Baseball (history and reception)

Baseball came out for the Famicom in Japan in December 1983, by Nintendo's account. baseball-history/release-jp

The note gives a month, not a day. The Famicom booklet prints only "© Nintendo 1983" (baseball-history/copyright).

Cited by: Baseball

A retrospective catalog of Famicom cartridges dates Baseball to 7 December 1983, the eighth title in its list. baseball-history/release-jp-day

The catalog is an unsigned retrospective mook that names no source for its dates. Its day falls in the month Nintendo's note gives (baseball-history/release-jp).

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The Famicom booklet (HVC-BA) is copyright 1983 and prints no release date or staff credit. baseball-history/copyright

A copyright year is not a release date.

Nintendo of America's list of NES games dates the North American release of Baseball to October 1985. baseball-history/release-na

Nintendo of America's list is a later compilation.

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In February 1986 Computer Entertainer counted Baseball among the 15 games sold with the NES in the markets it had reached, a Sports Series game at $30 beside Golf, Soccer, Tennis, and 10-Yard Fight. Its availability table put Baseball under the first quarter of 1986, noting that some of those games had been on sale in New York City only for two or three months. baseball-history/na-launch

Disputed: Chris Scullion counts 18 games released alongside the NES in its Manhattan test launch (baseball-history/test-launch); Computer Entertainer lists 15.

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Chris Scullion writes that Baseball was one of 18 games released with the NES in Nintendo's Manhattan test launch, and that Gail Tilden, Nintendo's vice president of brand management, spent the 1985 holiday season in New York and New Jersey malls with New York Mets players, among them Mookie Wilson and Ron Darling, who played Baseball against shoppers on large screens. baseball-history/test-launch

Scullion's 18 disagrees with Computer Entertainer's 15 (baseball-history/na-launch).

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Computer Entertainer reviewed Baseball in its May 1986 issue, rating it three and a half of four for graphics and two and a half for game play, listing it at $24.95, and printed no "Recommended". The reviewers found it "quite good, graphically," down to a pitcher who shifts his eyes as he takes the catcher's sign, but named the inability to control the fielders its "single biggest drawback": once the ball is hit, the computer runs the nearest fielder to it, and the player only chooses the base to throw to. The A button swings, with no choice of a high, belt-high, or low swing, which the 5200's Realsports Baseball and Coleco's Super Action Baseball both offer, and the pitcher throws a curve, a slow ball, a fastball, or a screwball. Owners of either of those versions should pass on it, they wrote; others would enjoy it. baseball-history/ce-review

{
 "review": "Computer Entertainer",
 "of": 4,
 "scores": {
  "graphics": 3.5,
  "game play": 2.5
 }
}

The review prints no byline. The same page explains that the newsletter would now compare Nintendo games with their 5200 and ColecoVision counterparts, after a reader's complaint about its 10-Yard Fight rating: "future, try to make relevent comparisions of the Nintendo".

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Chris Scullion names Nintendo as the publisher and Nintendo R&D1 as the developer. baseball-history/makers

The entry's header dates the NES game 1985.

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Baseball was also issued for the Famicom Disk System, as FMC-BAS. Its booklet says there are no extra innings and six teams, shown by initials, still prints "© 1983 Nintendo", and gives no release date. baseball-history/fds

No source found here dates the disk release; the Internet Archive item's date (1986-02-21) is the uploader's.

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Akagi Masumi's list of arcade games dates Vs. Baseball, on Nintendo's Vs. System, to May 1984 in its Japan part. baseball-history/arcade-jp

Disputed: The list's overseas part dates Baseball to April 1984 under Nintendo of America (baseball-history/arcade-us).

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The same list's overseas part dates Baseball to April 1984 under Nintendo of America. baseball-history/arcade-us

Disputed: The list's Japan part dates Vs. Baseball to May 1984 (baseball-history/arcade-jp).

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In July 1985 the Canadian arcade trade magazine Canadian Coin Box wrote that Vs. Baseball followed Vs. Tennis in spring 1984, and that, like it, it can be played on both screens at once. Its table lists Vs. Baseball for the two-screen Vs. Dualsystem and not the Unisystem. baseball-history/coin-box

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The Famicom booklet gives a 1 Player Game against the computer and a 2 Player Game for two. A game runs nine innings and the side with more runs wins; a tie is a draw, with no extra innings. There are six teams, shown by their initials. baseball-history/modes

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In the 1 Player Game the computer is the opponent and decides which side bats first; in the 2 Player Game controller I bats first and controller II second. The booklet warns that the controls are complicated and asks the player to read it carefully. baseball-history/team-select

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The booklet lists the plays on offer: steals, double and triple steals among them, the hit-and-run, the squeeze, the sacrifice bunt, and tagging up; pitches of several kinds, among them a speed ball, a half-speed ball, a curve, a slow ball, and a shoot ball; and pickoff throws to guard against steals and lure runners out. baseball-history/tactics

The OCR of this page is broken into fragments; the scout read the lists on the page image.

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Batting, the control pad moves the batter toward the pitcher, the catcher, or either baseline, a button swings, and letting go of it mid-swing stops the swing there; the control pad picks which runner to direct, and another button sends that runner on to the next base. Fielding, the control pad picks the pitch, and with no direction held the pitcher throws a half-speed straight ball. B throws a pickoff to the base the control pad picks. baseball-history/controls

The text layer breaks the controls diagram into fragments and garbles the button glyphs; only the pickoff's B has been read off the page image, so this claim doesn't say which button swings, pitches, or sends a runner.

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Fielders catch batted balls by themselves. An inning of 10 runs or more shows only its last digit on the scoreboard, though the total keeps every run. baseball-history/fielding

The same page sets out when runners advance on their own (on any hit, or only when forced on a grounder, holding to tag up on a fly), by the number of outs; the OCR drops the out counts, so those rules wait for a reading of the page image.

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In 2019 Chris Scullion called it "one of the most basic baseball games on the system, though it's still fun to play," with only six teams and basic pitching and batting, and quick to pick up for two-player games. baseball-history/standing

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