MLB Showdown: The greatest card game ever played by not that many people

In light of Bill Simmons' recent article about the National Sports Collectors Convention, I thought I'd share what I feel is one of the most underrated games of all time, and it's not a video game.

It's MLB Showdown and it's actually better than a lot of video games. It combines the nostalgia of collecting baseball cards with the sim-playing ability of Strat-o-matic.

Lost in the shuffle of the seemingly hundreds of different companies manufacturing baseball cards these days, Wizards of the Coast released versions of the baseball card game from 2000-2005.

Wizards of the Coast is the same company that gave us Pokemon cards and maybe gets a bad rap from the sports gamer because of that. Also, the game was being made in an era where kids played video games mostly and probably hadn't heard of Showdown either.

I don't get it though, when did collecting baseball cards become something that wasn't cool anymore?

I remember starting at a young age and then from third to fifth grade a lot of the boys in school really got into it too.

It was awesome.

You came to school everyday with your cards in your backup and during breaks put your best on display and traded with your buddies. What could be better?

Then suddenly kids started to separate into classes and cool kids immediately stopped collecting.

I hate those kids.

These are also the same kids that will begin to think playing poker is cool just because you can gamble on it. Well, you can gamble on anything and sports happens to be the best thing in the world to gamble on.

If you're going to be sitting at a table with your friends holding cards while you bet money based on your strategy, why not have baseball players on the cards instead of stupid hearts and spades?

The problem was that the only kids who collected, played sports, and the cool kids usually were those who played sports. That meant that if no cool kids were collecting, I was left as one of very few who still found collecting to be dear to my heart.

So it wasn't until sixth grade that MLB Showdown came around and it was a huge hit for me. I got to combine collecting cool-looking baseball cards with a fun and easy to play game that got you stats and a great simulation. I couldn't stop singing the song, "Heaven Must Be Like This."

But I was also quoting a line from the Matrix at the time: "Not like dis, not like dis." Because I couldn't get anyone else to open up and stop acting like this wasn't the coolest thing ever and play with me.

Eventually I would convince three others to take part in this magical experience, but they lost interest eventually.

After going solo for the next few years, creating fantasy leagues and rolling the dice while playing games against myself, it would take until now, 2009, for me to try to ressurect the game with my roommate: one Koby Garick or Gasick, whichever you prefer.

And it worked. Obviously he liked it because it is sick and there is no reason not to. Plus, he's not fronting like so many others in this world.

After a few (or 25) purchases from eBay, I've done my best to complete most of the sets from the six years of MLB Showdown, at least the best cards.

Now I am able to sit down after a long day of working at the campus library, and enjoy a nice relaxing game of Showdown while frantically taking down all of the stats.

I guess now's a good time to explain the game a little more.

There are two types of cards: pitchers and hitters. Each pitcher has a control number and each hitter an on-base number. Each player also has a chart with what outcomes for each roll.

As the game goes, the pitcher will roll a 20-sided die and add their control number. If that total is higher than the hitter's on-base number, then the pitcher has the advantage. If it is lower then the batter does.

Next the hitter rolls the die and then looks on the player with the advantage's chart to see the outcome.

And that's really all there is to it. There are a lot of advanced rules as well which can be found if you search on Google.

This is a game worth checking out. If you are leavig the stage where people still pretend to be cooler than others and you like collecting baseball cards and playing simulation baseball games then this is for you.


Thank you my name is Andrew.