Amidst Cy Young awards being handed out to the American and National League’s best pitchers, Sony Computer Entertainment have announced their selection for the MLB 12: The Show cover. A prolific first baseman that has enjoyed tremendous success over the past four years, Adrian Gonzalez was a 2011 All-Star, a gold glove recipient, and finished in the top 5 for AL best batting average. Because of these, and many more accolades, SCE has selected Gonzalez to be their cover athlete for MLB 12: The Show.
Joining Gonzalez as spokesman for the game will be series’ icon Joe Mauer (who frequents commercials with Sony’s own VP of Awesome Kevin Butler), fellow teammate Dustin Pedroia, Phillies All-Star Ryan Howard, and Mets third baseman David Wright. But only Gonzalez will get the cover, and he definitely deserves it.
In a sport that has begun to skew more towards the pitcher — just look at The Show’s competition and their perfect game $1 Million contest — The Show tends to favor the hard-hitting field players. That isn’t to say pitchers aren’t an important part of The Show, SCE simply wants to help their franchise standout from its opponent -- perhaps being featured on the Vita will do the trick.
Thus far there haven’t been too many details revealed regarding MLB 12: The Show, but with the game’s release not until March of next year (just in time for Spring Training), we expect the real heat to come in 2012. The Show and MLB 2K’s rivalry has long been the most interesting for sports fans considering the two are constantly outdoing each other, and we expect next year’s iterations to be no different.
Video games talk aside, a big congratulation to Adrian Gonzalez on this tremendous achievement, and we can’t wait to play the game he will be representing.
What do you think of Sony Computer Entertainment’s choice of Adrian Gonzalez as the MLB 12: The Show cover athlete? Should Joe Mauer have been the permanent cover athlete for the series?
MLB 12: The Show is slated to release March 6, 2012 for the PS3 and PlayStation Vita.