SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Few contemporary sports video games enjoy a lasting shelf life. With annual rollouts and minimal year-to-year change, the average title seldom maintains cultural relevance past the year it was published. In the cases of Madden, MLB The Show and NBA 2K, fans often complain that every “new” game is the same as the previous year’s title.
It’s for these reasons that MVP Baseball 2005, released 20 years ago today, so special.
The final installment in the MVP Baseball series, MVP ’05 is as old as Giants’ top prospect Bryce Eldridge but still considered by many to be the best baseball video game of all-time — if not best sports game of all-time. The unexpected demise of the series rewarded MVP ’05, the best and last title of the bunch, a borderline martyrdom status. Two decades later, fans still wonder how the series would’ve evolved if the plug wasn’t pulled. The run was cut short, but to Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow, the voices of the game, there’s no shortage of pride when they recall the classic they helped create.
“What it means is that we did it right,” Krukow said. “We did it with passion. It was received with passion. When you can do that to an audience, they will remember.”
Around September 2002, Krukow and Kuiper were approached about being the voices of the MVP Baseball series. Kuiper speculated that they were chosen because Electronic Arts is headquartered in Redwood City and the game’s developers had likely heard the duo on the air. Krukow worked with Ted Robinson on World Series Baseball, a different baseball video game, the previous year, but Kuiper had no previous video game experience. With an opportunity bring Kruk & Kuip into the virtual realm, they both jumped at the opportunity.
“We really had no idea what we were getting into,” Kuiper said. “We had no idea how hard of work it was.”
Kruk & Kuip recorded the bulk of the lines for all three games during the fall and winter of 2002, recording updating lines for MVP ‘04 and MVP ‘05 as necessary. When the Giants lost to the Anaheim Angels in the 2002 World Series, the recording sessions became, to Kuiper, “therapeutic.”
The recording process began while the Giants were still playing regular-season games, meaning Krukow and Kuiper had to adjust their gameday schedules. Several times a week, they trekked to the EA Sports studio in Redwood City before home games and recorded over four hour sessions, breaking for lunch halfway through. Once they wrapped, they’d drive to the ballpark and nap in their cars before beginning their actual jobs.
“You ran out of voice right around the fifth inning,” Krukow said. “I’m not kidding. You only have so much voice. Then, all of a sudden, your throat gets dry and it gets a little raspy. It wasn’t as bad for me, but for Kuip, I really don’t know how he did it. It really kind of felt like you were doing a doubleheader.”
The majority of their work required reading a script. For Kuiper, the game’s play-by-play broadcaster, that meant handling a fair amount of grunt work.
Each game contained hundreds of players and dozens of ballparks from both the past and present. Kuiper, who admits that he’s not good at pronunciations, was responsible for saying them all. Not only did Kuiper have to say every name, but he had to say every name with different inflections depending on the scenario. While monotonous at times, Krukow and Kuiper both offered praise for the employees who created a memorable working environment.
“It was just like the stars were lining up because there was not one person on that crew who was jaded,” Krukow said. “Everybody was talented. Everybody had energy. Everybody had a clue as to what they were doing. They just wanted to get the feel of a game. The whole motto of EA Sports is, ‘It’s in the game.’ They really lived it.”
“It all had to be done, and it all had to be done the right way,” Kuiper said. “We plowed through it and really had a lot of fun doing it.”
For all the line reading, Krukow and Kuiper were afforded opportunities to adlib.
On several occasions, they parked themselves in front of a television, watched gameplay footage and called the game as if it was really happening. The producers then took several phrases from these freestyles and incorporated them into the game. Kuiper’s signature home run call — “It is outta here” — wasn’t incorporated into the game, but Krukow’s signature, “Grab some pine, meat!” made the cut. Since the game was made for a global audience, Krukow and Kuiper not only became the voice for Giants fans locally, but baseball fans internationally.
“With the game, I really think that was our first introduction to a lot of baseball fans around the country who really didn’t know who we were,” Krukow said. “That game was very, very instrumental in us gaining a national reputation.”
For all the names the Kuiper had to read, one that doesn’t appear in MVP ‘04 or ‘05 is Barry Bonds, who didn’t sign the MLBPA licensing agreement and was omitted from the game (Bonds did appear in MVP ‘03). Bonds’ absence paved the way for the creation of one of the most famous characters in sports video game history: Jon Dowd.
The fictional Dowd, whose name derives from a real EA Sports employee, was the series’ way of replacing Bonds. Similar to Bonds, Dowd was a left fielder on the San Francisco Giants and one of the game’s best players. To avoid any potential issues, EA Sports made Dowd white and gave him the No. 51. Kuiper’s son, Cole, not only put Dowd on most teams, but asked for a jersey with “Dowd” on the back. As they are wont to do, Krukow and Kuiper had fun with the Dowd character, getting the real Dowd to sign a baseball and putting the ball in Bonds’ locker.
“He laughed about it,” Krukow said of Bonds. “I don’t know if he’ll remember it, but it was pretty comical — at least to Kuip and me. We thought it was great.”
EA Sports also provided Krukow and Kuiper an opportunity to put their kids into the games as players. In MVP ’05, Wes Krukow — a professional dancer on Broadway — was made into an outfielder with a five-star potential rating and placed in the Giants’ minor-league system, often evolving into a superstar over time.
“I became a little more special when these games came out as a dad,” Kuiper said. “Mainly because they were getting the game for free, too. That helped a lot.”
The lifespan of Dowd and the MVP Baseball series, to the dismay of many, was cut short due to factors beyond EA Sports’ control.
In 2005, Take-Two Interactive signed an exclusive licensing contract with Major League Baseball, leaving EA Sports unable to produce a baseball game, at least one with real teams or real players. Take-Two Interactive, coincidentally enough, produced the MLB 2K series, which was voiced by John Miller and Joe Morgan. Krukow shared that Miller was “truly affected” by the termination of the series, knowing how much the game meant to his friends.
But two decades later, it is MVP Baseball — not MLB 2K — that remains a classic, so much so that there exists a community keeping the game alive. A modding community remains active for the PC version of the game, not just providing updated rosters but updated stadiums. On eBay, one user who sells PlayStation 2 memory cards featuring contemporary ballplayers. In recent years, there have been no shortage of articles and video essays praising the game’s timelessness, remaining smooth and fluid despite relatively archaic hardware.
“We really accomplished what we set out to do,” Krukow said. “In our wildest dreams, never did we feel that it was going to be remembered 20 years after with the way the world of video games changes. It’s unique in that it’s managed to still maintain its life with respect and affection.”