Ken Griffey Jr. announced as MLB The Show 17 cover athlete

In a bit of a surprising move, MLB The Show announced that Ken Griffey Jr. would be their cover star for the upcoming game MLB The Show 17.

Past athletes to have the honor of making the cover include David Ortiz, Joe Mauer (twice!), and most recently, Josh Donaldson. With so many young stars in today’s game, it is worth wondering why someone like Mike Trout or Bryce Harper was not chosen.

Either way, fans seem to like the announcement of the new Hall of Famer Griffey, and are excited to see him on the best baseball game around. A Canadian version, along with possible Korean, Taiwan, or any other country versions have yet to announce who will be their respective cover athletes.

Griffey Jr. is a fan favorite of a lot of baseball fans, but especially video game-playing baseball fans. The 1994 Ken Griffey Jr Presents Major League Baseball is considered one of the best sports games created for the classic Nintendo gaming systems. Selling over a million copies, the game was considered a huge success and is still played and talked about today by some fanatics.

Similar to recent years, The Show has come out with a deluxe pack and MVP pack for additional money. They have also added a Hall of Fame edition to honor Griffey’s recent induction. While the game by itself will cost $59.99, the deluxe and HOF versions will be available for $99.99, while the MVP is $69.99. All versions of the game come out March 28, 2017.

While a full breakdown is available on Playstation’s website, the MVP version comes with extra stub points and a signed version of the disk container. The HOF edition comes with the stub points, signed version, New Era hat and additional digital card packs, among other things. The digital deluxe pack focuses mostly on add-ons for game modes like stubs and extra card packs.

In addition to the special packs, pre-ordering is available with special perks.  A digital Griffey Jr. card and extra packs and stubs are included for any pre-order.

Taking a page out of NBA 2K’s playbook, Playstation made the decision to go with a former star on its cover for the first time. In 2K11, NBA 2K placed Michael Jordan on their cover. Then the next year they started their multiple player format by using Jordan, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson.

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Madden has also used past players by having Barry Sanders grace the cover of their 25th anniversary edition. Now, MLB The Show joins the other two mainstream sport video game super powers in using past All Stars to promote their games.

Either way, MLB The Show 17 should be a great game as always. Expect news from Playstation on new features and changes coming soon.