‘MLB The Show 17’ is Really Fun to Watch

Baseball is awesome, and for New Englanders, basically a religion (alongside hockey and football). I grew up going to AAA games in my hometown every April to October, my dad is a huge fan, and I remember the nuns who worked at my Catholic school going to games and cheering with the same enthusiasm they often saved for religion class. I have fond memories of playing softball, my dad training me to catch and throw and hit in early spring evenings before my practices officially started.

While I ended up going in a different direction athletically (towards competitive running and combat sports), the crack of the bat and hometown feel of a baseball stadium will always make me smile. So I love turning on MLB The Show 17, setting up teams I like to play one another, and sitting down to enjoy the show. When I first started it up, it gave me a little thrill to start one of the daily rosters and see that a player I knew from high school is a starting catcher now.

This is actually a little weird for me: I’m much more likely to enjoy playing a sport than watching it in any capacity. Or playing a sports video game as opposed to merely watching it. Even MMA—the one professional sport I actually go out of my way to watch and follow—I primarily watch while working out, thinking about how to improve my own techniques or cardio. Like a little narcissist jock, I picture myself in all of the fights.

Header and all MLB The Show 17 screens courtesy of Sony

But I have little interest in really playing MLB The Show 17 (outside of Retro Mode, which is simple enough to pick up and play on a whim). It’s fun enough, and I like the batting mechanics in particular, but I’m happiest when I turn the game on, select the raddest uniforms (or make the ugliest possible one, like I did for our custom team, the “Williamsburg Waypointers” when I streamed the game the other day), and let the game play itself.

Then I can soak in the atmosphere of the ballpark. The crowd noise. The crack of the bat on a nice, sharp line drive. I can practically smell the junk food cooking up in the berm. It’s a happy place, relatively chill for a professional sports event (at least during regular season games), where a massive quantity of positive energy gets directed to the people on the field.

MLB The Show 17 looks amazing. It sounds even better. The presentation is slick and sharp, befitting The Show‘s name. I’m going to be popping it in often, whenever I need a little touch of home.