Sega Genesis Earl Weaver Baseball

[GenesisGamer]

Hey Guys,

 

I have a prototype of Earl Weaver Baseball for Sega Genesis. I think the most interesting thing about it is the date stamped on the proto cart.

 

Here's some background:

Back in the early 90's I used to go to this local thrift store with my mom and occasionally buy Sega games when they had them. All of the games were relatively cheap maybe a few bucks at the time. I came across this weird looking thing pictured below. As a kid I'd never seen anything like it, played it a few times, didn't really pique my interest because at that age I was much more interested in fighting games. So it sat in my closet and collected dust. Fast forward 20 years later: Last week I cleaned out my storage unit and started feeling nostalgic looking through all of my neglected Sega Genesis games. I saw this one and noticed that it said "Preliminary Version".

 

 

Then came the next stage RESEARCH.

I've spent the past few weeks trying to learn as much as I could about Earl Weaver and Electronic Arts to try and shed some light on why this game was never released on any console. During that research I realized that the ROM for this game was never dumped, and no known prototypes existed. Could it be? Could I have the only one in the world? Hard to prove and even harder to find any written proof anywhere that this game should have existed. I went as far as contacted a former game designer for EA sports. He started working for EA in the Spring of 1992 assigned the task of developing the software of another baseball game that never made it to retail shelves "Baseball '93" based on the same engine as Earl Weaver.

 

The interesting part:

Eddie Dombrower one of the original creators of the game, stopped working for EA in 1992; he got tired of making baseball games. They hired on some new staff to work on Baseball 93, in 1992. Why were they still testing a game in early 1992 when they were already planning on starting a new series, the port to Genesis from home computer's must have been a lot more difficult than they anticipated. By this time Earl Weaver Baseball II was already released on DOS. In my communication with the designer from EA, he had no clue that this prototype ever existed, which I thought was strange since he started working there only a few months after this was burned to the cart.

 

A lot of unanswered questions, but a great piece of Video Game and Baseball history. Earl Weaver Baseball was a revolutionary baseball game for its time and it was a shame that it officially made it to consoles. But here it is, the "missing link", ultra rare prototype of one of the best Baseball Games in gaming history. Never released, and never found until now.

 

TLDR; I found a rare baseball game from 1992, and researched a lot to figure out how rare it was. Still cant find another copy anywhere. One of one?

 

[Supergun]

John Madden Football & Earl Weaver Baseball. Yes, they were the flagship Electronic Arts sports series, so this does make perfect sense. Another Sega Genesis sports gem would be Activision's Hard Yardage. (which was the foundation for & eventually became Joe Montana Football)

[Tempest]

Given that they share a processor I'm going to guess that this version is based on the Amiga version. EA did a few Amiga to Genesis ports around that time and this would fit right in.

[Bill Loguidice]

Given that they share a processor I'm going to guess that this version is based on the Amiga version. EA did a few Amiga to Genesis ports around that time and this would fit right in.

 

I thought so too, but based on the screenshots he shared, there are significant visual differences and the prototype lacks audio. Probably only the game logic was brought over.