My Favorite Baseball Player Never Existed

A few weeks ago, the triumphant return of EA College Football was announced — the first title release since 2014 — to extraordinary fanfare.

Immediately, as with all things NCAA these days, the question of compensation was a hot topic of conversation.

EA announced the terms of their offer to players in return for their inclusion in the game: $600, a free copy of the game, and potential NIL opportunities.

Some were outraged over the meager comp, while others seemed to take a more ‘$600 is $600’ approach — largely falling along the faultlines between future NFL stars and future real estate brokers with no hope of make a practice sqad.

But most seem to opt in, if not for that sextet of Benjamins, then for the opportunity to see themselves in a video game.

After hearing the news that Arch Manning — son of the forgotten Manning brother, Cooper — would be abstaining from the game… and the subsequent social media posts plotting to insert Arch into the game using a custom player took, I couldn’t help but recall another story…

When I was a kid, my favorite baseball player was Jon Dowd. I was enthralled by his elite ability to hit for power and get on base, his booming moonshot homeruns, and the simple fact that he was the greatest player in baseball history.

That was before I found out Jon Dowd didn’t exist. Or, rather, the Jon Dowd who hit mammoth homeruns and dominated the MLB didn’t exist.

Dowd was a player in my favorite video game, MVP Baseball 2005 for the GameCube. But unlike the other players in the game, who were real live MLB players, Dowd only existed in the virtual world of the video game.

The reason?

Barry Bonds made history in 2003 when he decided to opt out of signing the MLBPA’s licensing agreement, instead choosing to forge his own path independent of the rest of the league.

As Darren Rovell wrote in 2003:

Bonds became the first MLB union member in the entire history of the program to decide not to sign the agreement. This placed Bonds, the MLB, and the developers over at EA Sports, who produced MVP Baseball, in uncharted territory.

Usually, merchandising, media, and other companies make singular deals with the player’s union to license the entire league to their line of trading cards or other products.

You can see the problem posed for the production of a video game centered around the licensing of real-life MLB players.

As MVP Baseball 2005 was in production, Bonds was coming off of four straight MVP seasons. It wasn’t as if he could be ignored or left out of the game without an uproar from fans.

The execs at EA Sports huddled together to address the problem. Putting out the game without Bonds would be like The Dark Knight featuring only the Joker and Harvey Dent.

Eventually, they settled on conjuring up a fake Bonds to take his place in the game. The name was chosen on a whim, as a senior employee at EA looked at a young assistant producer named Jon Dowd and decided he had the makings of the future all-time homerun leader.

Dowd was identical to the video game version of Bonds, as far as skill level goes. He was on the same team (the Giants), and shared the Bonds-like ability for destroying baseballs with his bat.

The only real differences were incorporated in order to shield EA from any legal trouble that could come from Bonds’ team. So they made Dowd white and right-handed… though the settings allowed for customization to turn Dowd into a Bonds look alike.

Dowd became a cult figure. Like Jesus or Clyde Frazier.

He’s still remembered as one of the greatest video game athletes in history, alongside the likes of Michael Vick in Madden ‘04 and Pablo Sanchez from Backyard Baseball.

The real John Dowd never thought too much of his namesake’s heroic feats but did share a story with MLB.com that helps put things in perspective.

Worldwide sensation, Jon Dowd.

Forever my favorite athlete, video game or not.