1988’s RBI Baseball wasn’t the first NES baseball game, and
it wasn’t the best.
But it’s probably the most well-regarded of its peers, fondly remembered
by pretty much anyone who ever picked up a NES controller.
This is because RBI did some important stuff right. It’s
simple to pick up and play with intuitive controls but offers enough complexity
to warrant coming back. Then of course there are the players.
RBI Baseball was the first game to get a license from the MLB
players union, allowing 8-bit representations of real ballplayers. The
original featured the American and National League division winners from 1986
and 1987, plus two All-Star teams comprised of players not on the other eight
squads. RBI didn’t have an MLB license, however, so the team names are missing.
The two NES sequels added all 26 teams plus deeper pitching
staffs and the ability to manipulate your lineup prior to the start of the
game, features that were sorely lacking in the original.
That means that you can replace Cal Ripken Jr. in the Baltimore lineup with his
brother, Billy. (How many NES games, of any genre, feature Billy Ripken at all?
RBIs 2 and 3 are the only ones I’m aware of. I thought there was another one but
it turns out Bayou Billy is a totally different guy.)
Billy Ripken doesn't have the body to pull off that outfit
Billy Ripken became the Baltimore Orioles’s full-time second
baseman in 1988 because every other second baseman in the world was dead,
evidently. The nice way of saying it was he was known for his defense, but the
accurate way of saying it is he played 80-percent of his 912 big league games
for the franchise his father worked for and his brother was the star player of.
Billy’s dad and brother literally got him a job as big league ballplayer. Think
about that. When salty Twitter users tell white dudes to “check their
privilege,” they are all picturing Billy Ripken in their heads.
Billy's mama probably loved her boys equally, but you
can bet Cal Ripken Sr. did not. (When he died in 1999, Cal Sr. was memorialized
in the New York Times thusly: “Cal Ripken Sr. was wiry, blunt, quick-tempered
and given to salty language. He chain-smoked filterless cigarettes and had a voice
that, one observer wrote, '’sounded like the bucket of a backhoe scraping a
boulder.'’ You know he didn’t love Billy’s .318-slugging-ass.)
Let’s take a look at the comparative career
accomplishments of the boys Ripken:
• Cal
• Billy, on the other hand, had a .294 career on-base percentage and never hit more than four home runs in a season. The unquestioned highlight of his
career was his 1989 Fleer card, which in some printings clearly displayed the
words Fuck Face written on the knob of his bat.
Fuck Face. His nickname was Fuck Face.
Picture dinner at the Ripken house in 1988,
Billy’s first year as a full-time starter (for the season he hit .207, by the way, and had an OPS+
of 47, which is so disgraceful I don’t even know how to describe it to you.
Billy was to hitting what Tucker Max was to the written word, I guess).
“Aw gosh, it’s great, Ma,” Billy says excitedly.
“The guys all say I’m a real important part of the team. They even gave me a
nickname!”
Cal Jr., sitting across from Billy, chortles as
he pushes his pees around on his plate to make it look like he ate more of them
than he actually did. He whispers “Fuck Face” as he finishes his glass of milk.
“I think that’s wonderful dear,” Ma Ripken says
as she kicks Cal Jr.’s shin under the table. “What a special boy you are.”
Meanwhile, Cal Sr. sits at the head of the table,
head in hands with a lit Lucky Strike smoldering between two weathered fingers,
pondering his glass of Wild Turkey and his good fortune that the Lord at least
saw fit to grant him one son he could be proud of.
Billy claimed 20 years later that he’d written
the name on the bats himself so he could tell which were his for batting
practice. I would have thought he’d cook up a better story than that after 20
years, but at least he’s got a sense of humor. From a CNBC story in 2008: "Fleer
sent me some of the cards out of the goodness of their heart. I autographed
them and used them for my gifts to my groomsman in my wedding (which took place
that offseason). I figured, at the time, it was better than giving them a set
of cufflinks. I think I devalued the cards by signing them though." –
Billy Ripken.
So in summation, here’s Cal Jr.’s career:
And here’s Billy’s:
Billy might point out that he was a big league
ballplayer for 12 seasons and that I have literally pretended to be him on
video games, but to that I say it’s not my fault my old man owned a cheese
store instead of managing the Baltimore Orioles. That’s my dad’s fault.
Now….. what was I talking about again? Oh yeah!
RBI Baseball.
Final thoughts: These games are a hoot, though
the gameplay is a bit slow compared to some that came after. I wouldn’t
recommend, for example, trying to play RBI immediately after you play Baseball
Stars on NES or Ken Griffey Jr. on SNES. The reduced pace is glaring in
comparison to other “arcade-style” baseball games.
Even if the games were total garbage, however,
they’d be worth playing simply because of the rosters. If you’re a fan of 1980s
baseball like I am, the appeal is undeniable. RBI 3 had a nice feature in that
it included all the 1990 teams plus all the division winners from 1983-1989. It
should be noted that the two sequels opted for a graphical change in a seeming
attempt to be more “realistic” but in effect robbed the games of some of the
original’s charm.
RBI was resurrected in 2014 but from what I’ve
read the new games are bum-shit sandwiches. Here’s hoping they make RBI 2016
and it’s a decent effort. If it’s not, the old games still suffice.
