I once played a calendar-accurate 162-game season of Griffey baseball on SNES (part 2)

Woah! You should probably read part 1 first! (Though if, for whatever reason, you absolutely needed to both read part 2 and not even look at part 1 before doing so, just know that my SNES Mariners were the best team in baseball following the All-Star Break. However, they had suffered consistent trouncings at the hands of the Minnesota Twins, their nearest division rivals, setting up a potential showdown for the division in their final series in October.

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THE SHOW GOES ON

Back to the SNES regular season, the All-Star break was over, and with no “trade deadline” on the Super Nintendo, the Mariners/Twins seesaw continued. I won five of my next six against the Red Sox and Yankees, giving me a three-game lead over Minnesota on July 20:

Three losses later, and I was looking to snap a skid against Cleveland on July 24, in what became my second-longest game of the season. Top of the 3rd, Sabin beat the throw home to put me up by three.

Terra had apparently shaken off her slump, pitching 8 great innings of one-run ball. However, down to their final strike, Cleveland donned their rally caps for Irish McCalla, who sent one over the left field wall for a game-tying grand slam.

Top of the 10th, Cleveland loaded the bags with no out, but Vivi kept in the game, and retired the next three batters without a run.

After the 12th inning, I took a “rain delay” (putting the game on hold to eat dinner). We continued trading stranded baserunners, until the 15th inning, when the once-mighty Luneth allowed three hits with two outs, as Cleveland plated the walk-off win.

I took the fourth game against Cleveland, but Minnesota won theirs as well, putting us in a dead heat as we entered our third series against each other.

Once again, this was a golden opportunity to establish a lead over the Twins. And once again, I struggled. Game 1, the Twins slung multi-run homers on their way to a 7-2 win. In contrast, game 2 was a pure pitcher’s duel, where my efforts to squeak past a run were snuffed out on the way to a 1-0 loss. And, in showing they can beat me any which way they want, game 3 was a shootout, with the Twins outpacing me 11-7.

Once again, swept in 3, with my three best pitchers on the mound, against the only team I need to defeat. Falling three games back, this was my new lowest point of the season. My Mariners were still one of the top teams in the league, slightly trailing the Cubs over in the National League. I just had to find a way past this behemoth guarding the gate here in my own division.

But this would be my last meeting with Minnesota before our ever-important final series in October. Once again, it was looking more and more like I’d need a four-game lead going into that series if I wanted to guarantee a shot at the playoffs.

THE DOG DAYS OF SUMMER

Following my third Twins series, I got back on the horse and kicked around lesser competition. I took 9 out of 10 against the White Sox, Athletics, Rangers, and Royals. As part of this stretch, on August 1st, Rydia pitched a complete game four-hitter.

Meanwhile, the Twins showed they’re not quite as worried about defeating the rest of the league as they are about defeating me. They dropped four of five following our series. Their struggles continued, and by August 16, I had a game and a half lead over them again.

On an optimistic note, Terra was back in proper Randy Johnson form again, pitching nine scoreless innings. This was her first credited win since all the way back on May 4.

However, this is where things took their worst turn of the season. After taking two of three versus Baltimore, and two of three at Toronto, I went on a five game skid. The bright spot was, I was still 76-51. Not only that, in that fifth loss, I bagged an actual honest-to-gosh triple play!

Sure, this was auto-fielded, but that’s still kinda cool, right?

But here’s the real problem. While I was taking a five-game snooze, the Twins were wrapping up an ELEVEN game win streak.

What the hell happened!?!? I went from a game and a half up to five and a half out in like a little over a week! While Minnesota had always kicked my butt in direct play, my strength had always been that I was dominating almost everyone else. And now that was gone! I needed a sizeable lead for our final series, just over one month away, and now I’d found myself in a huge deficit!

I slowed the bleeding slightly as I won three of four, including a 12-2 whooping of Detroit on the final day of August, while the Twins dropped three straight. This brought me back within three and a half games. But still, that felt like a loooong way to go.

At the very least, it seemed like I was in for an exciting finish. And really, can you ask for more than that?

THE GRIND

The month of September became an intense grind. The seesaw was no longer swinging. It seemed like every day hinged on the league results page at the end of the day. Every day, I just got through my game just to see if Minnesota had won or lost. It seemed like every day, if I won, they also won, and if they lost, it didn’t help much because I had lost as well.

I started September with a four game sweep versus Milwaukee and a three game sweep at Baltimore. Minnesota responded with winning all but one of their games as well, which along with a day off, brought me within two games on September 8.

The Mariners’ ship had been righted. I just needed help from a timely losing streak for Minnesota. While that did come mid-month, with the Twins dropping 5 of 7, I hit stormy waters myself at the same time, dropping 4 of 7, as if I was intent on staying just a step behind them. Still, I was within a game and a half on September 16.

But we righted our ship once again. Another six-game win streak against the Royals and Rangers bumped me up to a 95-57 record on September 22. While Minnesota also got back to their winning ways, they did drop one on September 21, and had a day off on September 20, erasing that 1.5 game lead, and bringing us into a dead tie, going into our mutual (and final) days off on September 23. The patient, faithful grind had paid off. My “magic number” for clinching the playoffs was 11.

I dropped my game against Oakland on September 24, dropping me back one game under Minnesota yet again. With only six games left before our final October series, this mythical four game lead I’d been hoping for seemed unlikely. However, at the same time, I had begun developing a new weapon in my arsenal. After 150 games, I’d picked up on the fact that, when you bunt with the bases loaded, the fielding AI treats those bunts very differently depending on how many outs you have. With two outs, they just throw to 1st to get the batter, confident that they can end the inning. However, with fewer than two outs, they make the initial throw home, hoping to prevent the run. This mechanic can be abused by sending your runner from third home during the pitch, as you intend to bunt. With an ample lead on the base path, your runner arrives safely at the plate, while the wasted time from the AI throwing home allows your batter to reach 1st. The timing is tricky to nail down, but by taking this opportunity when you load the bases with fewer than two outs, you have the ability to chain a series of bunts into multiple runs, as Oakland’s Sylvia Plath discovered.

After two more wins (my final two games at home), I dropped another game against the White Sox on September 27, although to my fortune, Minnesota also dropped their game that day.

I began to be concerned at the possibility of a season-ending tie with Minnesota. I don’t know exactly how this SNES game handles tie-breakers. Experience taught me that such things are not always as accurate as they should be relative to the actual sports leagues these video games are based on. (Tecmo Super Bowl, for instance, does tiebreakers by points scored versus points allowed, and if those are tied, tiebreakers go ALPHABETICALLY BY TEAM NAME! Holy moly!) While I was giving up on the hope of having a solid lead going into the final series, I at least wanted a satisfying outcome. If I lose, I lose, but I didn’t want to lose (or really, to win) just on the strength of some misplaced tiebreaker. I wanted it to be definitive.

The Mariners and Twins each won their next two games. This made Minnesota the first team to 100 wins at 100-58, with me just a step behind at 99-59.

September 30, our last game away from each other. Griffey and Tifa blasted homers to tie the White Sox in the 4th, which became a lead in the 5th. My reliever Vivi coughed up too many hits in the 7th, allowing the south siders to tie it back up. But it was all fine, as a bottom-of-the-ninth pop up by Firion barely eluded the catch, setting up a three-run rocket by Griffey, solidifying our 100th win.

Best of all? The Twins LOST!!

We were dead even going into our final series. No worrying about ending ties. No more magic numbers. This was now a best 2-of-3 series for all the marbles. After this 159-game grind, what more could you ask for?

Oh, and pay no attention to that three-way tie over in the AL East. I’m sure that’s nothing.

THE FINAL SHOWDOWN

So now that we’ve set up this entire summer, this entire season, six months of gaming all came down to those next three days. I got what I wanted, but I wasn’t really sure I wanted it, if you know what I mean. This was the team that had clobbered me all year. I had won one and lost NINE. Pitcher’s duels, shoot-outs, blowouts, no matter how the game went, it seemed like the Twins always had my number. I could lose one of these three, but I couldn’t lose two.

October 1. Game 160. Top of the 1st, I lost a runner to bad baserunning, but I still scored on an RBI single by Tifa.

Top of the 2nd, an Erdrick two-out double scored Cecil all the way from first base.

Rydia got out of a bases loaded jam in the 3rd. Top of the 4th, I managed to chase off the Twins’ starter. But my luck didn’t last, as James Bond’s author tied it up in the 4th.

The 5th inning came along, and a solo shot by Griffey gave me the lead again. Even better, after a Lenna double put runners on 2nd and 3rd, Steiner lined a single up the middle, scoring another.

Rydia pitched 8 magnificent innings, but was starting to get gassed. I sent in Luneth for the close in the 9th. And he got ’em, 1-2-3.

I… won?… I WON!!! I extended my win streak to four games, and I did it against the gatekeepers themselves. I hadn’t yet sealed everything up, but this was a massive win! Now I only needed to win one of the last two. And now that Minnesota appeared vulnerable, this seemed much more possible than it did before.

Meanwhile – and I swear this is the actual headline that came up that day – it seems the Twins didn’t take this loss very well, lol.

Game 160 was a magical win, one I felt like I earned for my six months of dedication. It’s not often one takes on a gaming campaign for such a stretch of time, without any real assurance that any sort of victory is awaiting you at the end of that road. Every gamer has games they played that they’ll always remember. For some, these are world records. Or maybe a special game you played as a child, the first time you beat Super Mario Bros, or the first time you beat your older sibling at Tetris, or the time you found the Chris Houlihan room in Link to the Past, even though none of your friends believed you. They don’t all have to be world records, and you don’t have to be a world class gamer to have games you cherish. As a casual gamer, there are a few random gaming achievements I’m proud of. But nothing warms my heart quite like my memory of game 161.

I streamed the game on Twitch, only because I’d hoped for the best, and didn’t want such a hoped-for outcome to happen “off-screen”, if you will.

To say Aeris was on fire that day would be an understatement. Bottom of the 1st, she retired the side in order. Tifa struck first, with a solo homer top of the 2nd.

Bottom of the 2nd, Aeris retired the Twins in order again. And again in the bottom of the 3rd.

And again in the bottom of the 4th.

That was when I started to realize something was happening here.

I don’t believe in jinxes, although they are firmly a baseball tradition. You see, you’re not supposed to say that word. The one that starts with “P”. The one that just happens to be in the name of this website (and I don’t mean “Pac-Man”). You’re not even supposed to remark on the fact that Aeris had faced the minimum batters through four frames, nor the fact that she had not even allowed a baserunner.

But I don’t believe in jinxes, so I could say it: Aeris was perfect through four.

Aeris maintained the perfect line through five innings. In the bottom of the 6th, the Twins finally broke the perfecto, and then immediately ground out into a double play. Even though Aeris had now allowed a single hit, for a single baserunner, she had still faced the minimum batters. And remember, this was all live on stream, my first live-streamed game of the season!

The top of the 7th, having chased the Twins’ starter Margot Kidder, the Mariners’ bats finally came alive. Erdrick had an RBI single to left before Firion, batting second, launched one 431 feet to right field to score three more.

Those five runs were all we needed. Aeris closed out the game, pitching a complete game one-hitter. That baserunner in the 6th was the only Twins player to ever touch 1st. No, it wasn’t a perfect game… but it was damn close!

That day, I posted a screenshot of my spreadsheet, showing the length of the grind it took to claw my way back from over 5 games out to make this comeback possible.

But it was done. The grind was worth it. The beast was slain. The mission, accomplished.

Oh, and did I mention PLAYOFFS!?!?!?

Game 162, on October 3, ended up being my first irrelevant game since “spring training” all the way back at the beginning of April. I rested Bartz to preserve him for an upcoming playoff start, hoping to push Terra back a game. To that end, I trotted out my reliever Tellah for his first start of the year. In the same spirit, I called up all my guys off the bench.

(I’ve since played a few games under NL rules. Without the designated hitter, you actually get your bench players into the game much more frequently on the NL side. But in my Mariners season, unless I thought I might get a lucky base steal with a speedier alternative, most of my bench players stayed there for most of the year. FF2’s Guy had stats strictly worse than my starting catcher Steiner, so he almost never saw play.)

The bench players actually did alright, with both Guy and Squall driving in runs off doubles. Bottom of the 9th, Tidus got on base as the potential tying run, but Squall couldn’t bring in any more magic.

But no matter! I didn’t get a sweep, but the dragon was slain all the same! Poor Minnesota and their 100 wins had to watch the playoffs from the couch. After six months and 162 games, it all came down to a one-game margin.

As a side note, my three best batters were my 3-4-5 hitters: Griffey (48 homers), Sabin (a ridiculous .476 batting average), and Tifa (138 RBIs).

On the pitching side, Aeris (2.85 ERA) and Bartz (19 wins) were my most productive starting pitchers, with my closer Magus racking up 18 saves. Despite his phenomenal start, Luneth ended with a middling 3.49 ERA and 10 losses across from his 12 saves.

Oh, but we weren’t done yet! When the dust settled in the AL East, it was the Detroit Tigers, barely above .500, rising above the rest. FWIW, I later explored what would have happened had any of these divisions ended in a tie. The SNES game would indeed have hosted a proper one-game playoff, pushing off the Championship Series however many days as appropriate. However, none of that was necessary. I had two days off before my October 6th date with Detroit.

Bartz got the start after his game 162 reprieve, facing off against Aretha Franklin. Thankfully, I also remembered to revert my lineup of scrubs from my little exhibition game. Bartz went five innings, allowing only a solo homer by B.B. King.

But bottom of the 6th, Sabin crushed one way out to right, scoring Firion and Griffey in what became a game-winning four run inning.

For game 2, I trepidatiously started the inconsistent Terra, hoping she might have one of her good outings. Unfortunately, she made it through two outs before coughing up a 1st inning grand slam to James Brown himself.

Bottom of the 5th, I found myself with the bases loaded and one out. Seeing the opportunity to attempt another bunt chain, I took a shot, but I blew the timing, and failed to score. Bottom of the 7th, I did manage to bunt one in, but a narrowly caught shallow fly then led to an inning-killing double play.

Strago pitched a near complete game in relief, but the damage was done. The series was tied at 1-1. And since this loss came at home, that meant home field advantage in seven games now fell to Detroit.

I had obviously underestimated these .500 Tigers, because in game 3 they kept roaring on. Aeris returned from her near-perfecto to allow five runs in six innings. Top of the 4th, Sabin smacked one far to right, which would’ve been a grand slam to make up for the last game, but fell just short.

A bottom of the ninth rally scored 3 more, on a Sabin double and an Ayla single. However, Lenna at the plate ran out of gas, leaving our rally just a run short.

Game 4, top of the 4th, we loaded the bases for Cecil, with one out. I went back to my trick, and bunted in a run.

The star of the game, however, was Firion, two batters later. He paid back the Tigers’ grand slam from game 2 with one of his own.

I tied the series at 2, taking back home field advantage in the process.

Unfortunately, this was where the Mariners magic ended. In game 5, it was Strago who coughed up a 1st inning grand slam, on our way to a whopping 16-4 loss. In game 6, Bartz kept it close, depsite 19 hits by the Tigers.

We came down to our last inning, which soon became our last out. A two-out double by Ayla put runners on 2nd and 3rd. Lenna singled to score one, giving us hope for another comeback, before Steiner ground out to end the game, and the season.

After all of that, after exacting our season-long revenge and vanquishing the mighty Twins, we fell in six to the mediocre Tigers, who went on to beat the Phillies in five. The disappointment was magnified by the missed opportunities against the Tigers, especially given the one-run deciding margin in both games 3 and 6. It seems that even in pretend-land, my Mariners can just never get past game 6 of the ALCS.

“Congratulations on a fine season.” I suppose that’s a step up from the more traditional “Game over”.

Losing sucks. Coming up short is not what makes a game fun, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun in the process. You will never win them all, no matter how much you may want to. While the ending wasn’t what I’d hoped for, the tension and excitement of following my own classic Super Nintendo season for half a year was worth it all. I had done what I had set out to do. In a way, the downer ending made it all the more real. An unearned success would have cheapened it. The fact that I took the ALCS loss the way I did made the magic of game 161 mean something. I had the victory I truly wanted, in the moment I wanted it. Part of what makes sports fandom compelling is that, unlike Hollywood movies and their consistently happy endings, you just don’t know how it’ll turn out. You don’t want your team to lose, but the risk of losing is what makes the thrill of winning more sincere.

Having now gone from someone who once briefly dabbled in this game as a young adult, to someone who has completed a 162-game season, I can now officially say this is an awesome Super Nintendo game! Not perfect, but nothing is. I would probably make the manual controls a little more forgiving. Your baserunners should also know not to just stand two steps off the base with a ball in play (a “feature” which cost me a couple opportunities along the way). And of course, I would fix that hard lock bug that cost me a deep game against Minnesota. And obviously, it would be fun to play your season’s All Star Game with more players from your actual squad. But the highlights more than outweigh the negatives. A lot of details went into this game. I was impressed with the way you can smack the foul pole, with the ball bouncing back into play yet still registering as a homer. The various stadiums, including my beloved Kingdome, were faithfully recreated. Most importantly, the mechanics are fluid and natural, if difficult to master. I see now why this game holds a special place in so many grown kids’ hearts.

While the point of this post is to reflect and reminisce on a great Super Nintendo classic with other aging gamers of my ilk (some of whom may be drawn here by google searches for words like “returement”), and not simply to vent into the online aether about my personal goals, this experience has left me hungry for more. Obviously, the next step is to get back on the manual fielding horse. On that note, that short 26-game season suddenly looks a lot more appealing. I think switching back and forth between auto and manual fielding during my 2020 campaign didn’t help my progress. If you’re going to master manual fielding, you have to commit to it. Having crossed the hurdle of completing 162 games with automatic fielding, there’s nothing left for me to seek out on that end. Even a World Series win would feel incomplete on the “easy” settings. My best bet is to hook up my actual SNES, with my actual SNES controller, on an old CRT television, just so there’s no doubt in my mind whether anything is coming between myself and my performance in the game.

But that will have to wait for another season. There are always great games to play, and not enough time in the day, month, year, or even lifetime to play them all. Hopefully I have a few innings left in the tank. Until then, stay safe, keep one eye on that runner on 1st, and when you see a cool opportunity, don’t be afraid to swing for the fences. Thank you for reading!