Was a team of comic book writers / artists featured in an SNES baseball game?

[noface]

I can confirm that the SNES game Ken Griffey Jr.'s Winning Run features at least the following as members of the Houston Astros:

S. Ditko
W. Eisner
J. Kirby
M. Gaines
H. Kurtzman
J. Davis
W. Elder
J. Craig
F. Miller
W. Wood
M. Drucker
D. Clowes
B. Edlund
H. Chaykin

Any idea of the impetus behind this?

[Michael P]

Nerds on the game development team would be my guess.

[Dan Apodaca]

How awesome is it that Clowes is in the group?!

[Sheldon]

They didn't have the license to have real players so they got creative.

[sgt pepper]

My guess: pure coincidence

[Brian Cronin]

Pretty cool, though!

Maybe cool enough for an urban legend!!

-Brian

[jaguarshark]

Sorry if this makes me sound like an idiot (not a difficult thing to achieve), but do we know if those names actually came with the game, or did the original poster just play a customised version of the game where someone had entered those names themselves? Just curious.

[Brian Cronin]

Sorry if this makes me sound like an idiot (not a difficult thing to achieve), but do we know if those names actually came with the game, or did the original poster just play a customised version of the game where someone had entered those names themselves? Just curious.

Great question!

Someone find out! :)

And post screencaps!

-Brian

[Sanagi]

I've never played the game, but Wikipedia backs up the story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Griffey_Jr.'s_Winning_Run

[jaguarshark]

I've never played the game, but Wikipedia backs up the story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Griffey_Jr.'s_Winning_Run
Yeah, but that info's unsourced. I have no reason not to believe it, though.

[noface]

The game isn't actually Winning Run. It's Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball.

Here's some screengrabs from a ROM I downloaded:

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/2469/comicastrosoe0.jpg
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/8056/comicastros2pz7.jpg

But it is a false alarm of sorts. Apparently many of the teams have themed fake names. The starting line-up of the St. Louis Cardinals includes Laurel, Hardy, Groucho and Keaton, for instance.

Many of the teams are tied to their cities. The Los Angeles Dodgers features members of L.A. 80s punk/new-wave bands. While the Mets have members of bands that played at CBGBs. The Tigers consist of Motown recording artists, while the Angels are made up of actors. Baltimore is tied to characters from John Waters movies. But others seem to be random: the Brewers are made up of 60s fictional spies.

The reason I didn't notice this before was that I was playing the Astros against the Marlins, who have the names of the game's development team.

--Eric

[Brian Cronin]

Very cool.

I think those screenshots make it cool enough for Urban Legend status!!

-Brian

[noface]

Also the fact that Will Eisner cranked one out against Elvis Costello when I played today.