There are two things you must know before we begin: 

1. I hate baseball. I hate almost everything about baseball. Scratch that–I hate everything about baseball. I won’t watch it. I won’t play it. My contempt for America’s pastime runs so deep, that in the long, hot months between the NBA Finals and the opening of the college football season, I can actually be found doing activities . . . outside.
2. However, I love Xbox 360 Gamerpoints. I love everything about them. I love the unmatched feeling of accomplishment I get when I see the little achievement indicator pop up–informing me that I am truly in a select group of elite and skilled gamers who have successfully spent four hours in front of their television, repeatedly pressing the “A” button in order to simulate 30 years of a Madden franchise and collect their 400 points. What a rush.

You might reasonably assume that the paradox described above, and the subsequent (and completely inevitable) rental of MLB 2K6 to harvest its sweet, life-affirming achievements served as the inspiration for this post’s title. You would be completely mistaken.

Oh sure, I rented the game. I held my nose, dialed down the difficulty, and soldiered through exactly nine innings of what has been roundly disparaged as a weak effort by 2K Games. An hour or so later, I had my 1,000 points of personal validation.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Fenway…

Sports gamers, of which I am one (despite my disdain for the boys of summer), have become accustomed to a certain type of musical accompaniment with their menu screens and stat perusal. If I tell you that these soundtracks go by names like “EA Trax” and “2K Beats,” you can probably imagine the type of music they typically contain.

So, imagine my surprise when I booted up the game and was greeted at the very first menu by the sounds of “Le Pastie De La Bourgeoisie” by Belle and Sebastian.

What. The fuck.

I can only imagine the amount of Pabst Blue Ribbon that spattered over the screens of shiny new HDTVs across the country when Johnny Sixpack got an earful of the music 2K elected to include in MLB 2K6. A quick trip through 2K’s forums confirmed what I assumed would be the sentiment:

This is def. one of the worst things about the game IMO. I HATE the Music. Its a bunch or screaming the only on i like is the 2K Theme Song every other sucks. Mabye its cuz i like Rap IDK but i hate the Music on this game.

Apparently, the kids aren’t respecting this wacky juxtaposition in any sort of “you got your chocolate in my peanut butter” kind of way. Not sure I blame them. Let’s take a quick gander at a sample of the artists represented in the game:

• Belle and Sebastian
• Pretty Girls Make Graves
• Mogwai
• Stephen Malkmus
• Yo La Tengo
• Pavement
• Interpol

Don’t get me wrong–I think all those bands are great. But, if the most “known” band on your slate of artists is Interpol, I’m not sure who you’re trying to appeal to. It’s as if they did some extensive market research and discovered that their ideal demographic was, well, me. An odd and unfortunate result, that, considering my first point of the post.

I actually spent a bit of time after playing MLB 2K6 trying to concoct a more unlikely pairing of game to music. I think I have two fairly solid contenders:

• 50 Cent: Bulletproof, with 8 original tracks by KD Lang, and
• Gary Kasparov’s Chess Challenge, featuring Cannibal Corpse’s “Fucked with a Knife”

Honestly, if professional sports followed MLB 2K6′s lead, I think we could soon expect to see arena player introduction mainstays like 2 Unlimited’s “Get Ready for This” replaced by Sufjan Stevens’ “A Short Reprise For Mary Todd, Who Went Insane, But For Very Good Reasons.”

Actually, I think that could get me to watch baseball…