MLB The Show Is Unveiling Their New Cover Today, But Who Deserves It The Most?
This past weekend was the first weekend without meaningful baseball in the last seven months. So, I did what I do every offseason, and that’s sit in front of my TV and watch MLB Network until blood comes out of my eyes. During one of the several hours that I was parked on my couch watching the 24/7 baseball channel, a Mike Trout special came on. Why’s that relevant here? Well, I’ll tell ya.
Being the baseball guy here at Barstool Sports, I am constantly defending the sport against the “Baseball is boring” crowd and the “Baseball is dying” crowd. Neither of which are true. However, I recognize that the league most certainly has a “Face of the league” issue and they’ve definitely had their problems with getting their product in front of a younger audience. I can only speak for myself here, but when I think back to how I grew up watching baseball, how did I get exposed to the superstars in the game beyond my hometown team? Video games.
Not only was Ken Griffey Jr. on the cover of baseball video games in general, he had HIS OWN FUCKING VIDEO GAME. He’s such a star that he was on the 2017 cover and he’s been retired for seven goddamn years. And he achieved all of his superstardom while playing in SEATTLE of all places. Do people recognize Seattle as a big market? No. Is Seattle a hotbed for producing superstar baseball players? No. So, why do we use those excuses today for Trout?
Think about it — what do kids like? Video games. How do you get your stars in front of kids? You put them on the cover of the fucking video games they’re playing and make them seem godlike. HOW IN THE FUCK HAS MIKE TROUT NEVER BEEN ON THE COVER OF MLB THE GODDAMN SHOW? HOW! Someone please explain this to me! It is absolute LUNACY.
Now, before you take this the wrong way, there are other guys who I wouldn’t mind seeing on the cover this year. After the Home Run Derby, there was plenty of talk about Aaron Judge being the new face of baseball. What else to kids like? Superheroes. Judge looks like he was plucked out of a friggin’ comic book, somebody slapped a pinstriped jersey on him and threw him in a batter’s box to crush baseballs into outer space. Perfect guy to market the game to younger kids.
What else do kids like? Someone who they can relate to. Someone who gives them hope and inspires them to chase their dreams because their hero accomplished something at a great disadvantage. Jose Altuve is a legal midget who’s about to win the American League MVP award and a World Series title a few weeks apart from each other. There’s another great pick for the cover.
But then I think back to when I was a kid and the era in which I grew up watching, and uh…they hit a lot of home runs in that era. So, who better to be on your cover than the guy who came within one home run of blasting SIXTY bombs in 2017? Sure, you’d have to change the cover after he gets traded this winter, but fuck it. Giancarlo Stanton is a bonafide superstar and the perfect player to be labeled as the face of the game in his own right, even more so if he actually ends up on a contender in the coming weeks.
You wonder why the 25th most popular player in the NBA is more popular than the most popular player in the MLB, and maybe it’s because we’re cycling old stars onto video game covers to sell more video games. It’s like how the WWE brings back old guys from the Attitude Era to main event and sell pay per views, and then they wonder why they can’t build new stars when they’re bringing back nostalgia acts to bury their current talent. All of those superstar baseball players that I just named as potential candidates have never been on the cover of MLB The Show. Figure it the fuck out.
Update: Reportedly, it’s Aaron Judge. The MLB The Show official Twitter account just tweeted that we’ll “find out tonight”, but this dude seems legit. I saw the “leaked” cover, but it looked photoshopped as hell and probably is. Either way, if it is, in fact, Judge on the cover, then MLB made the right move by going with the larger than life, marketable star. But for fuck’s sake, what else does Mike Trout have to do to get on the cover? Christ.