I'm just settling in with my coffee to watch this and I felt compelled to pause it and comment that this channel is really interesting and fun. I love documentaries about retro video games and I grew up in a baseball home (we are Yankees and Cubs fans) so I really enjoy the content on this channel and so does my dad. Even if I disagree with your assessment of the Bases Loaded series (2 is the bad one and I will die on this hill lol) I just want to tell you how much we appreciate your content.

If you're a fan of international play, I'm about 1-2 weeks away from releasing the 2026 World Baseball Classic edition of R.B.I. Baseball, and a week ago I released the standard 2026 edition.

Playing R.B.I. Baseball, I once pinch hit and brought in Roger Maris.  He hit an absolute bomb to right center.  I'm not kidding, when the screen stopped, the right field lights were in the lower left corner!

I love your content on this Channel as well as the other 2 Channels of football and hockey. Keep up the good work

THE BEST sports games channels period, and one of the best video game channels period.  It's not just game play, it's also history and technical and so well put together.  I appreciate it.  This is my new favorite channel.

I'm glad you got to this. I think this was the piece of the history you were missing to put it all together.

I'm not an electrical engineer, so I can't explain the exact details of how mappers work. I do have at least basic knowledge of the theory behind them. The chips will monitor for writes on the data lines and then change which chunk of data (bank in EE terms) is presented at a given address. Basic mappers use logic chips (e.g., AND and OR gates) to do this. They can be designed to expand the CHR and/or PRG size by switching out what data the NES can see at a given time. More complicated mappers can perform additional tasks like changing mirroring, avoid bus conflicts, and provide SRAM (usually for saves). Some Famicom mappers also feature additional audio capabilities (it gets sent over a cartridge line to be mixed in with the systems audio), which isn't supported on the NES by default (it can be added back by modding the system).

Just in time for my coffee. Cheers.

No one covers old nes baseball games better than you.

I bought a i-Mode Java version of Family Stadium in the 2000s. I found that keeping your batter's bat quarter-swung like you were going to bunt for almost every pitch was the easiest way to handle offense. Missed pitches would count as balls. Full swings had fundamentally the same power as if they were started from the hitter's shoulder.

You should try Famista 94 on Famicom. It's basically the ultimate version of the first RBI Baseball on NES - much better AI, an actual league mode that functions similarly to Baseball Stars, multiple stadiums, cheese such as the bunt home run fixed, etc.

One of the big RBI Baseball modders made an MLB rom hack for the later Famista games that is translated to English and I cannot get enough. I actually lost a few times against the computer which is incredibly refreshing compared to 10 running the computer nearly every time.

When looking for Famista on NES on my R36 MAX I found a Game simply called Baseball from 86. It plays pretty good and I've never played it. And Another thing is I play Power Pros Baseball Today on multiple Consoles and Handheld cause it reminds me of a Modem RBI Baseball game 😊

Be easy on my Metsies!

The only reason I didn't laugh harder at that Mets shot was they beat the Astros in the 1986 playoffs and I had to wait another 19 years to finally see them in the World Series(and another 12 after that to win).
I never really gave much thought to nes mappers with baseball games, but that makes a lot of sense. I'm surprised to see a non Nintendo mapper in the cart, as I thought all North American official releases required them from Nintendo to get the seal of approval. One of the most famous being the non moving trees in the original Contra due to having to use the UNROM mapper on the nes, versus their in house VRC2 on the Famicom.

MY SHOW IS ON.

Anyways for side scrolling I'd give Pac-Land a nod because it wasn't flip screen scrolling like most games at the time. But yeah SMB defined the genre with it's great controls and physics. Xevious might be one of the most important games ever released because it truly defined the vertical shooter and even other games like Commando and Ikari Warriors.

Tangentially related - does anyone know how to "beat" RBI Baseball 2?  Do you also have to win 9 in a row?  Who's the "Boss" Team you play in the final game?

Have you tried Earl Weaver Baseball for MS-DOS/Amiga? I haven't played it but I know it's widely considered to be a major leap forward for computer baseball games. It was one of the earliest of its kind to have a full suite of management options and was just the second game ever to get Game of the Year from Computer Gaming World.

Do you do other baseball video games, or just NES ones?

I accidentally have triggered the glitch with the pitcher on the side and wondered what the hell was happening! I never realized it was supposed to be there? I have a picture of it somewhere

A massive progression in programming in such a small amount of time. If that progression happened slower, I might have missed RBI Baseball and liked video games a lot less. I would’ve done better in school!