The MLB Banned These Jokes From a Beloved PS2 Game
▼ Summary
– MLB Slugfest 2003 was a chaotic, arcade-style baseball game published by Midway Sports in 2002 for PS2, Xbox, and GameCube, inspired by the NFL Blitz series.
– The game featured humorous and crude commentary from Tim and Jimmy, but some jokes were rejected by MLB executives for being inappropriate.
– The Video Game History Foundation recently uncovered a CD containing dozens of unused voice lines and documents listing disapproved jokes from the game.
– Examples of cut lines include dark humor, such as a joke about breaking a pop bottle with a rock and one about the commentators’ booth collapsing and killing them.
– These materials are now available in the VGHF’s free digital archive, which also includes over 1,500 video game magazines and encourages public support for their preservation work.
For fans of chaotic sports video games, MLB Slugfest 2003 remains a memorable title from the PlayStation 2 era, largely thanks to its outrageous commentary and arcade-style gameplay. Developed by Midway Sports, this baseball game took clear inspiration from the studio’s own NFL Blitz, injecting the sport with exaggerated violence and a steady stream of humor. Yet even two decades ago, not every joke made the final cut, some were explicitly banned by Major League Baseball itself.
Recently, the Video Game History Foundation uncovered a collection of rejected voice lines from the game, offering a rare look at the material deemed too controversial. The nonprofit organization, dedicated to preserving video game history, shared several examples on social media after discovering the audio files and related documents in its archives. Among the discarded commentary were jokes that crossed into dark or crude territory, prompting the MLB to step in and demand their removal during development.
A document included in the archive appears to list specific lines that league officials disapproved. While some jokes were clearly inappropriate, others seem surprisingly tame by today’s standards. One example involved a commentator reminiscing, “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.” Another exchange between the announcers Tim and Jimmy ventured into darker humor: “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.”
These uncovered recordings and documents are now accessible through the Video Game History Foundation’s public digital library. The archive not only includes these lost Slugfest voice lines but also offers free access to more than 1,500 video game magazines. Supporting the VGHF helps ensure that important pieces of gaming history like this continue to be preserved and shared for future generations.
(Source: Kotaku)