Disabled gamer makes his way to 'The Show'
SAN DIEGO — Hans Smith of the St. Louis Cardinals had a mediocre 2010 season. He went 9-11 with a 4.31 ERA, was sidelined for a month with a strained shoulder and was disappointed when the team missed the playoffs.
Don’t recognize the name? That’s because the left-handed pitcher exists only digitally.
The real Hans Smith has cerebral palsy and is confined to a wheelchair, so the only way he’s ever been able to play baseball is on video games. He’s such a fanatic that Sony included him as a player in “MLB The Show” for the second straight year.
“For me to be able to leave my wheelchair and play baseball, that’s something I never thought was possible,” said Smith, who is studying communications at Boise State and turns 25 on Sunday. “So it’s been a very great ride.”
Smith, a lifelong Cardinals fan, leaves his wheelchair only in the figurative sense. But playing “MLB The Show” means the world to him.
“Obviously, because of my condition, I can’t play physical baseball,” he said in a phone interview. “And so ever since I was 9 years old, the only way I could play baseball was through video game systems.”
Smith said that when he saw an add for “MLB 08 The Show,” he sold his Xbox the next day because the game is made only for PlayStation.
He played the full season in 2008, mirroring when the real Cardinals were playing.
“When my team would be on the road, I’d wear the road clothes. When my team was at home, I’d wear the home clothes. When they took a day off, I’d take a day off. So I rebuilt the actual season as if I were a player,” he said.
Halfway through the season, Smith contacted Sony Computer Entertainment America to say how much he appreciated being able to play the game.
“For me, you have created the real field of dreams,” Smith recalled writing. “You’ve given me the opportunity to reach my goal, and for that I’m very grateful. Because all the emotions that you would get when you step out on the baseball diamond, being out there in the ninth inning, or being a pitcher in a very tight situation, all those emotions, my body has nothing to compare it to. So that’s how I experience the game.”
After a few back-and-forth communications, Sony invited Smith to San Diego to tour its motion capture studio.
“We had no intentions of doing anything special. We just thought we’d make the kid’s day,” said Kolbe Launchbaugh, senior designer for “MLB 11 The Show”.
Once Sony found out how big of a baseball fan Smith is, it decided to put him in the game.
Technicians scanned Smith’s head and recorded his voice, similar treatment to what stars such as Dustin Pedroia, Joe Mauer and Ryan Howard went through when they were featured on the game’s cover.
Sony created left-handed starter Hans Smith, who’s 5-foot-7 and 145 pounds, wears No. 86 and throws a four-seam fastball, curveball, slider, changeup and even a knuckleball.
“They told me, as long as their franchise exists, Hans Smith is going to be a major league ballplayer. I’ll be in the upcoming editions of ‘MLB The Show,”‘ said Smith, who is left-handed.
