely smooth while also not overwhelming the batting experience. Having pitchers naturally wear down—and thus more difficult to execute Brad Radke-esque control—was a masterstroke, allowing for more action in the later innings. While playing MVP ‘05 against the CPU or friends/family, I had as many slugfests as pitcher’s duels.
Minigames & Unlockables
Have you ever wanted to take batting practice where you could smash suspended trash cans or tattoo roving tractors? Well, MVP ‘05’s hitting mini game is for you! Endlessly addictive.
On the pitching side, the hit-the-colored-squares bullpen mode let players sharpen their pinpoint accuracy on the bump. I don’t care how small those squares got—I was bullseye-ing them with peak Johan Santana.
I can also say with absolutely no equivocation that I unlocked more items in MVP ‘05 than any other video game I ever booted up. From classic players to old stadiums (the Polo Grounds!) to retro-jerseys (some going back to the early 1900’s!), I was motivated to rack up in-game achievements to access the likes of Harmon Killebrew, Rod Carew, Jackie Robinson, Babe Ruth, & Nolan Ryan (with whom I nearly spun a no-no) amongst many others.
Sox Synergy
With Manny Ramirez on the cover and the intro video leaning heavily into the magical 2004 Boston Red Sox run, MVP ‘05 felt in tune with the cultural zeitgeist. Sure, the Twins were my preferred squad—but I certainly played my share of Red Sox-versus-Yankees contests just to stick it to the Bronx Bombers in the digital domain like the BoSox had done the previous October.
Mic-men & Music
It was a genius decision to employee the vocal talents of San Francisco Giants broadcasters Duane Kuiper & Mike Krukow for the play-by-play and in-game banter. To this day when I hear them on the mic I think “those are the guys from the game!”.
EA Sports also had a knack for curating perfect sporting soundtracks—and MVP ’05 is no different. You haven’t lived if you never zoned out in mini games to Funny Little Feeling, Pressure Point, or The IROC Z Song.
The Little Things
- A full minor league farm system for every MLB organization
- “John Dowd” hilariously being the replacement for Barry Bonds, who was—of course—not part of the MLBPA licensing agreement
- The ability to charge the mound (hahaha)!
- A modding community that continues to this day. I had to see this first-hand, so a few months ago I garnered updated 2025 rosters. The amount of time and meticulous player-crafting by folks in the gaming community shows how beloved MVP ‘05 really is.
Alas, MVP ‘05 was a one-hit wonder. In 2006, EA lost MLBPA/MLBAM exclusivity—with 2K Sports swooping in with a better offer. 2K baseball sims had a few good moments—2K10 with Evan Longoria on the cover was solid—but overall they were fairly buggy. One edition had the persistent glitch of first basemen pulling their feet off the bag before recording outs. Another absolutely would not allow tags at third base—so base running was chaos.
In 2014, MLB: The Show became the exclusive home of MLB name-and-likeness. I’ve largely been out of the “new gaming” scene for a number of years now, but the editions of The Show I did play (roughly 2015-2018) were fun—if lacking the same charm as EA’s efforts (adolescent nostalgia probably plays a not-insignificant role here).
Like I said, I’m not much of a gamer anymore—that hobby having largely been replaced by cinema, scripted TV drama, & blogging with a bunch of crazy Twins die-hards (looks around and chuckles). But I do have a 4-year old nephew now and Nintendo does have a new console (Switch 2) out, so there’s a real possibility I might be dipping back into the likes of Mario Kart World or Super Smash Bros Ultimate soon.
But at a time—two decades ago—when baseball was still perched atop the American sporting landscape (perhaps more than ever thanks to the Miracle Sox) and I had just graduated high school (perhaps the most fertile time for gaming), MVP 2005 will always represent the zenith of that realm to me.
