As the 2010 baseball season gets underway, it's kind of hard to believe that it is already 2010. Looking back, the years 2000-2010 were truly a golden era for baseball gaming. Out of all the sports that were digitally re-created this past decade, baseball games faced the most competition, which led to many outstanding titles that were created by multiple development studios.

In celebration of baseball's opening week -- and in an effort to compile the top five baseball games of the decade -- I have spent the last three weekends huddled in my basement feverishly playing some of the best baseball titles from the past 10 years.

With so many worthy candidates, narrowing the list down to just five was no easy task. It should be noted that each game chosen not only had to demonstrate superior gameplay, but also had to leave a distinct impression on the genre as a whole.

Three weeks of intense baseball gaming, a broken Dreamcast controller, several pots of coffee, and one angry wife later, I give you Christian McLeod's Top 5 Baseball Games of the Last Decade.

5. MLB 2001 (2000, PS1)

Simply put, MLB '01 was the best baseball game to ever grace the Playstation 1. With beautiful player models and detailed stadiums, MLB 2001 pushed the limits of what was visually possible in a baseball game near the end of the PS1's lifespan.

What really set the game apart from others in the genre, however, was that it was the first game to ever include a bare bones manager mode and an extremely impressive spring training mode. In the spring training mode, you could create a player and then work through the spring to earn points that could be used to improve his stats before the start of the MLB season. Sound familiar? That's right, MLB '01 included the basic framework for Road to the Show mode, and it was completely revolutionary at the time.

4. All-Star Baseball 2003 (2002, PC)

Hardcore baseball fanatics will undoubtedly agree that the All-Star Baseball series was one of the most overlooked in all of baseball gaming history. After a somewhat rocky start on the N64, the All-Star franchise peaked with the release of the outstanding 2003 edition. With a 20 year franchise mode, some of the deepest stat tracking to date and some of the most authentic baseball atmosphere (pitchers wore coats when they reached base!) to ever grace the PS2/Xbox, All-Star Baseball 2003 was the closest thing to a true representation of the sport of baseball I had ever seen at the time. If you have never played this game, you can not call yourself a baseball fan.

It is a shame that the developers never received the commercial praise they deserved for this series. All-Star Baseball 2003 will forever go down as one of the best pure simulations of the sport.

World Series Baseball 2K3

3. World Series Baseball 2K3 (2003, PS2/Xbox)

2002 was a great year for baseball gaming. In addition to All-Star Baseball 2003, there was another top-tier title released called World Series Baseball 2K3. World Series 2K3 featured amazing graphics, ESPN presentation, signature player styles and some of the best fielding camera angles I have ever seen in a baseball game.

The exceptional player control and batting physics in the game made multiplayer games a blast, and spending hours upon hours in dynasty mode never got old due to the variety of player animations -- no game ever felt the same. Additionally, this is one of those games that looks so good, especially with the ESPN overlays, that it still gets a ton of playtime when my PS2 is booted up.

2. MLB 08: The Show (2007, PS3)

Let me just put it this way: I bought a PS3 just for MLB 08. Never in my life had I seen a baseball game look as realistic as this title, and the polished gameplay made my inner baseball geek rejoice. The game's RttS mode was pure addictive fun, and I literally spent days of my life entrenched in the game's deep dynasty mode.

What really set the game apart from any other baseball game was just how well it captured the "soul" of baseball. All the little nuances of the game had been digitally re-created, from the emotion of a walk-off home run to the despair of blowing a save to the excitement of a home crowd as their team mounts a two-out rally. Very seldom does a game come along that completely defines what is possible in a genre on a certain generation of consoles, but MLB 08 was that game.

1. MVP Baseball 05 (2004, PC/Xbox/PS2)

What more can really be said about a game that was so successful that its core mechanics are still being mimicked to this very day? They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, which must mean that EA’s now-defunct MVP development team is beyond flattered that the game mechanics from MVP 2005 are still being used today. Meter-based pitching and fielding, analog slides, picture-in-picture batting feedback, the "hitter's eye" and analog stick hit influence have all become genre standards during the past couple of years.

The greatest aspect of MVP Baseball was something that no other console baseball game has been able to implement to date: an owner mode. MVP allowed any aspiring George Steinbrenners the opportunity to put together a team, build a stadium and keep a rabid fan base happy -- all while being fiscally responsible. Knowing that this game mode could actually end if my finances spent too much time in the red conveyed a sense of ownership of my team that I have yet to experience in another game.

MVP Baseball will forever go down in history as one of the greatest baseball games to ever be released -- as evidenced by the legions of fans still playing the game with 2010 mods on PC -- and it is my pick for baseball game of the decade.


So what were your favorite baseball games during the last 10 years? Sound off below.