Remember MLB Slugfest 2003? If you do remember this over-the-top PS2-era baseball game, it’s likely because of its often funny color commentators, Tim and Jimmy, who offered up bizarre or crude jokes and stories between hits. And it turns out that some of the duo’s lines went a bit too far for the MLB 20 years ago.
Published by Midway Sports in 2002 for PS2, Xbox, and GameCube, MLB Slugfest 2003 was an arcade-y baseball game heavily inspired by Midway’s popular NFL Blitz series. Like Blitz, Slugfest 2003 added a lot of chaos, violence, and humor into the classic sport in a way that I can’t imagine Major League Baseball would be okay with in 2025. But even back in the early 2000s, the MLB wasn’t on board for all of Midway’s naughty jokes and dark commentary bits. Now, thanks to the excellent Video Game History Foundation, we can hear which jokes crossed the line with MLB execs.
On November 3, the VGHF posted a video on social media sharing some of the group’s favorite cut commentary jokes from MLB Slugfest 2003. The VGHF, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving and sharing video game history, says these cut lines, as well as some documents related to MLB Slugfest’s unused jokes, were discovered in the group’s archives on a CD.
Over on the VGHF’s archives, you can find a document seemingly sent over to Midway, presumably from the MLB, listing all the jokes that were “disapproved” for use in the finished game. Some of these jokes are bad, and I totally support the MLB for asking for them to be cut. But some of the cut jokes don’t seem too bad. For example, this line:
“Baseball’s the greatest sport in the world, but one thing I liked growing up was taking a pop bottle and breaking it with a rock.”
That’s just funny. But perhaps my favorite cut line that is, admittedly a bit dark, is this one:
“Jimmy: Tim, have you ever wondered if this booth could just collapse and kill the both of us?”
“Tim: Jimmy, it’s all I think about.”
Anyway, you can check out all the cut lines and more from MLB Slugfest 2003 over on the VGHF’s fantastic publicly accessible digital library and archive, which also contains over 1,500 video game magazines that can be accessed for free. Though I recommend kicking over a few bucks to VGHF if you can, as the group is doing the work that publishers won’t and that’s worth supporting.
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