Long before launch angles and spin rates entered mainstream baseball discourse, there was a game that was teaching us the importance of physics and math and how it could impact the sport. MVP Baseball 2004 came out 21 years ago and is remembered as an amazing baseball game — and it was — but it came with an asterisk: the left-handed hitter glitch.
But before we get to all that, let’s first remember this was the era EA was in its bag with its soundtracks and intros. I have so many fond memories of the EA Trax soundtracks, not to mention the player intros and game intros that were in EA games throughout the early-to-mid 2000s. EA has never quite been able to get back to those highs, so let’s enjoy the MVP Baseball 2004 intro together.
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Now, back to business. The left-handed hitter glitch was so pronounced and universal that it impacted both humans and CPU players equally. There was no avoiding it — outside of simulating games — and no real way to fix it. This bug tarnished what was otherwise an impressive game that had features such as:
- Real minor league teams from Double A and Triple A (but no minor league players unless they had MLB experience) — a true novelty and first for the time that played a role in the “cottage industry” of custom rosters along with NCAA Football
- A new batting system that would not feel unfamiliar for modern-day Show users
- Right-stick controls that let you slide on the bases and in the field the way you wanted
- The ability to create bench-clearing brawls (albeit we never got to see the fights themselves)
- 120-year franchise mode, plus a happiness system that is still burned into my memory due to the smiley and frowny face icons that would be next to your players.
Point being, while we were shipping off our memory cards to random people so we had full minor league rosters with all the real names (unless you had a device to download them yourself), the left-handed hitter glitch loomed large over the experience. Once people figured it out, the lefty glitch was easy enough to explain. The main issue was topspin and that left-handed hitters put more topspin on the ball than right-handed hitters due to some in-game calculation. This was an engine-wide issue that could not be solved by users — short of changing everyone to be a right-handed hitter.
While PC users would eventually get a patch that largely fixed the issue (some players like Carlos Delgado — the MVP runner-up from the year before — would still struggle a bit even post-patch), console users were not yet in an era where patches were commonplace. This meant people on the Xbox and PS2 were a bit hosed. We ultimately had to deal with the issue the whole year.
Something you also need to remember is that 2004 was a time where knowledge like the “left-handed hitter glitch” was not quite as easy to discover on the internet. While there was plenty of talk about the glitch on OS and plenty of other spots, you weren’t inundated with info quite the same way you are today. The mid-2000s era of the internet meant people could still figure things out at way different times, and you could still have an urban legend or two that stuck around in a video game for ages. This also means you had people who would say “there is no problem” and claim to be hitting plenty of home runs with the likes of Ken Griffey Jr. and Jim Thome. Maybe they were having no problems, but it’s much more likely you were ending seasons with 10 home runs for Thome rather than 40 or 50.
At the best of times it can still be hard to archive everything on the internet, so going back to 2004 to find confirmation about the bug from EA isn’t exactly easy. The best I could find for an “official” response from EA on this topic came from a quote posted on the AVSForum that originally came from the Digital Sportspage site (which I believe was one of Bill Abner’s spots if any old fogies like me remember Bill’s work — the forums are still alive and kicking).
Here is Brett Nielsen, producer of MVP Baseball 2004, explaining the left-handed hitter bug via that hard-to-find article:
When the game determines what happens when a player swings, it takes into account the direction of the left analog stick and the timing of your swing. If you have the correct swing and perfect timing, it’s just as easy to hit home runs with left-handed and right-handed hitters.
The issue shows up when hitters don’t hit the ball perfectly. Because of the minor physics flaw, the maximum distance that a LH hitter can hit the ball is about 430-440 feet. Right-handers, however, can hit home runs over 500+ feet. The increased difference shows up most noticeably in the home run derby.
When asked to give more details regarding the flaw, he remarked that “when left-handed hitters hit a fly ball, they put top spin on the ball. The physics engine takes this into account and the ball dips more than it should.”
–Brett Nielsen, producer MVP Baseball 2004
While I wouldn’t classify this as a “minor” bug or that it was “just as easy” to hit home runs from both sides of the plate if you just hit the ball perfect, the maximum distance on home runs is really what sells this. I’ll show some videos below, and you should take notice of the maximum distance the left-handed hitter smacks the ball because it matches with the numbers above from Nielsen.
A 500-foot home run in MVP Baseball 2004 wasn’t that uncommon, but if you think about chopping 70-plus feet off the maximum distance a left-handed hitter’s ball can travel, it begins to explain why this was such an issue overall.
The best way to test the issue is to go into the Home Run Derby mode, called Home Run Showdown, and let the CPU hit as a left-handed hitter. You then compare that against how they do as a right-handed hitter, and it’s all the proof you should really need.
Here’s my footage showcasing the difference between the two sides of the plate. First, we start with me in control of Jim Thome (a left-handed hitter).
If you really watch the footage, you can see how much topspin is really impacting the flight paths of these batted balls. They really do dart towards the ground at a certain point. And whether it’s a placebo effect or not, you can feel it when you’re hitting — also notice my maximum distance with Thome is 422 feet on my single home run.
Here’s me letting the CPU handle both players this time. Just watch how these balls die in the outfield from the CPU-controlled Thome.
This time around, CPU Thome hits 0 home runs and maxes out at 421 feet while CPU Alex Rodriguez gets near 500 again.
Finally, here’s me using the right-handed Rodriguez just to show it’s user error.
This is actually a solid performance from CPU Thome, who cranks 2 home runs and gets the max distance to 442 feet this time at Coors Field. Still, you can see how the balls just lack that in-flight majesty you can get from the right side.
Thinking back, I wonder how many remained blissfully unaware of the issue until MVP Baseball 2005 (or the PC patch for ‘24) fixed the issue. My guess is most got an inkling something was wrong and that’s when they’d go searching to see if anyone else was experiencing the same thing, but maybe some folks just got frustrated with the Jason Giambis of the world and would simply trade them for another hitter.
The irony here is that Barry Bonds was not in this game, and his replacement was the infamous Jon Dowd. This impostor not only wasn’t Barry Bonds, he wasn’t even a left-handed hitter.
In effect, the Giants ended up having a true superstar by having Barry Bonds opt out of being involved in MVP Baseball 2004 because Dowd was a terror. Since the glitch impacted both the CPU and humans, Barry Bonds wouldn’t have been a big concern to pitch to. Dowd, on the other hand, you had to reckon with every at-bat because he was a right-handed hitter.
Regardless, this glitch ultimately hammered home the point that MVP Baseball 2004 was best experienced on PC. As much as we maybe malign patches at times, this was one of those bugs that deserved to be solved without needing to wait 12 months for the next version of the series. In a bittersweet turn of events, EA would fix the bug the following year, but MVP Baseball 2005 was also EA’s final MLB game before the series ended. However, at least EA would go out on a high note with its final version of the game, which made it worthy of years of fantastic mods that kept the series alive.
Published: Apr 24, 2025 02:05 pm