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Well, I’ve been playing Sony’s MLB09 The Show a lot (A LOT) on my Playstation 3 recently and – while I’m addicted to the game – there are HUGE problems with it. I like to share my opinion of those problems with people who don’t care to hear about them, so I fully expect to be banned from Sony’s forums soon. I’ll work on getting banned from Operation Sports later…

So I just made a post on Sony’s official forums that’ll make no sense to people that do not play the game, but I’s a-gonna repost here anyway. Mainly because I have a feeling it’ll be deleted.

So here’s my post:

Ok, its not really a secret. It may not seem like fair play or even a lot of fun. But it works.

There are two prerequisites: 1) You have to be able to get a legitimate hit (or two) in a game, and 2) you have to realize that in RTTS your team is irrelevant. It does not matter whether your team is 29 games back, your team is in first place, or if your team is playing in The World Series, bottom of the ninth, two outs away from winning it all.

Your team and their performance have absolutely nothing to do with your success as a Road To The Show player. Its all about YOU. Nothing else – only your performance matters. How many times have you been in a hard-fought battle with eight long innings behind you. The score is 4-3 in your favour when suddenly those dreaded words “Fast forwarding to your next appearance…” appear? Suddenly, you’re losing 11-4. Dayum!

My television and PS3 are WAY too expensive to smash in frustration, so I found an alternate route. Every single time there is a man on first with one out or less, I BUNT! The other bases don’t matter. Man on first, zero or one out, I bunt. Instant sacrifice, and occasionally a base hit to boot. Game situation doesn’t matter, as the dice roll is probably going to cause your team to lose, anyway.

The only time this doesn’t work is in Hit an Run situations – which you will fail by bunting even if you both safely reach base. That goal is just broken. Sorry.

Your “sacrifices” will add up, and are worth a heck of a lot more points than hitting into Double Plays. Those training points can be put into Contact and Power – eventually you will not need to sacrifice at all as you’ll be able to smack the ball around at will. I’ve had games where I got one hit and sacrificed three times. Instant 1.000 batting average for the game. Woot!

So screw your team – you’ll do them more good in the long run by avoiding double plays and improving your player through the massive amount of points garnered through the sacrifice bunt.

Next on the list:

1) The Sacrifice Fly. Men on first and third? One out or less? I be a-poppin’ that puppy to deep centre field!
2) The Assist. You mean I get more points by passing it off to a teammate than by tagging him myself? Well, I’ll be darned.

Oh yeah. That ought to piss them off.