[Pedro]

Sample extract

I raise hairlines, shrink ears, and inflate lips until what I’m seeing on the screen successfully communicates “me” back to me, then model my skills proportionally after my own. Middling power, average speed, good glove. Eventually my counterpart is bound to soar beyond these initial concessions to reality, because if you search for your new Road to the Show player’s ratings card, amid the ‘D’s and ‘F’s shines an ‘A’ for potential. You are always destined for greatness in Road to the Show, but at least they make you work a bit for it. The standard RPG trope would be a brief tutorial set in the minor leagues, when suddenly fire falls from the sky, the field is torn asunder, and a stately elf appears to inform you that you are the Chosen One before whisking you off to the major leagues. Instead I will spend at least a couple seasons building my character in Bumblefuck, Missouri, playing low-capacity stadiums with amusement parks just beyond the outfield fence. It can be hard to judge an off-speed pitch with the Roll-O-Plane spinning behind the pitcher’s head.