Hello everyone and welcome to the latest installment of the Weekly Contests!  With just three weeks to go until the end of the first half games and the beginning of the 2015 Summer Tournament, the competition is bound to start heating up!  This week’s game is going to be Dusty Diamond’s All-Star Softball.  Here are the rules:
 
 

• 1 player only
• Start a new game
• Select Fast Pitch
• Choose the Sandlot as your field
• Choose your team of players.  You will choose 10 players for your team while the computer picks their team at the same time.  Choose your players wisely (and hope the computer doesn’t take the player you want)
• Choose your team name and set your starting lineup, fielding positions, and batting order to whatever you want
• Play an entire game
• Take your picture once the game has ended (on the screen that shows the final score and the password)
• Your score will be the differential between your score and the computer’s score
• Ex: You 10 CPU 5 = score of 5
• Ex: You 5 CPU 10 = score of -5
• In the event of a tie, the score made with less innings takes precedence, and if it is still tied, whoever has scored the most points will break the tie.
• Greatest differential between your score and the computer wins.  A positive score takes preference over a negative score.
• GENRE: Sports

 
 
The contest ends Sunday, 6/14/15 at 11 PM NA time.  Your user name MUST be written or typed on a piece of paper and be in the picture for your score to be valid.  The entire TV screen, or computer monitor if you are playing on an emulator, MUST be in the picture for the score to be valid.  No partial screenshots will be considered or accepted.  No screenshots by hitting "print screen" on a computer will be allowed.  You must take a picture of your computer monitor.  There may be instances where this will be acceptable, but it will be at the discretion of myself and the contest organizers.  Also, the use of turbo controllers is forbidden, as well as any cheat codes, Game Genies, slow motion functions, or save states if playing on an emulator.  Also, we will only be using NTSC systems for the contests.  The use of PAL systems will NOT be allowed.  Good luck everyone and have fun

	OFFICIAL SCOREBOARD
	Dusty Diamond's All-Star Softball
Place	Score	Username
1	17	bearcat-doug
2	15 (16-1 in 2 innings)	Red
3	15 (17-2 in 6 innings)	gutsman004
4	15 (15-0 in 6 innings)	Caleb47
5	12 (14-2)	bertsampson
6	12 (13-1)	dra600n
7	10 (14-4)	cdbblw
8	9 (12-3)	Balloon_Kid
9	9 (10-1)	TWarwick07
10	5 (12-7)	skinnygrinny
Participation
11	5 (9-4)	UncleTusk
12	5 (7-2)	mattbep
13	-1 (7-8)	floydfan38
14	-1 (4-5)	EgasKrad
15	-4	zobber
16	-13	arnpoly

15 (17-2 Victory in 6 innings.)

Had to let the computer score two so I could get another crack the following inning and it paid off big time. Also was able to chase four pitchers for the first time. Speed kills in this game. That password has more consonants than a Czech's last name. And hail Satan!

17 (17-0 Win, 4 Innings)

This game seems to have a serious NFL Blitz effect. If you jump ahead to any kind of lead, the computer starts crushing home runs until they catch up. Unless there's some kind of trick to pitching, it seems like the only way to win is just to score as much as possible and hope that your lead holds up.

Seems like the over/under is about 6 runs. I've played several games and I can seem to hold onto any bigger of a lead. Plus it seems around that sort of lead the pitcher's dead arm suddenly comes alive again.

12 (14-2 Win)

It all depends on who you choose. I've beaten the computer by 15 points before, and I think if you get +10 before the 4th inning, you win by default.

I don't know if who you choose matters. Might make it easier. First full game for me, picked the first 10 guys, and won by 10.

My timing was off on the hitting. I think I've got it straighten out. You may have won the sports genre good sir,but I'm still going to do my best to beat you this week.

I think you automatically win if you have a 10 points lead in this game, right?

Well,you have to finish out the inning since the computer always bats last.

Okay, so it's possible to make a much higher score than 10.

I'm not sure about the current tie breaker. Maybe we should say in case of a tie, score achieved in a earliest inning takes precedence?

I would think so since winning the game earlier is better,but whatever you and bimmy decide is cool with me.

The players can play any position, but each one has different attributes. Here's the list from the manual of the top ten players in each category:

Bring it on gutsman!  You got to get up pretty early in the morning to beat me at NES sports...except R.C. Pro Am, that's more like a hobby than a sport anyway...

it's only up to the 4th or 5th inning I believe. After that you don't get the mercy ruling. I could be wrong as it's been a long time since I played

I'm pretty sure that it's 10 runs after four innings (or 3 1/2 if the home team is winning).

Im on vacation for a bit but I could not get over 3 runs up on them I need some more practices

It seems like when the computer beat me by the mercy rule I got four chances to bat before the game got called, but I'll have to check again to make sure.

I'm pretty sure the mercy rule applies at any time as when I first started playing once I gave up several runs I would intentionally let them score ten so I could retry with the same team and not have to repick.

This seems to be one of the more favored Baseball games in the NES community but it just never drew my attention like R.B.I. Baseball and Baseball Simulator 1.000. I think its partly because there's no visible stats on screen to show each players strenghts and weaknesses. Thank goodness for the Internet. Also as bearcat-doug stated on the first page, whenever I get a moderate lead against the computer it seems as if there's some kind of rubber band effect where the computer just starts crushing it.

I see that too. It almost seems like there's some sort of counter measure to where if you get up by so many runs the computer's bat gets more powerful.

On my current score the computer selected a terrible starting pitcher which I chased early and the next three pitchers they put in were not very effective either. The computer will automatically pull a pitcher once four runs are scored against him/her so the max you'll be able to score against any pitcher will be 7. (Score 3 runs then hit a grand slam.)

And that top ten players in certain categories in the manual is not completely accurate.

I got a dumb question I hope someone can answer. How do you steal bases? I can't figure it out. In most NES Baseball games if you have a guy on base, as soon as the pitcher begins his windup you would press whatever direction the next base was and B (or A) and the baseman would start running.