I’m not a gamer. There was a time when I played Call of Duty and Battlefield with my friends, but I was so consistently bad that I got killed a lot. As you might suspect, that got tiresome. Years ago, I played and enjoyed the Uncharted and Bioshock series’, and I really enjoyed both of them. But I don’t own a PS5, and my PS4 is mostly used to play movies on blu-ray.*
There was a time, maybe 20 years ago, that I got mildly obsessed with a game, however. If you haven’t heard of Out of the Park Baseball (OOTP), it’s described as “a text-based baseball simulation for career, historical, and fictional play.” If that sounds nerdy, well, that’s because it was absolutely nerdy. But it was also glorious. I played it for hours and hours and hours.
At some point, the kids got a little older and we were going to practices and recitals and games all the time, so OOTP was one of the things that had to be sacrificed at the altar of trying to be a good father and husband. But last year, I noticed a tweet from an online acquaintance mentioning OOTP 26*, which had just been released. Maybe it was nostalgia, maybe it was the fact that my youngest child is away at college so I have a little more free time these days, but I was intrigued. I responded to the tweet, but I promptly went back to fondly reminiscing over the many fun hours I had playing that game.
*26? It was released early in 2025. Why not OOTP 30 or 49, if we aren’t going to use the current year?
Here’s where I tell you up front that the company must have seen the tweet and they reached out with a code to download the game and get back into it. So here we are. And let me tell you, it’s just as fun and just as addictive as I had remembered.
A digression…
In 2020, as we were trying to come up with content for my old podcast while there was no baseball being played, Jason Linden and I drafted two teams of the best Reds in the post-Big Red Machine era and used OOTP to simulate a seven-game series between the two. I won the series in five games, but then got absolutely destroyed in a full 162-game season sim. It was fun.
Back to the current game…actually, it doesn’t seem to have changed much since I last played. But that’s not a criticism! I’ve spent plenty of time playing the Perfect Team mode, and then I decided to take over the Reds after the 1975 World Series to see if I could extend the Big Red Machine even longer than Bob Howsam and crew did. But I’ve actually had the most fun trying to take the 1999 Reds and turn them into a dynasty after the Junior Griffey acquisition.
I’m doing okay so far. A game back in the division and leading the Wild Card race. That’s more than we could say for the 2000 Reds.
Junior is performing like one of the best players in the league (as we all expected), and Pokey Reese is playing like an All-Star for some reason. I traded for Darren Dreifort and he’s pitched fairly well. But, admittedly, I do need to upgrade the rotation. Just like the Reds needed to upgrade the rotation a quarter of a century ago.
Playing the Padres now. I really need this win.
Do I recommend OOTP? Well, it’s not for everyone. It doesn’t have graphics like MLB: The Show, but it has an insane level of detail. Trying to run the Reds better than the Castellinis is a low bar to cross, but it’s still pretty fun. And trying to take the post-1999 Griffey Reds to the World Series has been a blast.
Fans of soccer have long praised the virtues of Football Manager. OOTP is a similar accomplishment for those of us who love baseball. Now I just need a college hoops version of the game, so I can lead Virginia and/or Georgetown back to the promised land.
UPDATE: Thanks to a two-run blast from Griffey, I beat the Padres 6-5 to go 18 games over .500 and stay within a game of division-leading Houston. I’ll keep you updated on the pennant race!
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