Searching for Hector Luna

In between a few hundred other things today, I've been putting together the rosters for GameSpot Sports' upcoming World Series videogame predictions feature, ensuring that Garciaparra is no longer in Boston and that Pujols is now stationed at first base. While doing so, I've discovered the "joys" of dealing with the various franchise interfaces found in games such as ESPN Baseball and MVP Baseball 2004. At times like this, it's especially disappointing that MVP couldn't have benefited from the EA/Microsoft agreement to make nice via Xbox Live, as I could have saved myself some time this afternoon by simply downloading the latest roster, instead of having to trudge through the roster menus looking for players to trade for or call up from the minors.

While on this little roster adventure, I've come to really appreciate an often overlooked feature in sports franchise modes: the player search feature. It's so much easier to be able to simply type in a name to see if he actually exists in the game, rather than researching rosters on ESPN.com or the individual MLB team pages. If I were the benevolent but impatient king of the sports gaming world, a player search function would be one of my first royal decrees.