One of the weirder traditions of sports video games similar MLB The Show 21 is that its series carries with information technology a curse. The franchise isn't the just one that users claim carries some serious bad luck with it. Before information technology was the premiere baseball game game on consoles, it was the premiere football game. In fact, some are so convinced that a Madden comprehend curse exists that a documentary was made nigh it. So but what exactly are these supposed cover curses about? The 2 are similar in some means, and quite a chip different in others.

At their core, but the MLB The Show cover curse and the Madden version are supposed to lead to the players featured on the front end of the box getting injured that season. This is, in fact, the myth that started everything. It started on Madden after several dissimilar cover athletes got hurt within months of beingness featured. The fact of the affair, yet, is that when information technology comes to the baseball version of this curse, things change a scrap. It's not always about the injury. Sometimes, information technology just appears that getting the award of making the cover just earns a histrion a bad regular flavour.

Fernando Tatis Fuels The Fire

mlb the show 21 cover fernando tatis

Some of the excitement around MLB The Show 21 has to do with who is the cover athlete this yr, as Fernando Tatis Jr. is one of the best young players in baseball, and getting to play as him either in a franchise manner, or in the Diamond Dynasty style will be interesting. Yet, the budding super-star got injured shortly after the season started. While his shoulder injury didn't appear to be all that serious—he returned on Friday—the fact that he was injured the aforementioned year as he became the cover star was quite the coincidence. Sometimes, the curse leaves the histrion unhurt, but less effective.

For MLB The Show 20, Javier Baez was featured after a fantastic 2019 season. Coming off his 3rd straight flavor with at to the lowest degree twenty dwelling house runs (29 afterwards hitting 34 in 2018), Baez saw a rather steep dropoff in 2020. It's safe to say the pandemic played a part. Even so, the legend of the cover curse got enough of blame besides. Last flavour, the Chicago Cubs starting shortstop hit merely .203 with eight abode runs. The average was the worst he'd posted in his career since his rookie flavor.

When The Expletive Isn't A Expletive

MLB The Show 20 gameplay screenshot

While the Madden expletive has dug so deep into video game civilisation that players similar Lamar Jackson talk about how they aren't scared of it, if there is an MLB The Show counterpart, it certainly doesn't hitting anywhere virtually every twelvemonth. That's best underlined going back ane yr prior to Baez. Bryce Harper was featured on MLB The Prove 19 after having a big 2018 season, he really posted a better season in 2019. He followed up a .249, 34 habitation run, 100 RBI season by hit .260 with 35 homers and 114 RBI. The twelvemonth before that, Aaron Estimate was "the man." In 2017, he blasted an eye-popping 52 habitation runs. The twelvemonth he got his MLB The Show cover, he missed nearly 40 games to injury, but still managed to bash 27 homers.

In comparison to the Madden curse, which saw Madden NFL 20 cover athlete Patrick Mahomes suffered a leg injury that many thought would end his season, the MLB The Bear witness curse appears to exist more bark than seize with teeth. It'south a rubber bet San Diego Padres fans are hoping the curse doesn't have a hold on one of the team's star players. For this season, it might take a while to see whether or not it's reared its ugly caput.

MLB The Show 21  launches on Apr 20 for PS4, PS5, Xbox Ane, and Xbox Series X.

More than: MLB The Testify 21 Available to Play Now Through Early on Access