Game One According To Ken Griffey Jr. Presents MLB

In celebration of both the World Series and video games, I will be playing at least four and, if, necessary, five, six, or seven games of the World Series on various excellent Major League Baseball video games. We’ll start it out with an old standby: Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball for the Super Nintendo.

Remember kids, illegal emulation is wrong, except when it feels oh, so right.

Now, to the game:

As Player One, I decided to choose the lesser of two evils and pick the Texas Rangers. This means I, as the Rangers, am the home team. That’s not how the real World Series will go. Deal with it

Poor defense in the first inning let down Mix (Kevin Brown) down as the Cardinals get on the board first, with Keaton (Mark Whiten) and Zeppo (Todd Zeile) received “RBIs” to put the Cards up 2-0.

The Rangers managed to force a run home on a successful squeeze bunt single off the bat of Lee (Ivan Rodriguez) in the second, making it 2-1 Cardinals.

The Cardinals threatened in the fourth, putting two on with nobody out, but a 4-3-6 (yes, that’s right) double play saved Mix’s bacon.

The Rangers had a threat of their own in the sixth with two on and one out, but a hit-and-run double play on a line drive off the bat of Earp (Jose Canseco) to first ended the inning. Who’s managing this team, anyway? Tony La Russa?

The Cardinals then extended their lead to 3-1 thanks to a solo home run by Gleason (Ray Lankford) against Mix in the seventh. Mix would finish the seventh and get the first two outs of the eighth before giving way, recording neither a strikeout or a walk. That’s a pretty standard game for Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball. Houston (Cris Carpenter) recorded the final out of the eighth without incident.

The Rangers rallied in the eighth inning, putting Boone (Julio Franco) and Todd (Rafael Palmeiro) on base to bring up the clean up hitter, Varyu (Juan Gonzalez). Varyu cleaned up, socking a home run and giving the Rangers a 4-3 lead, which they would hold on to thanks to a save from Alamo (Tom Henke). Moe (Bob Tewksbury), the Cardinals starter, ended up with the complete game in the losing effort.

So there you have it. The Rangers will win 4-3 tomorrow night on a home run from Juan Gonzalez against Bob Tewksbury. Remember, you heard it here first.

The box score (you actually can’t click to embiggen):