Announcing the Baseball Stars Challenge

Given today’s earlier post regarding the pending release of Baseball Stars Professional for PS3 and PSP, this seems like an appropriate time to announce a project that should appeal to the readership.

The project is called the NotGraphs Baseball Stars Challenge, and it presents an opportunity for NotGraphs readers to participate in two pastimes simultaneously — i.e. those of (a) gaming and (b) roster-construction nerdery.

“What’s the challenge?” perhaps you’re asking. Well, further down in this post, you’ll find, among other things, a link to a savestate I’ve created for the Baseball Stars NES ROM. Modifying said ROM slightly, I’ve been able to produce a team in which the user begins with $1 million to spend however he sees fit.

The team, called FANGRAPH NERD, is set up in a league against Baseball Stars stalwarts: the American Dreams, Ninja Blacksox, Brave Warriors, Japan Robins, and Lovely Ladies. To play games, just go to League Play and then Continue Play.

The goal is to play out a season — managing the team however you see fit, using the money whichever way you’d like, changing the lineup however you want — to achieve the best record possible.

In order to adjudge most accurately the roster-construction skills of each user — and to avoid rewarding those users who just happen to be awesome at video games — the savestate dictates that all FANGRAPH NERD games are simulated by the computer.

Here’s everything you’ll need to get started:

• The emulator I’ve used is the FCEUX version, available here. Load this onto your computer first. (It’s possible that this is only available for PC users. Any information on making this accessible to Mac users, too, is appreciated.)

• A .zip file of the ROM itself is available here. Once you’ve extracted the file, open it from within the emulator.

• The savestate for the Challenge is available here. Open this once you’ve started playing Baseball Stars in the emulator. (Note: As a couple users in the comment section suggest, you may receive the following error when attempting this: “Warning: found unknown save chunk of type 31.This may be caused by using a different or incompatible emulator.” However, it appears as though just pressing “Okay” will allow you to play the game like normal.)

Some additional notes:

• I played out one season without changing anything, and came out with a 32-93 record (.256 winning percentage). We’ll consider this a “replacement-level” season.

• One note on changing your team’s lineup. First, go to VS. Pick FANGRAPH NERD and Player 1 and any other team as a C player. Set the lineup how you want it. Play through at least one batter like this. Voila! The lineup’s now changed in season play!

• Feel free to report any technological difficulties. I can make no claims as to being able to fix all of them, but it’s likely that if one user has a problem, another user will have a similar one.

• The prize is yet to be determined, but it will likely involve very public praise.

• Please note, finally, that it’s unlawful and shameful to ever, ever, ever, ever, ever use a ROM or emulator without already owning the game. Neither FanGraphs nor NotGraphs endorses this sort of behavior.