Before I do any review, I ask myself one question: Why did I buy this game? Or at least, why would I? Most of the time, the answer is “I thought it would be interesting for a video.” In those cases, there’s not much of a story. In the case of MLB 2005, however, I had a strange reason. The same reason why I bought NBA 2K8 last year: It was the final appearance of a certain franchise before they left town. In 2K8, it was the Seattle Supersonics, one of the most depressing and yet still incredibly memorable instances of any team being ripped away from a city’s hands. In MLB 2005? The Montréal Expos.

I stopped watching baseball heavily after the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004. The reasons behind this are muddy, but they involve me finding out about college football, developing a love for the sport of football, and then also me not playing a single baseball video game for several years. This was actually probably the first baseball game I bought with the intention of playing since I bought MLB Pennant Race for the PS1 with the intent of reviewing it for Old Sports Games episode 9 back in early 2011. Also, the Royals gutted our season ticket seats in 2008 and I didn’t go to a baseball game between then and May of 2014. I went to a game in May and then one in June of this year, and I’ll probably go to some more next year. Baseball and I are making amends.

I didn’t own a PS2 until 2005, so the era of NFL Gameday and 989’s MLB series totally passed me by (sans a PS1 copy of NFL Gameday 2004, which I never got into because it’s not a good game). What I’m trying to get at here is that I have virtually no connection to this series. I really don’t have much of a connection to baseball video games in general, specifically MLB games. I played the shit out of Mario Superstar Baseball on the GameCube, however.